The Third Year of Production and Delivery for the Leading New Forces in the Car Industry
2020 was the year when the starting gun for the elimination race in the whole new car industry was fired, as well as the third year of mass production and delivery of the leading new forces.
In the past year, NIO, IDEAL, and XPeng, which have gone public in the United States, have been in the limelight due to their skyrocketing stock prices, and have successively released many aggressive strategies.
As the brand that first released and delivered products among all new forces, WM Motor has already passed the qualification race early on, but it is obvious that it needs something new to become the winner in the increasingly fierce elimination race.
So here comes the WM W6.
Still an SUV
W6 is the third model of WM Motor, with a length, width, and height of 4620/1847/1730 mm and a wheelbase of 2715 mm. It is positioned as a mid-size SUV.
Looking back, we can find that WM Motor’s first car, the EX5, has a length, width, and height of 4585/1835/1672 mm and a wheelbase of 2703 mm, and it is positioned as a compact SUV; the second car, the EX6, has a length, width, and height of 4802/1839/1710 mm and a wheelbase of 2715 mm, and it is positioned as a mid-size SUV.
Although the three models’ positions are not completely the same, there is not much difference in size and wheelbase between the three models. These three models are also built on the same platform.
The first three cars of NIO, which are also new forces, are all SUVs, but the difference is that the ES8 is positioned as a medium to large size SUV, while the ES6 & EC6 are both mid-size SUVs, and the ES8 has 6/7 seats while the ES6 & EC6 have 5 seats. There are some differences in the model positioning.
It is well known that having more children makes one more capable of fighting, but it is not common to see brands like WM Motor that are very specialized in just one market.
Therefore, in March, we conducted a static experience on the W6, hoping to take this opportunity to explore the truth.
“Coordination”
The third car of WM Motor is distinguished from the first two in its name, changing from the EX series to the W series, and the exterior design style has also undergone significant changes.
If one word is used to evaluate the exterior design of the W6, I think it is “coordination.”
W6 still has a black decorative strip that runs through the front face, and the logo of WM’s five vertical bars and the black decorative strip blend together.
According to WM Motor, in the initial design stage, the designer took into account the shape of the logo and integrated the logo very harmoniously into the design of the front face, rather than adding the logo after the design was completed.
On the W6, WM Motor has moved the charging port from the front of the car to the front side of the body with no gap covering the charging port, resulting in a significant improvement in the integrity of the front face compared to the EX5.
However, it is worth criticizing that on the W6, WM Motor did not move the fast charging port to the tail of the car, so it is still not possible to reverse into narrow parking spaces for charging conveniently.
In terms of the design of the lights, WM Motor adopts the popular through-type headlights, and on this style we will not comment too much here, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, what can be guaranteed is that the headlights and daytime running lights of this design have a very high degree of recognition at night.
Moving onto the side of the car, there are two major changes in the design of the W6. On the one hand, the very sturdy waistline on the EX5 has been replaced by a more rounded curve; on the other hand, the W6’s roof adopts the current popular contrasting color roof.
These two changes make the W6’s side profile more coordinated than the EX5, even though the vehicle we are shooting at the moment is a low-grade model with 17-inch wheels.
After three years, WM Motor’s innovative design language has obviously become more “mature”, and this maturity is evident in the interior as well.
Still “coordinated”
Looking back to the end of 2018 when the EX5 was first launched, “over-designed” was a common term used, and after experiencing the W6, “more mature” is still my first impression.
For a car with a price tag in the 200,000 range, it is difficult for us to expect the car company to provide us with too many fancy functions, so we mainly focus on two points regarding the interior.
Workmanship and materials
The materials used in the interior of the W6 are mainly soft plastic and hard plastic. Do not have the prejudiced view that “plastic” equals “poor”, after all, the interiors of Volkswagen and Audi cars are also made of plastic, and the texture depends on design and workmanship.Compared to the EX5, the interior design of the W6 is much simpler, with a mostly black color scheme. The frequently used buttons on the steering wheel are now matte instead of glossy piano lacquer, which reduces fingerprint smudges and provides a better tactile experience for buttons that are larger and better suited for blind operation during driving. The buttons have a relatively long travel and moderate force, making them easier to operate. The only bright, glossy piano lacquer on the center console is used on the air conditioning vents, which adds a finishing touch.
As for workmanship, from our experience with this car, all seams, regardless of size or gap uniformity, have reached the level of joint venture brands, and do not give any sense of cheapness due to the workmanship.
The infotainment system in the car has two most intuitive changes. One is that the original 12.8-inch vertically rotating screen has become a fixed 12.3-inch horizontal screen, forming a dual-screen configuration with the instrument panel; the other is that the iControl area near the center console has transitioned from a simple touch area to a screen.
The design of dual screens had already appeared in 2013 when the W222 Mercedes S-Class was released, and many car companies have imitated it in the past seven years.
In the EX5, WM Motor used a rotating mechanism that allows the center screen to exist in both horizontal and vertical formats. During daily driving, only the vertical format can be used, but in parking mode, it can be switched to horizontal format for a better viewing experience while waiting in the car.
However, the vertically mounted optional screen has two problems. Firstly, the items below the screen are too low, so if you want to click the screen while driving, the driver’s line of sight needs to leave the road for a longer period of time. Secondly, to avoid interference with driving, the upper edge of the screen does not extend too far above the center console, so the rotation axis is located relatively close to the bottom, which also makes the viewing experience in horizontal format not ideal.
After three years of development, WM Motor finally chose dual screens – a more mainstream and user-friendly screen form. If you continue to look down, you can see that the W6 also has a third screen.If you are familiar with EX5, you may notice that the display screen is not just a random addition, but is derived from the iControl area.
The iControl area on the EX5 integrates frequently used functions such as lock, voice, and air conditioning. However, the touch function of this area is very limited, and there is no physical feedback during the touch process, so the overall user experience is not good.
On the W6, WM Motor upgraded to the iTouch touch screen, which has richer functions and clearer division of the car system. The instrument panel is mainly responsible for displaying driving information, the central control screen is responsible for displaying entertainment information, and the iTouch area is responsible for controlling the air conditioning.
To ensure the smooth operation of these three screens, WM W6 is equipped with the fastest chip, the 8155 chip, among current vehicle-level chips. Unfortunately, the static display car system is still inoperable. We can only provide UI design, functionality, and fluency assessment of the W6 car system after obtaining a test drive vehicle.
How Does the WM W6 Stand Out in the Elimination Round?
From the static experience mentioned above, we can see that WM Motor, after selling cars for 3 years, gradually understands what their target users need, and has made the right choices in design and workmanship of exterior and interior, as well as the areas that need to be improved.
However, simply strengthening these foundations is clearly not enough to win over users in this “smart” era.
There is another nickname for W6: China’s first mass-produced car that can achieve unmanned driving.
Doesn’t it sound like a gimmick?
Although I also want to make fun of it, careful research reveals that W6 can indeed achieve automatic parking in the parking lot scenario.
Our colleague Chang Hao has already experienced this in Hubei at the end of last year, and interested friends can review Chang’s previous experience video.
W6 adopts a brand-new electronic and electrical architecture and is equipped with an unmanned autonomous parking system jointly developed by WM Motor and Baidu Apollo platform.
In terms of hardware, the new car uses the 7-nanometer Qualcomm 8155 chip, 5G baseband, and WM Motor’s self-developed autonomous driving domain controller. The entire vehicle is equipped with 22 sensors, including 5 77GHz millimeter-wave radars, 5 cameras, and 12 ultrasonic radars.
Based on these perception devices, W6 can collect parking-related data and transmit it to the cloud server. After the system completes autonomous learning, it can achieve automatic parking without the driver in the car.
With regard to advanced driver assistance capabilities, WM Motor stated that it will implement this function through OTA updates in 2021.
ConclusionCompared to the three new forces in car-making industry, Ideal, NIO, and XPeng, WM Motor has a weaker voice in intelligence. Although EX5 is not inferior in terms of sales volume, it mainly targets users in 2-3 tier cities who are less aware of intelligence. As an economical electric car, the selling point of EX5 resonates more with them.
These users are also a rare treasure for WM Motor. As the penetration rate of intelligence increases, more and more people will pay for intelligence. At that point, if WM Motor can timely develop a product that meets their needs, their purchases and referrals will naturally come into being.
This may be the way for WM Motor to break through in the SUV market under 200,000 yuan in the next era.
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.