文 | FeiFeiYe

The pandemic storm centered in Shanghai continues.

Just after a difficult IPO press conference, IM Auto’s engineers refreshed the Guinness Record for the longest electric vehicle drift on a wet road with an L7 driven by Wei Pengda at the Tianma Circuit in Shanghai. During the 250 consecutive drifts, covering a distance of 42.1 kilometers, IM Auto’s CEO Liu Tao exclaimed excitedly off-camera, “It’s not overtaking on a bend, it’s directly overtaking Porsche!”

This leap forward has caused a lot of industry attention, and it’s the first time that such a form has been seen.

Over an hour, against the same backdrop, a story of a Chinese auto brand’s rise was told in this way.

Liu Tao said, “What we really want to challenge is the seemingly unbreakable and untouchable performance criteria of fuel-powered vehicles in terms of power and handling that have been established over the past 135 years.”

This particular sentence touched me deeply.

From the outset, IM Auto decided to take a road that few others have taken.

Hard roads are never crowded. Now that it has an opportunity, it has begun to break through like a hawk flapping its wings.

Warning

“We may not be able to predict disasters, but we can prevent them.”

At the end of February, when the pandemic had just emerged in Shanghai, IM’s team spent every day reviewing epidemic-related information, meeting, establishing procedures and sharpening solutions.

They planned to invite users from Angel Round and Round A, as well as media, to experience the IM L7 Snake Move super-sensory driving sensation live and witness the pinnacle moment of the L7’s challenge to the Guinness Record of “the longest electric drift” at the Tianma Circuit on March 29, as well as announcing its debut amid a brilliant light show.

Everyone was thrilled about this moment of glory.

However, the pandemic was changing rapidly, and IM began to enrich its contingency plans for the pandemic. Every day, they walked on “two legs,” whether online or offline, from site selection to press conference plans.

Liu Tao said, “We must prepare for change with flexibility.”

However, can the weight of the L7 release be carried through with a pre-recorded broadcast? He said, “The challenge is enormous.”

Nevertheless, IM quickly established a “wartime organization” with a relay-style wheel set.

At the end of February, after the completion of partial site setup, in early March, they officially began recording at the Tianma Circuit, meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention.

Only the participating staff have been decreasing every day, such as “They were fine last night, but couldn’t show up this morning,” and “Our community is blocked. Who can connect with me online?” Every morning at around 6 o’clock, the work group receives emergency texts.

In the last few days, front-line personnel were particularly scarce. Xu Ji, the PR Manager of IM Auto, and his colleagues held a walkie-talkie in one hand and a loudspeaker in the other, running around the Tianma Circuit. After a few rounds, they were soaked in sweat, and their “mask face” became visible due to the hot weather, which reached nearly 30 degrees Celsius.

During the recording, a tricky point was the presentation of the drifting light show, which not only had to consider the perfect lighting effect but also couldn’t allow the lights to interfere with the drift of the two cars.

“We can only optimize the lighting effect during shooting through simulation and adjust testing while building, and evaluate the effect of lighting on drifting along with the driver. This process is such a huge challenge, and we are racing against time.” Nick, the PR Manager of IM Auto said.

After initial recording, one problem followed another.

Jiading District, where IM Auto was located, became a COVID-19 epidemic area. Their office building was sealed off, and the editing studio was also locked down. The IM STUDIO team, responsible for post-production editing, completed the preliminary editing of the launch event video in a series of “guerrilla warfare” battles before the COVID-19 outbreak. Subsequent modifications and live broadcasts were all completed online by the teams working from their homes.

Looking from another perspective, this was a comprehensive training exercise for IM Auto. What especially attracted me to them was that they were problem solvers and they wished to try their best to achieve what they considered to be the best.

Everyone who persists under pressure and moves forward with determination deserves our admiration.

Purpose

“Difficult roads are less traveled.”

IM Auto has always said “What cars should look like in the intelligent age”.

Over the more than a year of L7 warming up, IM Auto has talked about domestic and foreign art masters, the Unearthed Valley user data rights and interests plan, the “0” handover of intelligent driving, the wood of Como Lake, the super-low wind resistance of streamlined beauty, and the specialized tuning of Williams.

I have always wondered what the ultimate core of their message would be.

L7’s answer sheet was far beyond most people’s expectations: driving control.

An outdated and unfashionable concept. With the sci-fi and intelligent era looming ahead, shouldn’t everything related to driving instead of intelligence be thrown into the garbage heap of history?

It is precisely this most basic value that has touched me to a certain extent.

In the automotive industry, technology can be overturned and innovated, but the most primitive and essential value in the century-long development of the industry should never be overturned due to the change in vehicle driving mode.

“When it comes to luxury brands and driving control, it is a convention and logic that conforms to the core values of the automotive industry.” Liu Tao said, “More importantly, good driving control is also the core demand of the era of electrification. Electric cars can easily enter the 3-second club, but for even faster speeds, there must be a matched chassis control. Without good control, it is like installing a high-power car engine on a carriage, and the result is bound to be a car crash.”

Therefore, when we planned this car three years ago, the ultimate control and sports car experience was the most important of the three major product highlights.”

Building a well-driving electric car is valuable, but also difficult.

As Liu Tao once said, “You can stack the best steering gear, suspension, electric-controlled suspension, and rear-wheel steering in the world without any problem if you have enough money. But what you can’t achieve is tuning.”

In a sense, this is also the starting point for Smart to cooperate with the Williams Advanced Engineering team with an F1 background.

It is said that the British were not interested in tuning the L7 at first until Smart brought the L7 to the UK. After the director of the Williams team personally experienced it, they reached a consensus: “The IM L7 is one of the greatest performance cars we have worked on.”

Over the next year, the L7 underwent two rounds of tuning. In the second round of tuning, Liu Tao even personally led a chassis team to participate in chassis upgrades and tuning.

Any light, no matter how small, can be ignited as long as one is willing to get involved.

“We will eventually cross here and become warriors.”

With the performance in place, the next step is real combat.

For a long time, Chinese intelligent electric car users have not received sufficient respect and understanding. Smart hopes to let users know that when they buy a Smart car, they can be proud to drive it by launching a challenge to traditional car brands. Just like what one of their users said, “My car is the king of New World driving control, and it sounds cool when I say it.”Those who watched the release event will remember that most of the time, there was a white IM L7 drifting alone in the slippery track in the lower right corner of the screen. In the end, it drifted for 1 hour 6 minutes, 258 laps, and 43.646 kilometers, successfully breaking the Guinness World Record for the “longest drifting distance” for electric cars.

The challenge was completed by the IM high-performance car’s sports director Wei Pengda, also known as “Driver 0” within the department.

“After the first time I drove the actual car, I was shocked by the IM L7’s powerful dynamics and chassis balance. As a car enthusiast, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the era of driving pleasure for electric cars has arrived.” That night, he wrote a PPT to apply to drive the IM L7 to challenge the 1 year and 5 months world record held by the Porsche Taycan in the drifting field.

How difficult was this challenge?

First, experience. No team in China has ever achieved a continuous long-time circular drifting challenge. In the past, the core technology and experience in this field were held by international automotive giants such as Porsche, BMW, and Toyota, who possess world-class staff, professional circular wetland drifting tracks, and refined practical experience.

Second, the track. Continuously drifting around a circle requires a high degree of flatness and water film thickness from the track. Even if the track at the Tianma Circuit reaches the level of a race track, it still cannot provide the necessary degree of flatness. As we can see, there were local areas with deeper standing water during the drifting challenge, and these factors undoubtedly will disrupt the dynamic balance of the vehicle during drifting.

Third, temperature. The temperature in Shanghai is around 10 degrees Celsius in February and March. Compared with the challenge that the Taycan completed in August, the low temperature has a great impact on the driving range.

Fourth, certification. Because of the epidemic situation, this certification was conducted remotely online, and the conditions were particularly strict. Finally, 6 synchronous cameras filmed from inside the car, outside the car, and the sky, as well as 4 local experts in the drifting field who held valid qualifications recognized by Guinness as on-site judges.

Wei Pengda is not a professional drifting driver, and this is also a new challenge for his skills and physical endurance. Even if there is fog in front and a cliff behind, he said, “I also want to try.” To fight for every 0.1 second, he joked: “I and our team have seen what the Tianma Circuit looks like at 4 o’clock in the morning countless times.”

Steady.”No victory can be achieved; staying stable is everything.”

The epidemic has poured a lot of disaster on the real economy.

The trend of Xindianqi’s new energy, once the spread and production delays caused by shutdowns, followed by sales and cash flow difficulties, is enough to make the already fragile new force of car building fall in any link.

This is a war for everyone, but there are always people standing on the front line.

“We have a production plan for a batch of IM L7 vehicles,” said Jin Weifeng, director of quality and delivery at IM Auto, “These vehicles are mainly delivered to dealers for showroom display and new car test drives.”

In the final sprint stage, 13 front-line employees took the initiative to form an “emergency team” to ensure production and supply. They quickly packed their baggage and rushed back to the Lingang factory before their own community was closed off. Shortly thereafter, various departments rushed to help, including quality delivery, engineering teams, logistics teams, SQE, etc., and expanded to 28 people in no time.

These people have a small “bedtime chat” every night, which has even become a “brainstorming” session for product quality improvement. They discuss together how to make this car more perfect. For this reason, they are attentive to every subtle sensation of the vehicle during the day’s debugging work and list a detailed checklist of over 100 items. For example, the tailgate switch and the feedback and operation feel of the steering wheel button. The emergency team has further optimized these aspects.

Data experts Cai Xiang and Xia Yu also took the initiative to stay on duty at the Innovation Port.

Fortunately, the team had carried out a “main disaster backup” plan in advance to ensure the integrity and operation of data and systems. The cloud mode of this “main disaster backup” played a miraculous role in the epidemic, and the software integration platform operated normally. All automatic development and software version updates were released as scheduled according to the original plan.

User contact person Li Weimeng and project manager Yan Zhiming each drove a test vehicle back home before the closure.

“The first thing we do when we wake up every morning is to ask in the group if anyone needs me to test anything? Then we record one-by-one the requirements raised by product and design colleagues before testing,” said Li Weimeng.

Now, the war for resumption of work by IM Auto is underway, but the battle for resumption of production has never stopped.

Prologue

“You ask me where to go, I point to the direction of the sea.”

Perhaps 2022 is another river that IM has never crossed.The current situation is like everyone being thrown into a river, and the most important thing is for everyone to start swimming immediately. No one knows where this river will flow, but at least one must believe in one’s own ability to swim, which is part of its resilience in crisis.

This is inevitably a long-term battle, where the initial comparison is based on inspiration, courage, and luck, and what follows is perseverance, vision and rationality. In any situation, we should strive to be the most trustworthy partner for our customers.

As Liu Tao said, “This is the Long-Termism that we must adhere to, to give customers certainty.”

I believe that one day, these trusts will accumulate and become a crucial force to support Chinese brands like SmartVision.

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.