42HOW Note: This article is written by a member of the 42HOW community, known as the Lazy Guy (Weibo ID: 大懒货), who currently works at a domestic car manufacturer.
A few days ago, as one of the top 2000 pre-order customers of the Ideal ONE, I attended the factory day event held by Ideal in Changzhou. I visited various production facilities and test drove the ONE prototype. Here are some of my thoughts on the car, for reference only:
Disclosure: Firstly, I didn’t pay a penny for the event and enjoyed a free buffet meal (which was really good) thanks to Ideal. Secondly, I am currently a Honda i-MMD hybrid owner, and ONE is basically a stronger version of i-MMD with some features removed. So, I am familiar with the pros and cons of extended-range cars.
Overall Exterior Quality: Regardless of color (I saw both blue and grey at the event), the metallic finish and paint texture of the ONE were impressive. Comparing it with other vehicles, the paint quality is better than the XC90 (benchmark car that day), better than the RX450h, better than the QX60 (rented one with green paint for a week), and more textured than the normal black paint of the Range Rover Sport. The paint texture is similar to that of the Porsche Cayenne, which I think is on par with ONE.
Vehicle Space: The 3D dimensions of the ONE are officially available, and many people say it’s a great six-seater. However, I have some reservations. When seated in the second row with my size (177cm not very tall), my head touched the roof and my feet touched the third-row seat. But in the six-seater version, you can put one foot in the aisle next to the second row. Overall, the ONE has more space than the XC90 (7-seater) and Model X (6-seater). Whether it’s the space or the seat height, the third row cannot compare with the Odyssey, GL8, or V-Class. However, if you commute in the city and sit in the third row for 30 minutes, it should not be a problem for an adult.
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In addition, if the third row of seats is adjusted to the normal inclination (that uncomfortable inclination) after carrying 6 adults, the trunk can accommodate a stroller and a small box, or two suitcases with respective sizes of 28” and 20” if without a stroller. However, if the third row of seats is adjusted to the inclined mode (those who have ridden an MPV can understand how to adjust it), the trunk space will decrease by more than 20%. To sum up, it is still a great “4-seater” large SUV.
Riding Comfort
Due to the reasons for the trial production car, it is said that the production car will still have a lot of improvements. Speakers can only tell the experience of the current trial production car. The first-row riding experience of the car is similar to Range Rover Sport or QX60, but the first-row has ventilation, heating, and a good rating of 10086. At the current stage, the overall texture is still hard. I think it will be better if the fillers are softer in the future.
The second row of the vehicle has independent electric adjustment function, and the riding experience is similar to that of MPVs such as Odyssey, but compared with traditional MPVs, it has a weakness of lack of legrest. However, it is an SUV at this price range, and I think there is nothing to complain about. The leather texture of the seats in the first and second rows are still good, and it is said that Nappa leather is used on them. I touched the leather texture of the seat, which is not much different from that of the perforated Nappa leather (which is ventilated) that I have seen.
Interior Texture
In layman’s terms, you can touch the places that are wrapped in leather (note that it’s leather, not everything is wrapped in Nappa leather, that would be too costly). However, there is no soft filler material under the leather in some parts. For example, the place where the driver’s right knee will always touch (or the place where the co-pilot’s left knee will touch), if it lasts too long, the knee will surely hurt (don’t ask me why I know~~~~(>_<)~~~~).Because of the nature of being a prototype, some of the workmanship precision may be lower than I expected. However, the texture or material level of the entire car’s interior is better than that of the base-level D-class SUV (the large-size SUV without optional leather upholstery, such as the XC90 that day), although the texture of ONE is slightly lower than that of the RX450h. If anyone brings a Range Rover with semi-aniline leather interior to argue with me, I can only say goodbye. At this stage, many large SUVs have large areas of molded plastic in their standard configurations, and leather interiors require tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of optional packages. Of course, it is also much better than the poor interior of the Model X, and the material used in the interior of the Model X is actually very good (large areas of genuine leather + suede). But why was it made so poor, who knows.
NVH
During the on-site test drive, I specifically consulted with my colleague to sit in the first row to experience the NVH of ONE, while I sat in the second row for XC90 and RX450h. Well, the NVH of ONE during acceleration should be one of the best SUVs I have ever ridden in.
During the test drive, the rapid acceleration was from 30 km/h to 120 km/h, and only the sound of the electric motor current could be heard (very similar to the power-insufficient Model X, after all, it only has an acceleration capability of 6 seconds +, but the wind noise control is much better than the Model X).
I also saw many test-riding colleagues on the Internet saying that they can’t feel the startup/shutdown of the range extender (engine) at all. I think this is a bit exaggerated. During the on-site test drive, I sat in the front row and could slightly feel the vibration when the engine started (note that it is vibration, not noise. The start-up of iMMD brings not vibration but extremely loud noise). Of course, I could also feel the vibration when the engine shutdown. During the rapid acceleration process, the noise of the range extender was directly covered by the road noise and wind noise (there was, but it was covered up). After I got off the car, I also asked the two car owners who sat in the back row, and they said they couldn’t hear the engine startup, but they seemed to feel the shutdown.
Despite my exaggerated description, what I want to say is that this slight noise + vibration will not affect or trouble your daily driving, because both RX450h and XC90T6 had terrible noise control during rapid acceleration in the AB comparison process. If you can accept the NVH of traditional large-size fuel/hybrid SUVs, then the NVH of ONE will surprise you! It will definitely surprise you!
Suspension and Body RigidityThe suspension of this car is a bit soft for my personal taste. The overall suspension feels similar to the air suspension of Range Rover Sport (it feels like riding a boat, which tends to make me dizzy). However, the suspension of this car is slightly stiffer than Range Rover and softer than Model X. Compared to the two benchmark cars on the same day, the suspension of ONE feels similar to RX450h, much softer than XC90. To be honest, the suspension tuning of ONE is quite impressive, even without air suspension.
Why do we need to mention the overall rigidity of the car? Because there were some uneven roads on the test drive, and when driving XC90, the car felt like it was falling apart with creaking noises (later learned that it was an old car rented for over three years, and it was a parallel import. The manufacturer was too stingy). RX450h performed much better (the car is relatively newer). ONE had the strongest overall rigidity amongst the three cars (although it was a pre-production car and some parts were still rough, the car did not make any strange noises).
Acceleration Performance
As we know, acceleration performance is a crucial factor for electric vehicles, whether they are pure electric or hybrid. As for ONE, its acceleration feels like that of an “SUV with a large-displacement naturally aspirated engine” and “CVT”. The acceleration of ONE is not particularly fast, but because of the pure electric drive, there is no interruption in gear shifting, so it feels like driving an SUV with a large-displacement naturally aspirated engine with a CVT.
Maybe due to the pedal tuning, the response of the vehicle’s power has a slight delay, meaning that it does not directly output maximum torque like Model S/X. Instead, the torque output of ONE climbs gradually (which is why I said the power response of ONE is similar to an SUV with a large-displacement naturally aspirated engine). However, as a family-oriented car, this kind of pedal tuning is more suitable. Directly outputting maximum torque from a pure electric vehicle is actually uncomfortable for many passengers.
Infotainment Screen
Personally, I’m not very interested in the four-screen linkage, but I took a brief look at it. The UI design of the dashboard and the infotainment screen are decent (similar to Tesla’s dashboard, better than ES8), and there is no lagging in the display. The display on the air conditioning panel has a little bit of reflection, but it does not affect the use (however, if I had to use a fully touch-sensitive air conditioning panel, I would choose a natural voice recognition voice control system instead). The screen on the passenger side can directly play movies and TV shows, and I dragged it a few times; the interface switching has no major issues (it’s not as smooth as an iPad, but much better than many Android car PCs on the market).
Lighting System
LED Lighting System
The lighting system inside the car is equipped with LED, which has low power consumption and high brightness. The headlights of the vehicle use a fully-reflective LED lighting group, and the lighting effect is good after turning on during the day. Both lenses/reflection-type LEDs have their own advantages and disadvantages. We will have to wait until the launch to see the actual irradiation distance and dispersion situation.
ADAS
This is also the part that I am most concerned about, so I almost didn’t take any pictures that day and just chatted with the ADAS assistant. Initially, I saw that the vehicle’s ADAS used a front binoculars with equal focal lengths + EQ4 chip as the main solution for ADAS.
Later, after talking with the ADAS assistant, I learned that the vehicle is still using a single front camera + EQ4 as the image recognition solution, and the other camera is used to collect road conditions. In addition to this, the vehicle is equipped with 12 ultrasonic radars + 1 front mid-range millimeter-wave radar as information sources. The overall configuration is the same as Tesla’s AP1.0 hardware solution (except that the EQ3 chip has been upgraded to EQ4, which should support full-frame image analysis without frame reduction for this camera).
To put it bluntly, the hardware configuration of ADAS is sufficient, but whether it can achieve the current AP2.0 (software version V9) ADAS performance under Chinese road conditions remains to be seen. However, so far, no vehicle with ADAS that uses EQ4 single camera has been sold, and no one knows where the ceiling of this system is. Also, I asked, and the decision-making system of ADAS will also incorporate the 12 parking radars (with a detection range of approximately above 7 meters, but uncertain).
The parking radars around the vehicle can help the vehicle achieve better assisted driving in low-speed/congested road sections when they are integrated into the decision-making system of ADAS. The vehicle also provides a blind spot assistance function, but the blind spot information comes from the parking radar at the rear of the vehicle. Therefore, when a vehicle approaches the blind spot of the car quickly, the display of the blind spot warning may be delayed. I still have a conservative view on using parking radars for blind spot warnings.
Energy Consumption and Battery Cycle Life
To be honest, I am not very concerned about this. With a 40kWh battery pack, it can run more than 100km even in pure electric mode, which is enough for my daily driving needs. Moreover, 95% of my driving mileage is commuting within the city, so for me, ONE is just a pure electric vehicle. When traveling long distances, I can always add a tank of gasoline in advance. To put it bluntly, an onboard charger is really just a backup generator.“`markdown
Anyway, I charge it after arriving home every night, and the cost of power is only 12 yuan for 40 kilowatts, which is really cheap (0.308 yuan/KWh for valley electricity). The cost of driving over 100km on only 12 yuan is really low! If I drive long distance, I think the fuel consumption of 10+ liters per km in the range-extender mode is still acceptable (I drive at most 1000-2000 km long distance per year).
What I am concerned about is the battery cycle life. The guy from Ningde secretly told me that the problem is not particularly big after 8000 cycles in this mode (for reference only). You can calculate how many cycles 8000 is by yourself. Moreover, ONE is an extended-range electric vehicle. What does it matter if the pure electric range drops from 150 km to 120 km? Just burn fuel when the pure electric can’t drive.
Conclusion
ONE is indeed a large “4-seat” extended-range SUV without any obvious shortcomings in all aspects for families with charging piles at home and use in limited-license cities (not willing to bid for license plates or win licenses).
When the mass-produced cars in Hangzhou are open for test drives, I will also take my friends to check out ONE, and let the real experts evaluate its comprehensive performance. I hope I won’t be lazy and don’t want to write a report at that time.
- Have Ideals, Start with ONE | Maximal Unboxing
“`* Interpretation of Ideal ONE with 328,000 Fans: What is True Internet-based Car Manufacturing
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.