Author: French Fries Fish

This year’s Children’s Day not only belongs to kids, but also marks a new beginning for the Buick brand.

On the evening of the event, Buick officially unveiled its all-new “Three-color Shield” Logo, along with a concept car named Electra-X, which was built on the Ultium platform and also indicates the future direction for Buick’s pure electric products.

Today, the real car of Electra-X is right in front of us, bringing the most surprising thing for me.

The first is that, after being delayed for more than five months by the epidemic, I finally saw the true face of Ultium battery in the live event. From the individual battery cells, explosion-proof valves, high-voltage connectors, to the aerogel, module, and battery cell interrupt unit, disassembled parts on the ground greatly satisfied my curiosity as a battery fan.

One of its major features is the industry-leading wBMS wireless battery management system. With this little gadget below, Ultium battery can easily collect all the parameters of each battery cell wirelessly, and combined with standardized modules, high-voltage interfaces, and flexible expandable battery trays, it can realize battery pack designs with 8, 10, 12, and even up to 24 modules.

The second is that I found the answer to the contradiction in the design style that had troubled me for more than two months here. Buick said that this car adopts the PURE Design concept of simplifying design, but just look at this extremely complex front grille, which can hardly be described as “simple” anyway.

Regarding this issue, a designer from SAIC General Motors Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center gave the following explanation.

The minimalism of Electra-X is mainly reflected in its large body design, such as the side of the car body, where “Buick replaces lines with surfaces and uses the convergence and divergence of surfaces to express the storage and release of potential energy, which Buick calls the “potential” surface”.

The eaves front headlights centered on the brand-new three-color shield logo and the family-style exhibition wings taillights are designed with the same concept.

In terms of details, Buick hopes to use more exquisite designs to reflect the desired texture, just like this glittering grille.

Meanwhile, as a sports label of the Buick brand, GS has also been injected into the design elements of Electra-X. The designer used multiple sets of parallel lines to intertwine and intersperse and designed a brand-new texture for the GS label. We can first see this texture on the 21-inch wheel rims that pulsate with light and shadow. The figure of the GS texture can be found on the inside of the car door, on the front central control decorative strip of the door, and other places.

Frameless windows are probably the last stubbornness of all concept cars, and Electra-X is also no exception.

Light passing through the frameless windows illuminates the interior, and large areas of gray and bronze metal with different textures form the theme color of the front row. The designer said that this style will continue in the subsequent production models of Electra.

Next, our attention will quickly be attracted by the 30-inch curved screen in front of the driver’s seat. This screen with a 6K resolution is also the main battlefield of Buick’s new generation of VCS intelligent cabins, and it is powered by the current car machine superstar, Qualcomm 8155.

Besides the screen, this generation of VCS intelligent cockpit also prefers to use projection as an interactive method. There is a quick interactive 8-inch screen on the central armrest in the front row, where information such as air conditioning temperature, vehicle parameters, and overall vehicle posture is clear at a glance.

The interior panel of the front door will emit a faint fluorescence, which is the interactive area for controlling the windows. The screen in the rear row is actually projected onto the floor of the rear row. Since I couldn’t get in the car for the experience, I was very curious about how the rear passengers can see the projection on the floor in a normal sitting position.

Equally curious is the seating experience of this car.

The designer said that in order to create a pleasant sports space, they adopted a light and thin suspension design for large components such as seats. The visual effect of doing so is indeed good, but the feeling of sitting on it may need a question mark.

However, this doubt was quickly shattered by a little surprise in the rear row. Electra-X has a capsule coffee machine set in the center of the rear row, and coffee enthusiasts like me have to give it a big thumbs up.

In fact, this area is a personalized modular design, and users can also replace the coffee machine with game consoles, projectors, VR glasses, etc. according to their preferences.

In addition, General Motors’ Super Cruise intelligent driving system will also be first introduced into the Buick brand.

As the first auxiliary driving system that can “let go” on high-speed roads, the extension of Super Cruise will also bring Buick’s pure electric Electra series’ intelligent driving ability to the industry mainstream, even to the forefront.

The only remaining question now is to what extent the mass-produced Electra can restore the level of the concept car.

It is said that this answer will not make us wait long, probably within the year.

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.