This “little cannon” only costs 120,000 for top configuration.

On August 1st, at China Joy in Shanghai, GAC Aion announced the official price of its Aion Imax: 98,800 to 128,000 yuan.

Design Focused

At last year’s Guangzhou Auto Show, I had a close look at the “EMPOWER 55,” which is now known as the Aion Imax.

To be honest, the external design deeply impressed me. The matte green paint with bold yellow accents, the plunging front design, and the tailpipes with factory valves standing out on both sides.

In terms of external design, gasoline-powered cars have evolved to the point where all the best designs have been taken. The external design of the Aion Imax, however, exudes the qualities of AMG, M-Power, and RS, with a high degree of originality.

Thanks to the excellent external design, this car has a high and wide ratio of 0.773 (1,850 mm wide and 1,432 mm high), while the average four-door sedan is around 0.83. The aerodynamic drag coefficient is also only 0.26, while the typical sedan’s coefficient is above 0.3.

Cloud Review

In terms of power, the car’s powertrain is uniform across all models and can accelerate to 100 km/h in under 7 seconds:

• The 1.5T turbocharged engine can produce a maximum power of 130 kW and a maximum torque of 270 N·m;
• 7-speed wet dual-clutch transmission;
• Front McPherson strut suspension, rear multi-link independent suspension.

Although I have not test-driven it, I must focus on the Aion Imax’s suspension design. GAC Aion has put a lot of careful thought into the suspension design:

• By reducing the distance between the front suspension’s primary pivot and the wheel center, and thereby reducing the front suspension’s anti-interference force arm, vehicle interference vibration transmitted to the steering wheel from uneven road surfaces is optimized.

• The front subframe has additional small longitudinal beam structures and ten-point mounting, while the rear subframe is rigidly connected to the body with six-point mounting, greatly improving the suspension’s dynamic and static stiffness. Furthermore, increasing the stiffness of the swing arm bushing at the front improves the suspension’s lateral stiffness.

• Increasing the front wheel’s inclination angle and the rearward tilt distance improves the vehicle’s steering wheel return performance. During high-speed driving, the steering wheel is held steadily in the middle position, without any drift, improving the driver’s confidence.- By designing the match of suspension geometry, the leverage ratio of suspension elastic components (such as shock absorbers, suspension springs, and lateral stabilizer bars) is increased to reduce the stress on the elastic components. The leverage ratios of the front and rear shock absorbers are 0.95 and 0.985 respectively. When the vehicle passes over rough road surfaces and speed bumps, it reduces the vibration transmitted from the wheels to the interior of the vehicle;

• By adopting the DP-EPS power steering system and reducing the steering ratio, the steering sensitivity is improved. Compared with CEPS, it doubles the rigidity of the steering system, greatly improving the steering response sensitivity.

Intelligentization

In terms of intelligence, this 100,000-level “steel cannon” family sedan surprised me in two aspects.

On the assisted driving capability:

• The main sales model of Shadow Leopard supports L2 level assisted driving capability, providing one-key follow-up.

• The driver’s fatigue level is divided into three levels: when mild fatigue is triggered, a voice reminder and pop-up prompt will be given to ensure safe driving; when moderate fatigue is triggered, a voice reminder and pop-up prompt will be given, and refreshing music will be played to wake up the driver; when severe fatigue is triggered, a voice reminder and pop-up prompt will be given, refreshing music will be played, and the air conditioning will be turned on;

• When the map is opened, within the visible range of the in-car monitoring camera, slide your palm from right to left to switch the map interface from the multifunctional display screen to the instrument panel screen; slide your palm from left to right to switch the map interface from the instrument panel screen to the multifunctional display screen. However, this function needs to wait for later OTA.

The functions of the intelligent cockpit are very rich:

• ADiGO voice OS, dual-tone area sound positioning can quickly lock the service target; AIUI interesting Q&A increases the entertainment of the vehicle;

• Accurate facial recognition for intelligent welcome; fine emotion recognition for intelligent recommendation; accurate expression recognition to activate the third-level fatigue relief and distraction reminder;

• Precise gesture recognition to experience intelligent control, with functions such as gesture change of music and gesture change of map;

• Shadow Leopard has healthy functions such as smoking ventilation, active ventilation and air conditioning mildew prevention to help adjust the good internal environment for drivers and passengers;

• The functions such as screen lighting when the line of sight appears (when the screen is in the off screen state, the multifunctional display screen automatically lights up when the driver looks at the screen), Cantonese recognition, etc. make it more humane and technological.- Noise reduction during calls, the industry’s first emotional music feature (when selecting songs via voice assistant, the cabin monitoring system can play corresponding types of music based on the current emotions of the driver and passengers);

• With HUAWEI Hicar, the car can be connected to a mobile phone.

Conclusion

In terms of a metric of a midsize sedan that costs around 100,000 yuan, this car certainly offers great value for all the features it provides: sporty exterior, sophisticated design, powerful engine, and various interesting functions that can be OTA updated. As a matter of fact, it has received over 15,000 orders so far, according to information from GAC Motor.

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.