Before discussing Jay Chou’s endorsement of R cars, let’s first review how the previous car brand he endorsed “crashed”.
When Jay Chou endorsed the previous car brand in 2015, he brought a high degree of attention to the brand, which in today’s popular terms means that it generated large traffic. At that time, the SUV market was dominated by various major SUV sales, creating a lucrative SUV market. These two factors made the brand believe that the car model had great potential.
However, after the car model was launched, various negative news exploded on major complaint platforms. The complaints ranged from high fuel consumption, engine shaking, poor maneuverability, and abnormal sounds. The most criticized issue was fuel consumption, with various jokes online about never filling up the tank or car owners constantly going to gas stations. The car’s quality issues were the reason for its ultimate failure.
Today, Jay Chou endorses the R car brand, which, compared to the previous brand, is supported by SAIC and has the strength to compete with other new energy brands. With the advent of the 5G era, consumers’ focus on car selection has shifted from the car model to the level of car intelligence. A car with higher intelligence will be more popular with consumers. Does the R brand that Jay Chou endorses have any highlights in terms of consumer attention to intelligence?
R Brand Car’s Attempt at Intelligence
The most noticeable example of intelligent technology in the automotive industry is the intelligent driving function. R brand has released three car models that lead the way in intelligence-assisted driving technology, including ER6, Marvel R, and the newly released model with the codename ES33.
The First Step – Crossing L2 Level Autonomous Driving
R brand’s first car model, the ER6, has made its first attempt at intelligence.
The ER6’s assisted driving system includes 1 long-range millimeter-wave radar, 2 short-range angle millimeter-wave radars, 4 ultrasonic radars, and 2 front-facing cameras, and 4 fisheye cameras. This hardware configuration comprises the R Pilot Intelligent Driving Assistance system, which enables the ER6 to achieve intelligent cruising and traffic congestion assistance functions in the entire speed range (0-144 km/h).
ER6’s Second Step Towards Intelligence – Integrating 5G-V2
After the experience gained from the first car, R brand has further incorporated more advanced 5G technology into their second car model, Marvel R. Marvel R’s positioning is a 5G intelligent electric SUV, which is also the model that Jay Chou endorses.
Compared with ER6 that has just crossed the threshold of L2 level automated driving, Marvel R is a vehicle model that is closer to L3 level.
Marvel R is equipped with a more luxurious sensor configuration, including 4 surround view cameras, 4 bird’s eye view cameras, 2 front cameras, 1 real-world visibility camera, 12 ultrasonic sensors and 5 millimeter-wave radars (1 long-range radar and 4 short-range corner radars), making it possible to achieve a rare navigation-assisted autonomous driving function among vehicles of the same level by utilizing rich sensor configuration with the support of high-precision maps.
Luxury sensor configuration can only solve perception within 200 meters of the car. In order to drive more safely, Marvel R also fully utilizes the characteristics of 5G technology, low latency, high bandwidth, and high capacity, and applies 5G-V2X technology to mass-produced vehicles. The typical applications of V2X that have been opened up are V2V (Vehicle To Vehicle) and V2I (Vehicle To Infrastructure). The typical application of V2V inter-vehicle communication is to reduce blind spot risks and make self-driving safer. V2V can help drivers get information like the location and speed of vehicles at the intersection in advance, remind them of intersection conflict, and slow down in advance to avoid collisions.
The typical application scenario of V2I is interaction with traffic lights. V2I can help drivers get information about traffic lights beyond their line of sight or blocked by large vehicles in advance, not only allowing speed control in advance but also avoiding running red lights.
R Brand’s Intelligent Layout
While ER6 and Marvel R are already Among the top models in terms of intelligence among their peers, the R Brand isn’t done with its future intelligent layout. Even More advanced technology is present in the new ES33.
To allow for continuous iteration and upgrades of autonomous driving through data and software, ES33 uses a new intelligent driving scheme and adds a full-stack software self-developed vendor to complete a fully enclosed loop in three independent scenarios: city, highway/ring road, and parking. This intelligent layout is named R-Tech.
Not only does ES33 use the Luminar laser radar sensor, but it also uses PREMIUM 4D imaging radar instead of traditional millimeter-wave radar. As far as I can recall, this is the first time 4D millimeter-wave radar has been applied to mass-produced cars.
Luminar laser radar can generate precise three-dimensional point clouds, detecting objects up to 500 meters away, which greatly enhances the perception distance and accuracy of intelligent vehicles, making city autonomous driving possible. Additionally, the 4D imaging radar used can overcome the inability of traditional radar to measure height. Even when facing scenarios that traditional radar can’t handle, such as tunnels and overpasses, it can still achieve accurate speed and distance measurement, further ensuring driving safety.
In addition to its advanced sensor layout, ES33 chose a more advanced autonomous driving chip, Nvidia Orin, with computing power up to several million trillion times per second. Additionally, the new computing platform supports multiple Orin architectures, allowing computing power to further increase to 500 TOPS~1000 TOPS to support the landing of more advanced autonomous driving functions.
In today’s automotive industry, where most car manufacturers are undergoing intelligent transformation, having the ability for cars to constantly evolve based on data and software is especially important. R Brand’s forward-looking layout for intelligentization is continuously upgrading and better understanding its users.
Conclusion
Returning to the initial topic, the failure of the previous brand endorsed by Jay Chou was not due to the endorsement itself, but because of the rush to catch up with the hot SUV trend, which seriously overlooked the lack of product strength in the automotive industry.
Will Jay Chou’s endorsement definitely boost R car sales? It’s hard to say, but at least R cars’ current product strength is not to be underestimated. They have long recognized the needs of young consumers and have put in a lot of effort in intelligentization. This kind of layout is not only the trend of the automotive industry, but I believe it will also be gradually recognized by more consumers.
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.