Author: Qiu Kaijun

New brand, new model, great dream – at this year’s Guangzhou Auto Show, Salon Zhixing, the high-end brand under Great Wall Motors, can be said to be outstanding.

On November 19th, Salon Zhixing held a brand and first model launch conference at the Guangzhou Auto Show. That night, a brand night event lasting more than 2 hours was also held. The CEO of Salon Zhixing, Wen Fei, and other executives spoke with high spirits, full of confidence, and with the release of the bold car design and a lot of information, Salon Zhixing can be said to be one of the highlights of this year’s Guangzhou Auto Show.

Chinese people’s national character likes modesty. Salon Zhixing is so high-profile, isn’t it afraid of people’s resentment? From WeChat groups, friends’ circles, and media reports, there is indeed considerable controversy focused on the design’s patchwork feeling, whether the product’s performance can be achieved, and whether the company’s goals are too ambitious.

Backing up by Great Wall Motors is certainly Salon Zhixing’s confidence. In addition to the support of capital and technology, Salon Zhixing also has the intellectual support of Great Wall Motors’ product strategy and marketing that they have been operating for many years. The power of the product must be fought for, and the consumer’s mentality must also be fought for.

From the Euler, Tank, and Cannon series, it can be seen that Great Wall Motors does not care about everyone’s opinions. It only needs to please the part of the people it wants to please.

The problem is the realization of the product, value, and experience’s delivery ability for core users. Being high-profile is not a problem, as long as the power of the product keeps up. If not, being low-key is useless.

Although the “Electric Vehicle Observer” has previously revealed Salon Zhixing’s brand and first model Core Information in the article “Salon Car’s Ambitious Goal: To Be the High-End Pure Electric First Brand Above 400,000,” Salon Zhixing has revealed more at the auto show. So, let’s take a look at what flags are set by Salon Zhixing and whether they can achieve them.

Let’s first talk about an interesting detail – after blowing their horns on the brand night, Wen Fei and other executives brought a picture frame of the machine dragon and signed their names on it to show their serious commitment. Wen Fei said that he also thought about having everyone bite their fingers and write blood letters – which of course did not happen.

Power of the Product:

With its appearance alone, Salon Zhixing’s first model, the Machine Dragon, is enough to attract many people to stop.

At an auto show full of curved beauty, the Machine Dragon’s straight lines and sharp edges make it unique.

From the front, you can’t find any curves – the front is like a hard-core assembly of chunks of steel plates. Especially when viewed from the side, the front engine cover has a 160° bend, and is also designed with an active air intake grille, which has some of the characteristics of a fuel-efficient car, but also has a rigid color of the Machine Dragon.

The Machine Dragon’s full-series standard matrix-style integrated LED headlights integrate all the lights at the front of the car and are not conventional, like the lights of a mechanical dragon in a science fiction film.

The Mech-Dragon’s side is full of angular lines, especially the contour formed by the lines of the front, A-pillar, roof, C-pillar, and rear, which sharply contrasts with the streamlined contours of many other cars.

The only curve on the entire car may be the thick arc-shaped wheel eyebrows, which are like the trapezius muscles on a boxer’s shoulders, giving people a feeling of immense power that could explode at any moment.

At the back of the Mech-Dragon, the intelligent taillights are the first to be equipped with Mini-LED external display technology. The official website claims that the graphics and even text can be customized. When the two side lights are lit, they resemble flames jetting from an airplane.

The Mech-Dragon also has dynamic dual-layered taillights that only unfold at high speeds, creating a strong sense of sports and ritual.

In terms of intelligent driving, the Mech-Dragon is highly anticipated. It has the “strongest” super-intelligent sensing system on the surface of the Earth, the world’s first 4 laser radars, and is the only vehicle globally to achieve 360° panoramic coverage of laser radars, as well as having the most extensive 38 smart sensing elements, forming a five-fold panoramic coverage. Furthermore, with the world’s first dual MDC intelligent driving computing platform, dual safety redundancy gives users doubly the safety.

With the support of the Captain-Pilot intelligent driving system, the Salon Mech-Dragon can also achieve “high-speed+urban+parking+connectivity” end-to-end intelligent assisted driving, enabling users to “free their hands” anytime, anywhere. Additionally, this system can be upgraded to L4 level of automatic driving.

Regarding the intelligent cockpit, the Mech-Dragon is equipped with the “Source-Code” Mech-Control Cockpit, developed for future driving and riding, with the most potent 1+2+4+7 cockpit interaction capabilities. A high-performance Qualcomm 8155 chip, dual in-vehicle cameras (DMS+OMS), four independent audio areas, and seven interactive screens make up the intelligent cockpit interaction system of the Salon Mech-Dragon.

As for its electric performance, the Mech-Dragon adopts high-performance permanent magnet synchronous motors at the front and rear, with a zero to one hundred km/h acceleration of only 3.7 seconds and is equipped with the world’s leading dual sound wave simulation system. Moreover, the Mech-Dragon has a CLTC range of 802km and the world’s first D-Jade battery technology that can withstand high temperatures of 1000℃ without catching fire or exploding.

Regarding charging, the Mech-Dragon also features the world’s leading 800V/480kW high-efficiency energy replenishment technology and related APA wireless charging function. Charging under CLTC standards can extend the driving range by 401km with only 10 minutes of charging.

Planted many flags.Apart from showcasing the Mecha Dragon at the auto show, Salon Zhixing’s executives including Wen Fei also revealed more plans regarding products, marketing, services, and operations during the Brand Night event.

Regarding the company’s positioning, Salon Zhixing aims to be a “technology giant” and establish a full-stack self-research and self-production setup, building a complete industrial chain layout from elements, packs, batteries to whole vehicles and services.

In terms of products, Salon Zhixing aims to create a “full-scenario Mecha series” and launch 1-2 Mecha products every year in the next five years, covering sedans, SUVs, MPVs, COUPES, and CROSS.

In the product design aspect, Wen Fei said that Salon Zhixing’s goal is to make “each model a classic after a hundred years.”

Regarding energy supplementation, Salon Zhixing will carry out a comprehensive energy infrastructure construction, including large-scale power brand charging stations in core cities. Future charging may reach up to 480kW. Additionally, Salon Zhixing will construct a power network composed of more than 10,000 charging piles, connecting the “One Belt, Two Axes, and Four Circles.” Over 300k top-quality charging piles will be set up in key cities to cover over 95% of users’ travel destinations.

In terms of sales channels, Salon Zhixing did not provide a disruptive answer anymore but only gave some thoughts on direction and channel coverage objectives. Salon Zhixing’s CMO, Zhou Wen, said that the sales aspect adopts a 100% direct operation model, and the user’s contact interface will also be 100% direct operation. “However, in the service aspect, we may use a combination of direct operation and authorization.”

Regarding the development of sales and service networks, we follow two principles: the best user experience and priority efficiency.

Salon Zhixing will create a completely different channel, including conventional channels and diverse ones like mobile and pop-up storefronts. “We hope to cover over 98% of the high-end regions in the market and achieve coverage from over 200 channels by the end of 2023,” said Zhou Wen.

Regarding the overall enterprise management level, Wen Fei stated Salon Zhixing’s ambition to be the earliest among China’s new car brands to achieve profitability, break through 100,000 vehicles sold, and exceed 10 billion yuan in revenue.

During the release event, Wen Fei also revealed that all 101 units of the limited edition mecha dragon, priced at 488,000 yuan, were sold out within three hours and thirty-eight minutes after pre-orders opened at 10:00 am. Salon Zhixing’s grand goal also had a good start.

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.