As an ideal car owner, I was invited to attend the Voyah FREE launch event at the Shenzhen Sports Center. Let’s talk about the four advantages of Voyah FREE compared to the Ideal ONE.
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Voyah FREE’s 1.5T four-cylinder engine can achieve a thermal efficiency of over 40%, which should make it easier to optimize the start logic of the range extenders in various working conditions. This can reduce the noise and vibration of the cold machine in urban conditions. With a heavyweight player joining the range extender raceway, this raceway will become more and more competitive, and there will be more engines suitable for range extenders in the future.
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The seats look comfortable. During the launch event, there was a PPT specifically for the seat system which was emphasized for quite some time. I asked friends who have experienced both cars’ seats and they also said that Voyah FREE’s seats are indeed more comfortable. Of course, I believe the upgrade work for the Ideal ONE is also in progress.
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The high-spec chassis. Although the standard air suspension of the entire vehicle has a stroke of only 80mm, compared with the 100mm+ stroke of the Touareg Q7, it greatly improves the positioning of the vehicle. In theory, it can handle fine roads more calmly, which coincides with the elegant characteristics of the Voyah brand.
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Equipped with an electronic child safety lock that will be linked with the in-car camera to activate automatically when there is a child in the car during the journey. In addition, there is an automatic parking mode with a sentinel mode and a visual fusion solution. The standard 11 kW charging pile, as well as the top-configured Dynaudio sound system and the upgraded three-screen display throughout the whole vehicle, are also enough to bring enough attention and identification to the Voyah brand.
Of course, as a professional critic, I believe that there are also three areas where Voyah FREE is not perfect and needs to be improved.
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The battery capacity is too small, which greatly affects the choice of target consumers. Currently, Voyah FREE’s range extender version uses the BYD 33-35 degree battery, which is not a blade battery. According to my understanding, the overall energy consumption rate should be comparable to the Ideal ONE, and there is a possibility of further optimization. Based on calculations, the actual pure electric range should be within 100 kilometers. If a larger capacity battery can be equipped, with a battery temperature of around 45 degrees, and the actual pure electric range can reach 150-200 kilometers, it will definitely be a strong competitor to the Ideal ONE.
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The problem of the five-seater and six-seater. I still remember in 2018, when Li Xiang said during the first press conference that the price should be under 400,000 RMB, the whole event erupted into applause. However, when the CEO revealed the price limit was still under 400,000 RMB during this launch event, there was no applause at all.
In the Chinese market, SUVs have a premium over sedans, and six/seven-seater SUVs have a premium over five-seat SUVs. The Ideal ONE faces competition in the traditional 300-600,000 RMB combustion car matrix due to its six/seven-seater positioning. Voyah FREE, which is positioned as a five-seater, will directly face the competition of traditional 150-250,000 RMB fuel SUVs.The Voyah FREE model employs the same approach as the Ideal ONE in launching the ES6 model. It’s unknown whether Voyah specifically invited influential NIO car owners such as Shuishui Xi to become Voyah’s creative officers.
Furthermore, they are conservative regarding smart systems. The ADAS system uses the Bosch ecosystem solution, but its evolutionary degree is slightly lower.
The in-car chip is not the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon but rather the more traditional Texas Instruments solution. This presents a significant challenge for the development of a future in-car ecosystem. The voice system, which includes four-zone noise reduction and bi-directional dialogue, consumes a lot of computing power. Additionally, Voyah values voice interaction and will soon have talent joining the team. This is something to look forward to.
As a consumer, I will speculate on price. The Voyah FREE may have four configurations, and the purely electric model is not the main sales model.
The top configuration of the extended range Voyah FREE is expected to be priced below 330,000 RMB, the top configuration with optional packages will be below 350,000 RMB, and the second-most popular configuration will be priced at 300,000 to 310,000 RMB. The medium configuration will be around 290,000 RMB, and the entry-level will be approximately 280,000 RMB.
Maintaining this price point during the second half of 2021 will enable Voyah to compete with the Tesla Model Y and NIO ES6 and potentially attract many combustion vehicle owners.
At this point, they can truly achieve the vision of “having confidence in their hearts and a Voyah vehicle in hand.”
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.