On December 17th, the IM Auto team announced that they will hold a brand launch event on January 31st next year, and will launch a sedan and an SUV.
According to Pengpai News, Hu Shiwen, the head of product experience, announced at the team’s first media sharing event that IM Auto will showcase three car models at the Shanghai International Auto Show in April next year. At that time, the purchase method of the first car model will also be announced, and limited pre-orders will be accepted.
Previously, on November 26th, the IM Auto project was officially established, jointly created by SAIC Group, Shanghai Pudong New Area Government and Alibaba Group, with the first financing round reaching the level of tens of billions of yuan.
On December 14th, IM Auto announced the cooperation with CATL to jointly develop “silicon-doped lithium battery cell” technology, which can achieve a maximum range of about 1000 kilometers with zero attenuation for 200,000 kilometers. At the sharing event, Hu Shiwen further shared that although the energy density of the battery is high, the highest safety level of non-combustion can be achieved through technical solutions.
Regarding charging, Hu Shiwen stated that IM Auto is expected to become the world’s first car brand equipped with 11 kW high-power wireless charging technology for mass production, which can charge about 10.5 degrees of electricity in one hour, equivalent to a range of 70 to 80 kilometers in NEDC mode.
In addition to working with Alibaba DAMO Academy to innovate in the field of smart travel, IM Auto also announced cooperation with Heatherwick Studio in the UK and the international digital interactive art teamLab to create a new AI intelligent travel experience for users.
Furthermore, in terms of autonomous driving, IM Auto will adopt the Door to Door Pilot (automatic driving from home to work/business district). According to the previous plan, its automatic valet parking function will be launched in some commercial areas of Shanghai at the end of 2021 and will be expanded to other first-tier and new first-tier cities in 2022.
Source: The Paper
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.