Jia Haonan Posted from the Co-pilot’s Temple
Reference to Intelligent Cars | Official account AI4Auto
The electric bathing king is here.
Cadillac’s first pure electric vehicle, also known as the LIRIQ or Ruige, is officially on sale, starting from 440,000 yuan.
In China’s online BGM community, the Ruige is known as the “Electric Bathing King” and the rising star of the “Daobaojian Car Club”. It is full of drama:
Just imagine, hands off the wheel, using intelligent driving to get a bath and massage. Is this experience not even more luxurious and cool?
Yes, the Ruige is not just an electric car, but rather an intelligent electric vehicle that is fundamentally different from other traditional OEMs’ oil-to-electric transitions.
It comes from General Motors’ thick-expectations-based pure electric platform, Ultium. What makes the Ruige different? What is the smart experience like? Is it worth buying? Let’s take a closer look.
What does the 440,000 RMB Ruige have to offer?
It’s a mid to large-sized pure electric SUV.
The vehicle is 5003mm long with a 3094mm wheelbase.
This size is similar to that of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class.
In terms of configuration, there are mainly two types: a 653km rear-wheel-drive long-endurance version (divided into mid and low-end versions), and a 600km four-wheel-drive high-performance version, with accelerations of 6.35 seconds and 4.9 seconds per 100km, respectively.
In terms of pricing:
Selling for 440,000 to 480,000 yuan, the price of the Ruige is truly high, whether viewed as a new energy vehicle or as a luxury vehicle.
After all, the brand premium is higher than that of Mercedes-Benz, the leader of the first-line luxury goods, who also have discounted EQA and EQB vehicles priced at around 280,000-290,000 yuan. So where does Cadillac’s confidence in such a pricing come from?
The official main selling points of the Ruige are luxury, intelligence, and safety.
Luxury goes without saying; it is the foundation of the Cadillac brand. The top-of-the-line Ruige includes genuine leather interior, three-zone air conditioning, seat ventilation, heating, and massage functions, crystal knobs, real wood decorative panels, and ambient lighting.
As for the design style, whether or not it suit your tastes, that’s a matter of personal opinion.
Intelligence and safety are also areas where the Ruige emphasizes its strengths, and where it has a significant advantage over other luxury brands’ oil-to-electric vehicles.From the basic platform of Rege, the Altenergy platform, which is said to be the product of 26 years of electrification by General Motors, is the cornerstone of General Motors’ strategy for the next 5-10 years and the underlying common architecture of all models.
At the hardware level, the Altenergy platform’s electric propulsion system achieves a high degree of integration of 8 in 1, and the battery pack can be compatible with the world’s leading supplier of battery cells and integrated into its flexible module.
The high integration of the three-electric system is one of the most essential differences between pure electric platforms and oil-to-electric conversion, making the chassis flatter, the electric motor layout more flexible, and leaving more space for passenger and luggage compartments.
Moreover, the forward pure electric platform can bring the body far beyond the strength and safety of fuel vehicles, as we have previously analyzed in detail.
In terms of three-electric technology, Altenergy also has a unique innovation: wireless battery management system (wBMS), the monitoring of batteries is completed by wireless communication modules on the module, reducing 90% of the harness of the battery pack. The advantage is lower cost, lighter weight, and more spacious battery pack space.
The biggest difference between Altenergy’s platform and traditional automakers in making electric vehicles is software support for intelligentization.
The platform adopts a brand-new VIP intelligent electronic architecture. Officially described as having full-vehicle OTA update capabilities, high-speed network data transmission capabilities, support for aviation-grade network security, and unlimited sustainable expansion potential.
For example, its internal communication speed can reach 1.28GB/s, and the hourly data processing capacity is 4.5TB, which is equivalent to building an information expressway inside the car.
Based on such underlying technology, Altenergy’s platform can realize mass production V2X (Vehicle to Everything) technology, such as information sharing between vehicles (V2V) and road infrastructure (V2I), and can be integrated with Super Cruise, super-assisted driving technology.
Altenergy’s platform can achieve high-level autonomous driving through three channels.
Firstly, by using cameras, millimeter-wave radar, and lidar to perceive the surrounding environment and make subjective + micro-judgments.
Secondly, by using centimeter-level high-precision maps, the “eyes of God” make objective + macro judgments.
The third is V2X, with the improvement of infrastructure and the increase of networked vehicles, real-time + interactive judgments can be made.It can be said that the OTRON platform is one of the platforms with a high degree of integration of electrification and intelligence, and it is also the closest attempt to new forces among the traditional camps at present.
From the performance indicators on paper, the models under the OTRON platform should be able to avoid the situation of “good to drive, good battery, and good idiot” like the Volkswagen MEB platform (ID series electric vehicles).
So, how about the first car “Rui Ge”?
Is Rui Ge smart enough?
Looking at the two aspects of smart cockpit and smart driving.
For the smart cockpit, LYRIQ’s entire series is equipped with a 33.8-inch ring-shaped ultra-retina curved screen, which is currently the only curved dual-screen on the market, with a resolution of 8960×1320, reaching 9K level, and a pixel density of 271 PPI.
The car system is equipped with Qualcomm’s flagship 8155 chip, with a computing power of 8TOPS, which is the most powerful performance among mainstream mass-produced cockpit chips.
Voice interaction can be used to directly control the air conditioner, windows, skylights, seats, ambient lights, navigation, and so on, and it can also recognize dialects such as Cantonese and Sichuanese.
The official has not revealed the supplier of this intelligent interaction system, but from the various Baidu applications that come with the car machine by default and the functions that can be connected to other Baidu devices, it is likely that the underlying kernel of Rui Ge’s car machine may be Xiaodu Carlink.
In terms of smart driving, the entire series is equipped with 6 cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars.
In terms of functions, Rui Ge can achieve all conventional L2-level auxiliary driving functions, as well as newly added driver automatic lane changing and command lane changing functions, and has OTA iterative upgrade capabilities, which can continuously expand the usage scenarios.
The smart driving software “Super Cruise” comes from the autonomous driving subsidiary of General Motors, Cruise.
It is also the world’s first driver assistance system that allows drivers to let go of their hands under certain conditions, with a physical dual-redundant backup design behind it. Dual ECOM modules can provide redundant functions in braking, steering, driver state monitoring, etc.
According to General Motors, this system has been driving safely for 30 million kilometers in North America with 0 accidents.
In addition to sensor data as the basis for assisted driving, Super Cruise also relies on high-precision map data for decision-making. After entering China, it was adapted to local conditions and adopted the Gaode Map.
So, from the intelligent capabilities officially confirmed for mass production, we can give a preliminary evaluation of the Cadillac’s first electric car, Lyriq:
General Motors has created an intelligent car.
The key point is that this is a completely positive intelligent electric car, which goes further in intelligence than the Volkswagen ID series, which is also a representative work of transformation, and has a card to compete with new forces.
And General Motors is ahead of the entire centenary old shop of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi in terms of attitude and technology.
Only market verification awaits the Lyriq.
Is Lyriq worth buying?
Creating is not a success. Selling well is the real ability.
How does Lyriq perform?
It began pre-sales in China at the end of last year, with orders exceeding 5,000 in one month. For a pure electric car with a price above 400,000 RMB, this is a success of the first battle.
Moreover, in terms of vehicle protection and rights, Cadillac is more sincere than first-line luxury brands. The whole-car lifetime quality assurance, three-electric lifetime quality assurance, these are not given by first-line luxury brands.
In addition, the owner of the scheduled car will receive 1,200 kilometers of free charging mileage per month for three consecutive years.
Of course, pre-ordering does not represent delivery, and actual performance still needs to be observed. But the popularity of the Lyriq may not be the manufacturer’s own hype.
The Cadillac global website has already posted a notice that the production capacity of the Lyriq for 2023 has been sold out, and now ordering can only wait for production and delivery in 2024…
Such popularity has already proved that General Motors has succeeded in the first step of transitioning to intelligence.
So, the question arises, with 400,000 RMB in hand, would you buy this “bath king” pure electric car, or would you buy BBA’s oil-to-electric cars with higher brand premiums?
One more thing
Cadillac, after all, is the majestic vehicle of the President of the United States, how did it become the “bath king” in China?
It all started with the Gaode Map.
In 2016, Gaode Map released a “China’s Seven Major Car Brand Owners’ Behavior Report,” which used big data analysis to analyze the preferences of car owners of various brands.
For example, Mercedes-Benz owners love hot pot, BMW owners love shopping, Audi owners are mostly affiliated with government agencies, Lexus is difficult to fix…These are all considered normal, even reasonable, except that the column for Cadillac owners conspicuously reads “bathing and massage establishments,” not even one more appropriate option.
Moreover, Gaode has also gained endorsements from official and academic authorities such as the Ministry of Transportation and Tsinghua University.
The “Emperor of Bath” title of Cadillac owners is just what it is, and can no longer be removed.
Interestingly, the domestic Roewe still uses Gaode maps. It is unknown whether the two companies have put their past grievances behind them or if Gaode is offering Cadillac a discounted rate.
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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.