Six years of car making, only for strength
Author: The Turbocharged Little Fatty
A thousand miles to write a book, all for the wall, making it three feet high is nothing at all. The Great Wall still stands today, but the Emperor Qin who built it has long since passed away.
– Zhang Ying, Qing Dynasty
Six years of car making, only for strength, making it 30,000 is nothing at all. Haval Euler still stands today, but WEY from yesteryear is nowhere to be found.
– Me, the Little Fatty
P.S. Remember to pronounce WEY in English alphabet to rhyme with the rest…
I changed the opening of the post to a seven-character quatrain from Zhang Ying, which I think is suitable for the present-day “WEY brand”. As for the reason, please listen to me carefully…
Last night, the WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV was officially launched. At the pre-sale event which I attended, WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV announced the pre-sale prices for two models ranging from 299,000 to 315,000 yuan. Usually, the official launch price is slightly lower than the pre-sale price, as a sign of good faith.
This time, the official price of the WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV is as expected, but only the low-end model has a certain amount of price reduction compared to the pre-sale price, while the high-end model remains strong at 315,000 yuan:
WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV offers a total of two models: Smart Edition and Performance Edition, with a price range of 295,000 to 315,000 yuan.
Six years of car making, only for strength
In 2016, Great Wall officially launched the luxury SUV sub-brand WEY. At that time, domestic brands had been “fighting to death” within 100,000 yuan, and WEY’s appearance intended to break the impasse. Subsequently, domestic high-end sub-brands, represented by WEY, emerged and began to move forward along the road of upward brand positioning, breaking away from low-end positioning, and treating joint venture brands as rivals, with prices entering the range of 100,000-200,000 yuan.
The original intention of WEY was to compete with joint venture brands and build stronger products. With the introduction of the WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV, it seems that WEY is regaining momentum, and the 300,000 yuan price range is raising the bar again.
First, let’s take a look at the basic information of the WEY Mocha DHT-PHEV:
- Positioned as a plug-in hybrid mid-size SUV;- The body dimensions are 4875 mm in length, 1960 mm in width and 1690 mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2915 mm.
- Equipped with a 1.5T four-cylinder engine, with a maximum power of 115 kW and a maximum output of 156 horsepower.
- The Intelligent Edition is equipped with a front-mounted single electric motor with a system comprehensive power of 291 kW and comprehensive torque of 570 N・m, with 0-100 km/h acceleration in 7.4 seconds.
- The Performance Edition is equipped with front and rear dual electric motors, with a system comprehensive power of 355 kW and comprehensive torque of 762 N・m, with 0-100 km/h acceleration in 4.8 seconds.
- Both versions use a ternary lithium battery pack with a capacity of 39.67 kWh, providing a pure electric range of up to 204 km under the WLTC cycle and an overall range of over 1000 km.
If you ask what are the biggest highlights of the WmAuto Mocha DHT-PHEV, my answer would be the following three: Intelligent DHT technology, Coffee Intelligence, and NOH Smart Navigation Assistance.
Firstly, there is the “Intelligent DHT Technology,” which can provide various working modes such as pure electric driving, hybrid driving, and serial hybrid driving, with a highly integrated, efficient, and multi-mode oil-electric system that satisfies both power performance and the demand for pure electric urban commuting.
According to the “2021 China Urban Commuting Monitoring Report,” the average commuting distance in 42 cities across the country is 38 kilometers per day, and 58% of pure electric car users want to charge their cars only once a week. From the perspective of car use, car owners still do not want to feel anxious about range and energy replenishment when traveling.
Therefore, compared to the 15-25 kWh battery packs used in most plug-in hybrid models, the WmAuto Mocha DHT-PHEV increases the battery pack capacity directly to 39.67 kWh. It can achieve a pure electric range of up to 204 km under the WLTC cycle, more than twice that of other plug-in hybrid models.
Another highlight is Coffee Intelligence. The WmAuto Mocha DHT-PHEV is equipped with a new voice assistant called Xiao Wei Classmate 2.0, which supports highly accurate speech recognition features such as visible-to-talk, 20-second continuous conversation, and context comprehension. It also has sensory perception capabilities both inside and outside the vehicle, with features such as immersive graphics, computer vision, AR-HUD, and VIMS facial recognition.
In terms of intelligent services, the Mocha DHT-PHEV is equipped with various service functions such as Smart Refueling, Smart Parking, Intelligent Maintenance, Intelligent Claims, Driver-on-demand, Gold Medal Technicians, and Intelligent Customer Service.
Finally, the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant, developed by Howest Intelligent Driving, includes the HWA High-speed Driving Assistance and NOH Smart Navigation Assistance functions of the smart driving system, which can achieve autonomous access and exit ramps, autonomous avoidance of merging entrances, and L2 + assisted driving.
As for the experience of the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant, the Mocha fuel model Wei Pai Mocha Smart Navigation Version was previously offered. However, in the Mocha DHT-PHEV, the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant comes standard.
Previously, I was also invited by Howest Intelligent Driving to participate in the experience of the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant of this model. The impression it left on me was quite good. Interested friends can check out the experience video at that time:
In terms of intelligent driving, in addition to the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant, the Mocha DHT-PHEV is also equipped with functions such as Fusion parking, Remote parking, Tracking reverse, and Transparent chassis.
Why not 30,000?
“Independent Brand”, “300,000 Level”, “Mid-size SUV”, “Plug-in Hybrid”, the only model that can be compared with the Wei Pai Mocha DHT-PHEV with these labels is the BYD Tang.
The price of the Mocha DHT-PHEV ranges from 295,000 to 315,000 yuan, which is 100,000 yuan higher than the price of the BYD Tang DM-i, which ranges from 189,800 to 216,800 yuan. The biggest difference between them, except for their respective plug-in hybrid systems, is that the Wei Pai Mocha DHT-PHEV is equipped with the NOH Smart Navigation Assistant.
The pure electric range of BYD Tang DM-i in NEDC test cycle is 112 km, about half of the pure electric range of 204 km for Mocha DHT-PHEV under more stringent WLTC test cycle.
Meanwhile, in terms of the account data, Mocha DHT-PHEV has stronger power performance and comprehensive fuel consumption performance compared to BYD Tang DM-i.
If the difference is only this, the price difference of 100,000 yuan “I won’t choose Li”.
However, compared to the price range of 239,800-289,800 yuan for BYD Tang DM, Wei Pai Mocha DHT-PHEV is only 30,000 yuan higher, “I can barely choose Li”…
With the longer pure electric range, stronger fuel economy, and the hard requirement of advanced driver assistance system for someone like me who occasionally travels far, Wei Pai Mocha DHT-PHEV is indeed a good choice.
Haval Euler Is Still Here, But Where Is WEY?
With the focus on brands such as Euler, Tank, Cannon, and Haval in the past two years, the activity of WEY brand has gradually been weakened.
In the first few years after the appearance of WEY brand, the sales of VV5, VV6, and VV7 SUV models were evident. It has to be said that WEY’s success at that time allowed more and more people to see new hopes in the Chinese automobile industry.
This year is the 6th year since the establishment of the WEY brand. Its name has changed from Wei Pai to Wei Pai obtained by exchanging trademarks with BYD. We witnessed the changes of Wei Pai in the past 6 years, and also witnessed its sales decline from the high level to the present.
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VV7: Sold more than 50,000 units in the entire year of 2017 (not a complete sales year), sold more than 50,000 units in the entire year of 2018, sold less than 20,000 units in the entire year of 2019, and suspended production from 2020 to the middle of 2021, with a total sales of only more than 3,000 units.
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VV6: Sold less than 20,000 units in 2018 (not the full year of sales), nearly 70,000 units in 2019, over 70,000 units in 2020, and a total sales volume of only 15,000 units until mid-year 2021 due to the suspension of production.
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VV5: Sold over 30,000 units in 2017 (not the full year of sales), over 60,000 units in 2018, over 20,000 units in 2019, and a total sales volume of less than 30,000 units from 2020 to mid-year 2021 due to the suspension of production.
The two most popular models contributed to a sales volume of over 100,000 units for the Wei brand in two years. However, during the one and a half years of suspension of production from 2020 to mid-year 2021, the total sales volume of the three models was less than 50,000 units.
Finally
According to Wei’s plan, the product matrix of the new product categories will be further enriched. On the one hand, the coffee series will be vertically deepened. On the other hand, the layout of subdivided categories will be expanded horizontally. At the same time, the MPV models will also be introduced to the Wei brand.
The appearance of Mocha DHT-PHEV shows us a Wei brand that is “rebuilding”. At least, as a pioneer that once led domestic brands to go high-end, I still hope that it can regain its past glory.
However, the road to “upgrading the brand” requires time and accumulation, and it is not achieved overnight. Mocha DHT-PHEV, priced at 300,000 yuan, has more than one competitor to overcome.
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.