On March 13th, Geely New Energy’s first pure electric vehicle GE11 was officially named “Geometry A”, which has a very unique name, but it is not groundless. You can find a lot of geometric elements in its appearance and interior design. This car has many highlights and controversies. On March 16th, I had a comprehensive static experience of this car at the Shanghai Poly Theater, with surprises and disappointments. Let’s take a look at it piece by piece.
Balance between wind resistance and design
As the first model of Geely New Energy, Geometry A has its own brand new exterior design and logo.
The biggest highlight of the exterior is a wind resistance coefficient of 0.2375 Cd. For your reference, currently the most outstanding Tesla Model 3 is 0.23 Cd, and the wind resistance coefficient of mainstream electric vehicles is roughly between 0.25-0.29 Cd, while that of gasoline vehicles is about 0.27-0.35 Cd. It can be said that Geometric A has put a lot of effort into controlling wind resistance, which requires constant coordination between the vehicle engineering team and the exterior design team.
The exterior design is controversial. Many people think it looks good, but many cannot get used to it. I personally feel that the real car will look better than the picture, and opinions can differ. I won’t comment much on that.
There are five colors for the car paint: 0℃ white, 11℃ silver, 18℃ gold, 26℃ blue and 100℃ red. There were only white, gold and blue colors on site, and I’ve included photos of each for you to see. Let’s take a look at the details.
All models use LED headlights, and the three light strips on the side of the headlights will display the corresponding remaining battery power during charging, creating an interaction with the user.
The turning signals are designed in a flowing style, which is currently the mainstream direction.
The two cameras above the shift lever are the dashcam camera, which requires an SD card to be inserted before use, and the camera for collecting assisted driving information. The row of hexagonal vents along the bottom of the windshield perfectly interprets the “geometry” design.
There is a slow charging interface located on the right front side of the car, and the charging port is surrounded by a design similar to a breathing light. Since there was no slow charging station on site, no further attempts were made.
The fast charging interface is located on the left rear side of the car, which is a great location. Many automakers like to place the fast charging port at the front of the car, but the fast charging cable is generally very short, so every time you use fast charging, you have to tuck the car into the parking space to charge. In a crowded parking environment, the experience can be very painful. The slow charging cable is relatively longer, so even if the car is backed into the parking space, the charging cable can reach the front of the car.
The diameter of the wheels is 18 inches, and the area of the five-spoke wheels is very large, which is similar to the Tesla Model 3 wheel cover. This is a feature of a vehicle that pays attention to aerodynamic drag, because a very small wheel aperture is beneficial to reducing drag. This puts higher demands on the designer. For a conventional car model, it doesn’t matter if a simple wheel is used, as long as the brake disc and caliper are exposed to support the visual effect. Now that the wheel spoke area is larger, how good it looks depends entirely on the design.
The tires used are Pirelli Cinturato P7, which are characterized by energy saving and comfort, making them very suitable for the positioning of the Geometry A.
Let’s think about it. The width of 195 in tire width is obviously to reduce rolling resistance and ensure endurance. However, if the hub is changed to a smaller size, the appearance may not be highlighted, leading to this tricky specification. If you need to change the tire later, the choices will be very limited, and the price may not be negotiable, which needs to be noted.
The door handle adopts the mainstream hidden design, and the electric induction opens with a highly geometric shape and opening angle. Unlike other induction door handles, the Geometric A induction door handle is in the pop-up state as long as the vehicle is unlocked, and it will retract only when it is locked. There is no problem of other induction door handles, and the expansion speed is also very fast.
The overall design of the vehicle tail is thicker, and the distance from the rear wheel to the tail is relatively long.
This is what I think is the best-looking angle of the vehicle, with a sleek shape and a slightly prominent small duck tail. The area of the rear windshield is very large.
Combined with the panoramic sunroof, the total panoramic skylight area reaches 2.6 square meters. The biggest feeling when sitting in the car is transparency.
The height and opening size of the trunk platform are standard, but the downside is that there is no electric tailgate.
The depth of the trunk is deep, but not unconventional. The back seats can be folded in a 4/6 ratio, but the angle of the backrest is still relatively large after folding. If there is no frequent need to transport large objects, this issue can be ignored.
There is not much storage space under the trunk floor because a tire with a puncture-proof and maintenance-free feature is used, so the spare tire in the trunk has naturally become a pump and tire repair liquid.
Nordic-style interior design
After looking at the appearance, let’s take a look at the interior design of the Geely Geometry A, which is more impressive than its appearance!
My first impression of this interior design is “Nordic”. The interior design and color matching of the Geometry A are more pure than Volvo. Compared with traditional Geely models, the workmanship and design have taken a big step forward.
The dashboard does not use a large area of soft molded plastic material. The workmanship is in place, but whether consumers like this interior material still needs to be seen from market feedback.
The design of the dual steering wheel is very nice, and the feeling of the 39 points is appropriate. In the middle is the new logo of the subsidiary brand of Geely New Energy, named Quantum Silver Shield.
Behind the steering wheel is a 4.2-inch LCD screen, which is only 0.2 inches larger than the iPhone 5 launched in 2012. On the left is the car key of Geely’s Geometry A. The instrument panel can display alarm prompts, driving assistance, multimedia, Bluetooth phone, navigation, menu settings and other information. The screen resolution is very average, with visible pixels, but don’t rush to criticize it!
In the static experience, the HUD cannot display all settings and the shooting effect is not very good. Therefore, official pictures are used for reference.
Geometry A’s W-HUD has a shocking 8-inch display area, which means it reaches the screen size of an iPad mini (7.9 inches), and displays very rich information. The left side shows the driving assistance status, the middle shows the speed and Bluetooth phone information, and the right side shows the navigation information. I think it’s more convenient to obtain vehicle information through the HUD display than through the instrument panel.
It can be seen that Geely is now weakening the concept of instrument panel, but has not directly cut it off, because the richness of information displayed on the HUD is not enough to completely replace the instrument panel. I don’t advocate blindly cutting off the instrument panel design because, as of now, the UI design of many car companies’ LCD instruments is a mess.
I hope that on the day when the instrument panel is really cut off, car companies have already designed and balanced the UI design and display content of the HUD and central control large screen.
Moving on to the central control screen, which has a size of 12.3 inches, a resolution of 720p, and supports 8-point touch. It is roughly divided into five menus: navigation, music, radio, phone, and more functions. The navigation uses Gaode’s car navigation system, and since I haven’t had an in-depth experience with it, I won’t comment on its functionality, but there is room for improvement in its UI design. Oh, by the way, the sound effect of the Geely Geometry A’s audio is very impressive.
The central control console is very simple, with only a few physical buttons, but the design and workmanship are both good.
The control buttons for the air conditioning are all touch-controlled and slightly inclined towards the driver’s side, making it easy to use, but there is some lack of feedback when touched. In addition, the slightly extended design made some users have to give up putting their phone holder in the air conditioning vent. However, as the practicality of the car system becomes stronger and stronger, everyone can try using the car navigation instead of their phone navigation.
Below the air conditioning control area is the position for wirelessly charging the phone, and the blue hexagon touch button behind further demonstrates the geometric design of the Geely Geometry A. The button in this position needs to be pressed long enough for 1.5 seconds to enable it, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally touching it, but the clarity of the display under strong light is somewhat lacking.
The Geely Geometry A still retains the power button, with the shift knob made of metal material and has good texture and rotational damping.
The storage compartment in the central control console sacrifices some practicality for its styling, but I like this personalized design.
By the way, the top button is the opening button of the glove box, and the glove box of Geometry A can also be password-locked through the central control screen…
The lower part of the central control panel adopts a hollow-out design, with two USB interfaces and a 12V cigarette lighter interface.
There is a considerable storage space on all four door panels.
The seats are made of fabric material, which feels good and is well-wrapped, but they are not as soft as I imagined. As I said before, in this era of leather seats and luxury, whether consumers accept fabric seats still needs to depend on the market feedback, but I suggest you experience it first before making a decision.
The first time I saw the battery pack structure diagram of Geometry A, I was very worried that there would be a very high bump in the center of the rear floor. Fortunately, there is only a slight bump in the actual car, but the legroom in the rear is not very spacious under the length of 2,700 mm wheelbase.
What needs to be criticized is that the sitting cushion of the rear seat is relatively hard, and there is not much wrapping feeling. The comfort is very average, but the angle of the backrest is very suitable and the back has a certain wrapping feeling, except for the middle seat…
Due to the sloping shape, the headspace for passengers in the back row is very limited. As a 178cm tester sits in the back seat, their fluffy hairstyle can almost touch the roof. Fortunately, the rear windshield area is large enough, so the rear passengers can look up at the sky without any sense of oppression.
And the rear headrest seems to be designed for you to look up at the sky. Rest your head on it and look at the scenery outside the window, which is still very comfortable…
Powertrain
As this was only a static experience, we didn’t get to experience the power and assisted driving, here are some numbers for you.
Geometry A is equipped with a front-mounted permanent magnet synchronous motor, with a maximum power of 120 kW and maximum torque of 250 N·m. The acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h is 8.8 seconds, which are fairly standard specifications. After all, performance and endurance cannot be both achieved. With the help of a staff member, I briefly tested the car, and when the staff member stepped hard on the accelerator, the backrest still pushes you hard against the seat, but this does not represent much. I am looking forward to the subsequent test drive experience.
Geometry A’s battery is from CATL, and there are two versions with different capacities: 51.9 kWh and 61.9 kWh, which is a mainstream endurance level. The NEDC range is 410 km and 500 km respectively. According to the data on the vehicle nameplate, the static experience of the car we tested is based on the 51.9 kWh version, and I am very much looking forward to the production time and actual endurance performance of the 61.9 kWh version of Geometry A.
Assisted Driving
In today’s world, a qualified electric vehicle must come with assisted driving. GLEVN said that the assisted driving of Geometry A reaches L2 Plus level.
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From 0 km/h-20 km/h, the vehicle will follow the trajectory of the front car, but cannot cross the lane lines.* Vehicles will stay within the lanes at speeds of 40 km/h-60 km/h.
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Vehicles will be kept near the center of the lane at speeds of 60 km/h-150 km/h.
Listening to this description feels a bit confused, but it doesn’t matter, we’ll wait for the actual experience. In addition, this Plus added a millimeter-wave radar to the rear of the Geely Geometry A, which monitors rear vehicles and alerts potential collisions by calculating relative velocity and distance.
Competitors
Geely New Energy Geometry A, GAC New Energy Aion S, and BYD Qin Pro EV are highly overlapped in terms of vehicle positioning and cruising range. However, the three models have completely different personalities.
Looking at the interior style and the pre-sale price of 200,000 yuan (after subsidy), I am not sure whether the Geely Geometry A will choose a cost-effective route or a high-end route. However, it is certain that with the subsidy being further reduced in 2019, the players in the new energy market will become more and more powerful, and the competition will definitely become more intense. Whether the Geely Geometry A, as Geely New Energy’s first model, can make a decisive impact is dependent on the price announced at the April 11th launch conference.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.