Ever since I saw the recruitment information for “Peng Explorer” on the community, I also filled in my registration information. Actually, through the recruitment information, I felt that Peng Factory is very sincere about wanting to gather some “individualistic” car owners. By individualistic, I mean those who have ideas, dare to speak up, question bravely and summarize well! Peng Factory invited car owners who have given them many opinions and suggestions through various channels in the past to visit their production line and the latest model of their most important car model – P7i. Fortunately, as an old P7 car owner who picked up the car at the beginning of July 2020, and also the one who has been talking about this matter for nearly two years, I also received an invitation to this event. From my perspective, let’s talk about P7i and the XPeng Zhaoqing production base.
Regarding the new P7i, the most important conclusion can be placed as followed:
From the previous pictures, we can visually see that P7i has an absolute leading product power within its peers, and it has completed a crushing offensive against all its competitors in the market! The reason why this post has been waiting until the official release of the P7i price is that, in today’s domestic new energy market, the ultimate product power also needs a competitive price to impress the most picky consumers. The price for the upcoming launch of XPeng, which Peng has planned this time, the first conclusion I made in the car owner group was: “Let’s become friends and get to know each other!” Below, I will share an old car owner’s feedback on the price of P7i.
You can see that even without knowing the upgrades of the new model, most potential customers are already enticed by its price alone, let alone the fact that the new model has surpassed the old one by a considerable margin!
As for the new P7, I believe this update is bittersweet. The good news is that the car has been upgraded from the inside out, with a much-improved product offering that can rival other brands. The bad news is that the differences between the old and new models are not very noticeable from the exterior, and the interior upgrades need to be experienced to be appreciated. As a result, promoting and selling the new P7 will be a greater challenge for XPeng Motors, as they need to help both new and existing customers understand and appreciate the many benefits of the new car.
During my personal experience test driving the P7i at the Dongguan Machong Raceway, I found that the hardware was top-notch. The ultra-thin and self-developed low-heat-conductive battery, which uses 3mm aerogel technology, and the 460mm low center of gravity design, give the P7i a rollover resistance coefficient of 1.76 (higher than NIO ET5’s 1.7). This greatly improves driving experience and safety: not only does the P7i provide excellent driving pleasure and handling capabilities, but it also protects its occupants with superior safety features compared to its competitors. In terms of chassis structure, the P7i features a design that includes front virtual main pivot double wishbone suspension, rear multi-link suspension, and mid-mounted motor layout. In addition, the P7i is equipped with SACHS dampers, a well-known brand from Germany. Building upon excellent fundamentals, the P7i teams optimized the chassis design for domestic road conditions and maximized driving experience by improving design and electronic technologies.
At the software level, I believe that XPeng’s intelligence is not only leading among the three major new forces, but also the leader among all Chinese car companies. The P7i’s automatic assistance driving hardware is completely aligned with the flagship G9, adding two lidar sensors and using the XNet perception algorithm to support the next stage XNGP all-scenario assisted driving function. This month, three cities’ car owners have already experienced the charm of city NGP. On the other hand, I want to highlight an old news, that is XPeng has already built the largest automatic driving smart calculation center “Fuyao” in China in Ulanqab, used for automatic driving model training, with a computing power of 600PFLOPS, and the training speed of the automatic driving core model has been increased by nearly 170 times. In my personal opinion, under the current international environment, XPeng may be the only car company in China that has such a super intelligent computing center in the short term, and this center can greatly accelerate the progress of automatic driving learning and training, making XPeng not only excel in the current stage but also already completed the preemptive run in the next stage of the automatic driving arms race. 
Returning to the track test drive, I found that the P7i offers an interesting “Driver Mode”, which is not Tesla’s “Track Mode”. It does not give you more redundancy to play on the track by yourself, but allows the ESP to intervene less frequently during intense driving. At the same time, it improves the response of the brakes and accelerator through the whole-car intelligent torque distribution system, namely iTAC technology, ensuring both maximum driving pleasure and absolute safety. In actual experience, as a novice on the track in Machong, driving the four-wheel drive Pengyi version of the P7i, I truly experienced the charm of racing. The car’s handling limit is far beyond my courage. Every time I felt like I braked too late or turned too much in a bend, and subconsciously wanted to save it, the car had already completed the controlled and handsome maneuver by itself, accompanied by the howling of tires and very smooth drifting, which did not make me very nervous, but instead made me feel like my driving skills were pretty good. I deeply understand what the product engineers said at the communication meeting: just relax and step on the pedal, and let the electronic system handle the rest. P7i is very powerful. After practical experience, everyone will find that this car’s handling level has completely transformed, and the two most common evaluations from everyone after driving on the track are: it’s amazing and awesome! In the long-term driving process, the car owners who will have the car delivered later will definitely perceive the charm of this power intelligent distribution system. It adapts to your current road conditions and tire grip in milliseconds and, in combination with the ESP tuning of the whole car, gives you absolute driving confidence in different road conditions. I believe that XPeng engineers have invested huge efforts in tuning this car. Although its strength can be felt intuitively on the track, the vast majority of people may never go on the track in their lifetime. But it is precisely because of this high-intelligence system that the safety factor of car owners in different road conditions has been greatly improved, so that Peng friends can let go of the driving wheel, enjoy driving, and feel life.# About XPeng Zhaoqing Production Base
Actually, I also come from a large state-owned manufacturing enterprise, which specializes in high-end CNC machine tools, 3D printers, intelligent robots, and so on. Therefore, I am no stranger to factories. Although I haven’t eaten pork, I see pigs running around every day. During the visit to XPeng’s factory, I paid attention to three aspects: 1. The level of production automation. 2. The environment and sanitation of the park. 3. The management of production materials. In conclusion, after seeing this smart factory, I want to buy XPeng even more! In short, the advanced level of the entire Zhaoqing production base exceeded my expectations. The production line covering an area of more than 20,000 square meters only had over 100 employees that I could see. The entire production line was equipped with various huge robotic arms, unmanned material trucks, and XPeng’s product assembly level has reached a high degree of automation, greatly reducing the risk of product defects caused by manual assembly, and ensuring the consistency of product quality to the greatest extent.
After visiting the production line, I suddenly thought of a statement made by a competing company’s boss that had caused a huge controversy: “Jianghuai’s NIO production line is more advanced than Porsche’s.” In fact, this is certain. The one-time investment and debugging cost of manufacturing equipment are very huge, and they need to be amortized through long-term production. Those who come later have an absolute technical advantage in equipment. However, advanced production equipment does not necessarily mean leading product quality. It also depends on the mature industrial workers, excellent production management, strict inspection of materials, and so on-to manage the ability of advanced equipment and mature workers. The cleanliness and orderliness inside the entire Zhaoqing production base, the management of equipment and material stacking, and the production and daily living environment of workers were all well-planned. If I didn’t tell you that this was only the first new construction plant area of a car company, and it’s only a few years old, I believe that everyone who came to visit would think that this is the latest production base of a very mature old enterprise. All of this indicates that XPeng is not only serious in attitude, but also very, very professional, capable, and powerful.I hope XPeng can follow the model of many famous German car companies and be the first to provide factory tours for new energy vehicle manufacturing companies in China. XPeng should have the confidence to lead the development of China’s new energy vehicle industry and showcase their excellent factory to more people who care about the development of the new energy vehicle industry.
Next, my expectations for XPeng are:
I hope that in the upcoming test drive events organized by the manufacturer, more potential customers can be invited to experience our P7i on various road conditions. P7i is thoroughly upgraded, making it a “versatile warrior” that greatly satisfies the pursuit of driving experience for car owners and an all-rounded comfort upgrade for families. Although P7i is not on the 800V platform due to positioning and cost limitations, it has been upgraded through the electrical architecture, using a high-current solution that increases the maximum charging power by 90%. Charging for 10 minutes can add 240 kilometers of range, and its charging speed is currently the fastest among all competitors.
Through the XPeng Explorer program, as an owner who picked up my car in February 2019, I have a deeper understanding of XPeng Automobile. I feel that XPeng can not only produce cars, but their professionalism and technical capabilities far exceed everyone’s imagination. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the “User Relations Department” for organizing this event.
Finally, I hope that P7i can showcase its high product power, beautiful exterior design, and intelligent driving experience during the upcoming national test drive, living up to the expectations of car owners. Best wishes to XPeng P7i for another successful launch!
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.