Author: Chang Yan

Love is not easy.

The most conflicting term in love is “having loved”.

The most painful ending is “stopped loving”.

The greatest challenge and determination is to “love again”.

Often, what determines whether ideals can be achieved is a big promise.

My emotional understanding of R cars seems to be related to the Huangpu River.

At the beginning, I stood on the deck of a cruise ship on the Huangpu River, looking at the unmanned aerial vehicles drawing a large R logo in the sky, envisioning the surprises and changes this brand could bring to the booming new energy market.

Later, while walking along the riverbank with someone, I happened to encounter R SPACE. Although I circled around the modified ER6 outside several times, I still felt that it was a bit far from the promise that R cars wanted to give us.

This promise is called “Technology Realizes Imagination.”

And this time, when I saw R cars again on the banks of the Huangpu River, they finally brought out a work that attempts to reignite the love of all consumers: ES33.

Advanced

For smart electric vehicles, you can basically tell if they are good or not with just one look.

Design service functions that are specifically designed for smart electric vehicles can better leverage the unique configuration and ideas of the car, and the design embodies the temperament. It reflects the manufacturer’s attitude towards electrification and determines which consumers the car aims to attract and serve.

Although the previous two models, ER6 and Marvel R, had unique designs and were constantly evolving, you could still see shadows of other products or even products from the fossil fuel era, weakening the originality and seeming to have a hint of compromise.

Even though ES33 had already made its debut at the Chengdu Auto Show before, a close encounter with it made it unforgettable.

This is a product that looks like it was designed from scratch for the electric era.

In the electric era, the power that design needs to demonstrate is already undergoing changes.

For instance, as Mr. Shao Jingfeng, Deputy Chief Designer of SAIC Technology Center and Global Executive Director of Design Center, pointed out, designers for fuel-powered vehicles often hope to create super long hoods with large grilles to suggest the immense power of the engine. However, it is evident that such a display is unnecessary for electric vehicles.

Thus, the ES33 features a fully enclosed design with no grille, while highlighting the values of electrical platforms with unique side skirts. This design is also quite premium.

“Premium” may sound mystical, but there are still established rules for design.

The wider a car is and the more evident its aerodynamic bumps are in contrast, the more it will remind people of high performance and positioning.

The ES33 not only adopts more complex and varied aerodynamic designs, but also chooses an overall shape for crossover cars, giving it a more striking appearance than standard SUVs and sedans.

The front and rear lights are the most detailed parts of the design. The ES33’s headlights feature a typical intelligent car design with daytime running lights and a separate main light group. With the optional seven-star light group, laser headlights can be provided to further enhance brightening capabilities.

More attention is paid to the taillights, which feature a multi-dimensional three-dimensional design that requires high levels of production expertise.

Furthermore, we have learned that a low-roof version of the ES33 sedan will soon be introduced, signifying the completion of the overall evolution and transformation of the R car product line.

Smart

When writing this section header, I need to refute the first sentence of the previous paragraph.

Whether a car is smart or not, it should not be judged solely on its appearance.## Introduction

This is why many new brands are still regarded as “traditional brands” despite their large sales.

To some extent, smart cars today are like personal computers 20 years ago, with each configuration clearly listed in the spec sheet, and it is clear whether it is good or bad at a glance.

The accelerated iteration of smart hardware has also accelerated the “obsolete” speed of a spec sheet, which requires a ruthless approach when launching.

Top Configuration

One detail is that most of the official pictures displayed on site use the top configuration version with a roof-mounted LiDAR.

In addition to being a functional requirement, I think it is more of a demand for ability demonstration.

The top configuration version of ES33 has basically reached the top level of the current public market configuration.

Hardware

In terms of intelligent cockpit, high-pass 8155 chip is used;

In terms of advanced driving assistance, it has NVIDIA Orin chip, Luminar LiDAR, 4D millimeter wave radar, as well as 5G and V2X functions that R car has been warming up for a long time.

In the three-electric drive field, it has multiple battery packs with different capacities but the same specifications, and the maximum can even reach 115 kWh.

There is nothing to picky about in terms of hardware in this price range.

Software and Design

However, personally, I will observe two points in the long term.

First, the self-research and integration ability of the software layer, which determines the practical effect and user experience of the entire system.

Second, the design logic of the model configuration. In this era where everything is data-driven, an important assessment point for intelligent car brands is the adoption rate of intelligent configuration. If these configurations only appear in the top configuration but are ignored, it is difficult to promote intelligence in the future. This greatly tests a brand’s understanding of the current competitive landscape.

Overview

I was surprised to hear about R car’s sales target and service system construction.

Jiang Hui, COO of R car, even introduced the confidence in sales at the beginning. It took R car 10 months to complete the delivery of the first 10,000 vehicles, and it is expected to take 4-5 months for the second 10,000 vehicles, and roughly 3 months for the third 10,000 vehicles.

At that time, it would be July next year-the day when ES33 started to be delivered.

If this data has no water content, it indicates that R automobile will be able to deliver more than 3000 units per month, establishing a stable position among mainstream brands, and then wait for ES33 to achieve the next round of sales promotion.

If this key model is compared to a level 2 rocket, the ability to achieve a level 3 leap for this brand lies outside of the car itself.

For example, sales ability. Currently, R automobile has fewer sales outlets, but the official statement is “our single-store sales volume is already close to “Wei Xiaoli” and other leading new forces.”

Another example is energy supplementation. Many users and media present have stated that there are already many R automobile charging stations in Shanghai and southern China, and it was also learned through on-site communication that ES33 may have the ability to swap batteries, and the layout of relevant battery swap stations is already under construction.

Compared with other new brands of the same nature during the same period, the overall ecological construction of R automobile undoubtedly conforms more to the play of modern intelligent vehicles. Although it seems that some layouts and on-sale models are slightly ahead and redundant, they may just coincide with the outbreak point of ES33.

For R automobile, ES33 has become the most important and inevitable trump card.

Although this car is already prepared to face the market, whether it can become a hot seller depends more on the work that needs to be done in the future.

This includes the soft research and development of the product, including more widely understood product promotion, as well as sufficiently stable production quality and production capacity ramp-up.

All of these directly determine how your love is expressed, and most importantly:

Whether your love can be perceived.

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.