*This article is reproduced from the Autocarweekly WeChat official account

Author: Manager Wang

Nowadays, if there are two words to describe the entire car market, they are —— dull.

How dull is it? When a new car is released and the press release is issued, within a few days, the car becomes forgotten, no longer covered in the news, disappears from the streets, and even if one or two test drive cars are running on the street, you do not notice them because these types of cars often do not have anything that can attract you.

I often wonder why Tesla’s Model X was so popular. Was it because of its long electric driving range? Not necessarily, the 400 km of NEDC electric range made my brother who bought it complain every day and dread long trips to the point where he doesn’t even dare to listen to music. Was it because its Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) were excellent? Honestly, at that time, the V1.0 ADAS module was far less intelligent than it is today, and it couldn’t even clearly identify lane markings. Was it because it was cool enough? This hits the nail on the head because this car can catch the attention of passersby.

People always have the psychology of admiring vanity. The ancients said: “Once rich and famous, never return to one’s hometown, like a man in a silk garment walking at night.” When Model X landed at 1.4 million yuan, if it were not for the two big wings that could flap up and down, you probably couldn’t find any reason to buy it.

Five years have passed in an instant, and the market seems to have paused during these five years. Tesla was busy making its Model 3 more affordable and becoming the Toyota and Volkswagen of the new era, while BBA realized that the era of relying on brands to speak is over after trying several oil-to-electric products. What is needed now is truly hardcore products. However, hardcore products seem too “entry-level,” and the high-end electric car market has been silent for too long, so much so that everyone has developed aesthetic fatigue for Model X.

Therefore, its appearance makes the world shine again.

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This car is the GAC Aion HiPhi X, and it comes with street-style flow, adding a sense of novelty that people haven’t felt in a long time when it parks on the side of the road and NT doors are opened. I believe this is also the reason why most users will “blindly order” it. Compared to the already boring and tedious BBA and the already aesthetically fatigued Tesla, buying the most handsome car on the street at this price range is the best way for rich people who have been reserved for a while to express their “confidence.”

According to a German supplier specializing in benchmarking, they have already ordered one early on, and once the car is delivered, they will transport it to Germany to conduct a comprehensive benchmarking analysis, as they believe that this car is currently the most high-end electric car in China and represents the highest level of electric cars in China.This is the industry’s view of it. When I showed the introduction video of this car to my friends outside the industry, they came to the conclusion self-righteously: “This must be a concept car!” And when I told him that this is a real production car, he estimated the psychological price of the car with surprise: seven or eight hundred thousand.

I think that when a car achieves such a level, it is already half successful. What comes next is to see how well the car is made.

Nowadays, the entire market is talking about intelligence, various V2X, ADAS and SOA, etc. There are few new forces in car-making that focus on drivability with practical efforts, and when promoting their cars, they rarely mention whether the car is good to drive or not. Instead, they just pile up various fancy parameters.

There is a very important reason for this, and that is, new forces in car-making are often lacking in traditional development departments such as vehicle integration, chassis and body. How can they catch up with or even surpass the century-old car-making industry overnight?

But this is also what Human Horizons excels in. Actually, I am least worried about the design and manufacturing level of the HiPhi X. Even the sci-fi-looking NT exhibition wings can be turned into reality by these body engineering experts at Human Horizons.

People often ask if the NT wings will leak in rainy weather. Here, let me briefly explain that this car has a rain sensor, and the engineers at HiPhi just designed a small logic that prohibits the opening of the exhibition wings when the rain sensor receives a signal. This avoids the embarrassment of getting caught in the rain when opening the wings on rainy days. If you don’t believe it, you can try pouring water on the rain sensor behind the windshield on your own.

So, how high is the “Versailles Index” of this car?

According to traditional thinking, a car with such a large visual size usually cannot accelerate very quickly. Being able to reach 7 or 8 seconds for the acceleration is already quite difficult. However, the HiPhi X is different. Thanks to the front and rear dual motors with a total power of 440 kW and the steel-aluminum hybrid body weighing 2.5 tons, the push-weight ratio of this car (horsepower / weight) reaches an astonishing 0.24, and the acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h only takes 3.9 seconds.

It is said that recently, white car bodies have become popular, so here is a picture of a white HiPhi X for everyone to appreciate.But I think when driving this car, a more elegant attitude should be used. Listening to the audio system carefully tuned by Meridian, smelling the custom fragrance by Paris Qihuadun fragrance Institute, when encountering pedestrians crossing the road, you can use the PML headlight to smile and cast the words “You First” on the road, fully enjoying the saluting gaze of passersby. As for power, it can be stored but not absent.

I especially like to study some details of car design, especially some “Versailles” designs.

Many sports cars have shift paddles behind the steering wheel, a soulful configuration, but most of the time, it is idle because the opportunity to use the paddles for intense driving is so rare. However, on the HiPhi X of GAC NIO, the paddle has been given a new mission—to adjust driving modes and regenerative braking force.

I have a deep understanding of these two things. When encountering traffic jams, I hope to adjust to the Comfort mode, the throttle should not be too abrupt, and the regenerative braking should be stronger so that I don’t have to switch back and forth between the brake and throttle pedals frequently, which is more labor-saving. But when driving at high speeds, I hope the car can enter Sport mode. If anyone dares to challenge my speed, I can brake smoothly after releasing the accelerator like the traditional AT gearbox, because the deceleration caused by too strong regenerative braking during high-speed driving is really uncomfortable and may even make passengers dizzy.

However, regardless of traffic jams or high-speed driving, using a touch screen to adjust driving modes and regenerative braking is not appropriate. Based on scene-driven functional design, the engineers of GAC NIO believe that the paddle is the best hardware adjustment method for these two functions in the era of electric vehicles. With three driving mode adjustment methods and four regenerative braking force adjustment methods, 12 combinations can be derived, fully meeting various driving scene needs in daily life.

I remember when test driving an Aston Martin DB11 last year, when I admired the V8 engine from AMG and prepared to close the hood, I was surprised to find that the hood had a cinching latch, which is a self-locking device. When fully closed, it will gently close, which is really high-end. Because the action of slamming and closing the hood is not elegant, and it is heart-wrenching to hear, but due to cost considerations, it is really rare for the automaker to be willing to add a self-locking device to the front hood.I saw this feature again on the HiPhi X by GAC, which has the title of the most expensive domestically produced electric car, so the tone needs to be handled properly. Don’t underestimate this small detail, it highlights a completely different car-making philosophy from Tesla’s. Americans value showmanship, being rough and not paying attention to details; Chinese value balance and enjoy appreciating various details. Since the other nine doors of my entire car are electrically self-suctioning, why should I let the user open the front hood with force? Even if the storage space inside the front hood is not used frequently, it is not dignified to let the user lose face.

The front hood lock of a typical car usually has a two-step lock. When the first lock is unlocked in the cabin, the user’s finger needs to reach into the gap of the hood to pull the handle of the second lock with a single finger, which is not only difficult to find but can sometimes even hurt the user’s finger.

In order to maximize the “Versailles value” of opening the hood, GAC engineers developed a “touch-type” unlocking mechanism. Capacitive sensors are placed in the unlocking area. When the user’s finger touches the sensor for a long time, the hood opens and unlocks automatically, making it easy and relaxed to use.

Politeness and flexibility make it high-class. GAC HiPhi X actually has a lot of “Versailles value” full-score features and policies, such as the luxury semi-aniline leather, the industry’s first free upgrade to a 120-degree battery for founding-version car owners, free lifetime charging (unlimited energy), free lifetime vehicle warranty and maintenance, etc. These are all real costs GAC spent and will give the first batch of users the assurance to use the car with peace of mind.

As I write this, I begin to appreciate GAC, which always does things differently. What other car manufacturers can do, it won’t miss; what others don’t have, it innovates first, which shines and makes me look forward to its follow-up models, which are said to be extremely cool and maximize the “Versailles value”.

Wishing GAC and its HiPhi X good luck.

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.