On May 26th, the list of New Energy Vehicle license plate numbers in Beijing was officially announced.
This means that another 32,520 families will soon have their own Beijing license plate car, and they will no longer have to worry about not being able to hail a car during heavy rain at night, or sweating profusely while waiting for a subway during rush hour. They can also drive their own car and take their family on a spontaneous trip during holidays.
So, the question is, what kind of car should they choose?
Young people, choose an SUV for your family
Due to the limitation of the article length, it is difficult for us to make a detailed comparison of each type of vehicle. In order to make this article more universal, we looked at the sales rankings on the 42nd Parking Lot official website and found a common characteristic.
Currently, the two best-selling types of vehicles in the Beijing New Energy Vehicle market are compact cars priced around 150,000 yuan, and pure electric cars priced between 200,000 to 300,000 yuan.
Among them, the compact cars priced at 150,000 yuan are dominated by the BAIC EU5, which is obviously the first choice for Beijing’s ride-hailing drivers. Since this type of consumption is mainly to meet the needs of operating properties, we will not discuss it too much. Today, we will focus on the other type of consumer demand.
From the types of cars and prices of consumption, it can be seen that for the people of Beijing who face stringent license plate restrictions, after obtaining the valuable license plate, they hope to buy a car with good product capabilities. For this precious Beijing license plate, it is difficult to discover A00 level small cars with a single usage scenario in the Beijing market.
However, considering the changes in the Beijing license plate policy, the users who obtained the license plates this time are mainly from families without a car. Therefore, we focus on recommending SUV models that can satisfy the diverse needs of families and meet multi-person simultaneous travel, with a price of around 200,000 – 250,000 yuan.
Coincidentally, this price range completely coincides with the price range discussed among our Beijing New Energy Vehicle purchasing group.
However, it should be clarified that even though the range and replenishment convenience of pure electric vehicles have undergone tremendous changes compared to a few years ago, I still don’t think that pure electric vehicles can become the only car in the family.
But due to the Beijing policy, only pure electric vehicle models can be purchased. So, the original intention remains the same: “to satisfy the diverse needs of families as much as possible”. We believe that the minimum range of NEDC should be 500 km.
Moreover, considering Beijing’s winter, where temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius are common, we do not recommend lithium iron phosphate batteries that may perform poorly in low-temperature environments.After the initial screening process, there are not many car models that are still available. After eliminating some unattractive gas-to-electric conversion models and some niche models that are not reassuring enough, the models that are left for us to choose from are R Automobile’s MARVEL R and Volkswagen’s ID.4.
We have already done a very detailed analysis of the Volkswagen ID.4 before, so today I want to give more space to the brand – R Automobiles, which has not even been given a Chinese name yet but has been in the car industry for more than 10 years.
When buying a car, it needs to be the kind that you can’t help but take a second look at after parking
In my previous articles, I rarely had the interest to make excessive evaluations on the appearance of a car. Firstly, that’s a matter of personal taste. Secondly, the cars in the 200,000 RMB price range are getting more and more mediocre, so there’s really no need to go into too much detail about them.
However, MARVEL R is indeed different. Let’s take a look at the exterior of the MARVEL R together with two pictures.
The model in the picture is the Black Knight version of MARVEL R, with an exaggerated front bumper design that does not feel out of place at all. When creating an extreme sporty atmosphere on fuel cars, there are usually two methods: first, adding a surround that is exaggerated in size, and second, making the air intake larger and more angular.
But what if there is no need for an air intake on an electric car?
Should an inappropriate air intake be added, or should the front bumper be redesigned?
Although the second option places high demands on the design, the results show that the designer of MARVEL R did a great job. This solution achieved good results on MARVEL R.
The full black exterior package, carbon fiber front lip, with red lines and logo as embellishment, makes the sports attributes very prominent. This is truly commendable for an “electric car.”
Thanks to the absence of an engine and a smaller electric motor, the A-pillar of the pure electric car has moved forward constantly in the hope of creating more space for passengers. This has led to many pure electric cars on the market beginning to converge in appearance.
However, MARVEL R takes the opposite approach with a longer front coupled with a sleek body, making it a sharp contrast to the multitude of uninspired pure electric cars on the road.
At the press conference, SAIC also revealed the popular Canava Gray color scheme for the MARVEL R, combined with chrome-plated wheels, creating a luxurious style.
In the past, many owners of domestic brand cars mainly bought them for their high configuration, but passed because of their poor exterior design, which was a turn-off at first sight. However, on the MARVEL R, you won’t find any traces of imitation.
It can be said that after becoming a new brand, SAIC’s second model has also reached a new level of appearance. Compared with the “mediocre” models of the same level, the MARVEL R as an SUV not only meets the needs of families, but also satisfies the demand for appearance by car owners.
At least when buying a car, don’t we all turn around to take another look after locking it?
Does taking care of the family always mean compromising on performance?
The MARVEL R has two power versions, one with dual-motor rear-wheel drive, a maximum output power of 137 kW, and a maximum torque of 410 N·m; the other with three motors and four-wheel drive, which adds another front motor with a maximum output power of 85 kW and a maximum torque of 255 N·m on the rear-wheel drive version. Its comprehensive output power reaches 222 kW and comprehensive torque reaches 665 N·m.
There are three information points worth discussing here.
Firstly, this is a rear-wheel drive model.
Secondly, although the maximum output power of the rear motor is only 137 kW, the torque reaches an astonishing 410 N·m, mainly because there is a 2-gear gearbox on the rear axle of the MARVEL R, which can obtain better torque output with larger gear ratios at low speeds, and achieve lower speeds with smaller gear ratios at high speeds, thereby reducing high-speed energy consumption.
Thirdly, the top-of-the-line four-wheel drive model achieves a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 4.8 seconds, which may seem “mediocre” in the electric vehicle list. However, compared with the current gasoline cars that can reach 4.8 seconds and the price range of 250,000 RMB, it is obvious that a 4.8 second acceleration is enough for car owners to show off against most performance cars while driving alone.## Smart cars shouldn’t fall behind traditional car manufacturers
The level of intelligence is composed of two parts, hardware and software. Let’s start with hardware, as it determines the upper limit of its capabilities.
The basic version of the car has only one forward monocular camera, which can only achieve basic ACC functions and is not worth mentioning.
MARVEL R also has an optional R PILOT 3.0 package. After installation, the number of assisted driving perception cameras increases to 6, including a pair of forward binocular cameras and 4 surround perception cameras.
From a hardware perspective, only Tesla, XPeng P7 and the unreleased JiKea 001 rely on the visual coverage of the vehicle’s 360-degree perception for assisted driving.
Compared with basic mmWave radar, visual perception has higher recognition and detection accuracy, as well as the ability to recognize lane lines and predict driving trajectories. So from a perception hardware perspective, MARVEL R’s upper limit of ability is relatively high.
In terms of functionality, MARVEL R will also support NOR high-speed navigation assistance features through OTA updates in the future. If everything goes according to plan, this should currently be the cheapest SUV model that supports navigation assistance functions.
Of course, two points need to be mentioned in advance. First, this set of functions has not yet been officially launched, so whether the actual capabilities can reach the expected parameters is still uncertain. Second, MARVEL R is equipped with the Mobileye EyeQ4H perception computing chip, and it is still unclear whether this 2.5T chip can calculate the data generated by the 6 cameras.
Choosing a dealer or a self-operated store? You need to think clearly about this matter
When we make up our minds to buy a car, it means that we will have a natural connection with the car and the brand manufacturer behind it for a long time to come. At this time, what kind of rights the brand manufacturer will provide to users during the usage period is also a factor that is worth considering in the car purchase decision.
With the development of the electric vehicle industry, terminal sales of automobiles have begun to undergo significant changes. In the past, we could only buy cars through 4S stores or some secondary vehicle dealers. In essence, consumers do not buy cars from manufacturers, but from “middlemen”. The only purpose of the middlemen in selling cars is profit, and they do not pay too much attention to brand reputation, leading to low service quality and irregular fees.In this dealer model, there arises a problem that the purchasing car users become the “asset” of the dealers instead of the manufacturer. Essentially, when the manufacturer wholesales cars to the dealers, the ownership of the cars has already transferred to the dealers; consequently, the relationship between the dealers and the manufacturer becomes insignificant once the dealers sell the cars to their customers. As a result, the driving experience of the purchasing car users has become neglected.
R Automobile understood this problem from the outset. By operating its own stores and providing transparent pricing, it not only brings users a better purchasing experience but also enables the manufacturer to reach customers directly and receive plenty of feedback and suggestions to facilitate rapid iteration of the product.
Although operating its own stores requires setting up a large number of stores and sales personnel and involves a huge one-time expense, R Automobile accepted this challenge without hesitation. Therefore, even in its first year of establishment, we can see R Automobile’s direct stores in a large number of shopping centers.
The so-called new energy vehicle taking the lead on winding roads has been talked about repeatedly for 2 to 3 years. However, true winding road overtaking does not only involve core technologies such as batteries and motors. On the MARVEL R, we also see design-oriented winding road overtaking, as well as user experience-oriented winding road overtaking in R Automobile’s App.
In March of this year, R Automobile established its first self-operated ultra-fast charging station in Shanghai Nanxiang Impression City and announced its strategic goal to establish 200 charging stations this year.
In May of this year, R Automobile opened its iconic building, R SPACE, at the entrance of Beijing’s Huamao Plaza. This move is similar to NIO House which NIO set up in a prime location in 2017, and the two years has proved its positive effect on brand building.
Many times, our focus is often concentrated solely on the product, and instead, we overlook the after-sales service, energy replenishment, and continuous iteration capabilities. In fact, times have changed, and it’s time to look at comprehensive capabilities beyond just the product strength.
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.