On April 10th at 1 pm, Li Xiang officially announced the price of the Ideal ONE in the Ideal Changzhou Factory. Consistent with last year’s conference announcement, the fully equipped version is priced at 328,000 yuan after subsidy!
The Ideal ONE has six exterior colors (white, silver, black, gray, blue, and Baby Blue), three interior colors (white, brown, and black), and three wheel styles. Except for the Baby Blue paint, which requires an additional 10,000 yuan, all others are free.
Regarding delivery:
-
Test drives will begin in the third quarter of 2019.
-
Deliveries will begin in the fourth quarter of 2019, 1-2 months later for the seven-seat version than the six-seat version.
-
Limited edition Baby Blue deliveries will begin next year.
In addition, the warranty aspect that everyone is most concerned about on “New Energy Vehicles”:
-
Whole vehicle warranty for 4 years or 80,000 kilometers, and an 8-year or 120,000 kilometer warranty for the three-electric system.
-
Users who book before May 31, 2019, will enjoy lifelong vehicle maintenance as the first owner.
Li Xiang and the Ideal team have spent four years proving that incorporating the advanced organizational structure and management capabilities of the internet industry into the automotive industry will bring efficiency improvements and cost controls, which will have a crushing competitive advantage over industry competitors.
Before the launch price was announced, we had already experienced test drives on the Ideal ONE production trial car at the factory. How do we view this car? The title is the answer: “A “Real but Unpretentious” Product Experience.”
A “Real but Unpretentious” Product
For Ideal ONE pre-order users, or potential owners who have long been concerned about Ideal ONE, everyone is more curious about the details of the product and the experience of the test drive, rather than the price.
At the test drive site, we continuously tested different road conditions, such as long straight linear performance roads, washboard roads, bumpy cement roads, water crossings, and other types of road conditions. We then drove the same route with same-class SUV models such as the Volvo XC90 and the Lexus 450h (the best hybrid SUV on the market).
It can be said responsibly that the Ideal ONE’s passing performance, chassis, and suspension performance under these road conditions exceeded our expectations, and almost every test experience was better than the same level competitors. Considering that this is a prototype car, three iterations away from a production car, the Ideal ONE’s completeness is impressive.
42HOW drove a Tesla Model 3 to the factory, so we had high expectations for the Ideal ONE’s 6.5-second acceleration time for 0-100 kph.
Behind the 6.5s acceleration for 0-100km/h is a 40 kWh battery, a 1.2T range extender, and front and rear 120 kW electric motors, with a maximum output power of 240 kW and maximum torque of 530 N·m.
If you are not familiar with range-extended hybrid systems, you can refer to our previous article: Get to Know Range-Extended Electric Cars in Three Minutes.
The overall acceleration experience is smooth, and the NVH performance is emphasized. The first time we performed an aggressive acceleration, the air conditioning was on, and we had no idea when the range extender had kicked in. During the second acceleration with air conditioning turned off, the noise and vibration from the range extender was about the same as the performance of an internal combustion engine at around 1000 rpm.
Chen Yanan, CEO of Car and Home, says that although it is not as quiet as a pure electric vehicle, ONE’s NVH performance is better than the best hybrid vehicles in the same class.
Therefore, in daily commuting, its performance may really be like a “6 Second Club” electric car.
Let’s start with the design. The actual ONE car does not look like a “new car” at all. The powertrain of the range-extended electric vehicle determines that it will retain a huge air intake grille, indistinguishable from any other gasoline-powered car.
!(https://upload.42how.com/wechat_post/1mbkdm5tudzgi4749h17xj5a6bs5llhv.jpeg)
The iconic and official full-width headlights do not attract as much attention on the actual car. Both sides of the LED headlights, the light strip, the hexagonal grille mesh, the lines extending to both sides with the ventilation duct, front camera, millimeter-wave radar under the license plate and one left and one right ultrasonic The sensor, plus the metal logo engraved on the top cover, together form the ideal front face of ONE.
!(https://upload.42how.com/wechat_post/i6bhurm595u9vhsf5lnhhjf7s39aggys.jpeg)The side view of the car presents an imposing posture, with smooth transitions of the curves. Although the conventional door handle does not bolster the car’s coolness at all, the consistency of the same-coloured wheel arches enhances the overall visual impact.
The perforated-style taillights have become trite in 2019, whereas the removal of the lower exhaust vents subtly captures its new energy vehicle attributes.
From the actual car, the Ideal design team carefully considers every aspect of ONE’s styling details, which can be seen in every nook and cranny of the car. The only issue is that this car doesn’t look cool enough. Unlike other emerging carmakers that aim to please young people who seek uniqueness and avant-garde style, IDEAL did not attempt to do so in its design.
When facing consumers, Ideal ONE does not suffer from the weaknesses of charging infrastructure or the attenuation of the endurance mileage that plague other pure electric vehicles.It has the product quality to compete head-on with the same-class internal combustion engine SUVs.
Inside the car, the four-screen interaction system that stirred up heated discussion during last year’s launch conference grabbed most of the attention. It is worth noting that because the system is not yet perfect, we did not have a chance to experience Ideal ONE’s voice assistant Wiki. Apart from that, the system has a high level of completion.
Whether it is the delicacy of the UI, the colour matching, the system response speed and fluency, the logical operation, or the integration of third-party content services that have been accessed, Ideal ONE’s in-car system performance exceeds the level of most new car products currently available on the market.
Considering Li Xiang’s background in the Internet industry and his entry into the new car industry, we should have more confidence in the in-car system of Ideal ONE. Perhaps the expected product quality of new car manufacturers has been lowered by the first-to-market competitor, and Ideal is already outstanding by just being competent.
Apart from the centre console, all surfaces that can be touched by hands are covered in leather. The seats provide good support, and are comfortable, but the trial production car is slightly soft. It is not known whether the mass-produced cars will be adjusted accordingly.
The comfort of the second-row seats with double armrests and the pass-through of the central seat channel leave a deep impression. Li Xiang himself said it is “as wide as the new GL8”.
The workmanship, comfort, space, and details of the interior are flawless, but you can’t find any innovative design as sophisticated and avant-garde as the Model 3 air vent.
In fact, this is determined by the product positioning of the Ideal ONE. On April 3rd, Li Xiang introduced some of the configurations of the Ideal ONE on Weibo. The main idea of the whole Weibo is in the last sentence: “It must meet the needs of young mothers and fathers.”
This Weibo reveals the target audience and product positioning of the Ideal ONE: electric cars for second-child families born in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s.
The experience of the trial car is as described above. For media that prefer a more avant-garde style, the evaluation of the Ideal ONE is “realistic but not trendy”.
To be frank, our expectations for the Ideal ONE were not high before seeing the actual car. On the one hand, we have learned from the pioneers of new car-making camps in the past year or so about the high threshold for making cars. On the other hand, we also have concerns about the Ideal team itself. A simple data comparison shows that the team size of the top new car companies is close to 10,000, while the Ideal team is about 1/5 of the former. Considering that Ideal wants to master the more difficult extended-range route, NVH, spatial layout, and engineering challenges will rise sharply. Our expectations for the Ideal ONE have also been continuously lowered.
However, the test drive performance shows that the Ideal ONE may be the new car-making camp’s product that performs closest to the release conference PPT commitment, and some of its performance is even better than that of the production cars of its competitors. According to this progress, when it is delivered in Q4, Ideal has the opportunity to become the first new car-making company that delivers on the release conference PPT commitment.
Li Xiang’s product experiment seems to be going well. Now let’s talk about whether Ideal ONE will succeed.Take another look at this car, the Ideal ONE, and you won’t find any groundbreaking, cutting-edge technology or fancy gimmicks that distinguish it from others in the industry. It’s a new car product that focuses on functionality in every design, configuration, and consideration, from the long-range technology that eliminates range anxiety to the replacement of hidden door handles that do nothing for reducing wind resistance with traditional handles that are more convenient and stable. The Ideal ONE embodies the principle of “practicality first” in every aspect.
Let’s talk about a detail. The whole-vehicle OTA gives the vehicle vitality, which is the most prominent feature of smart cars, but the black screen, dead machine of the central control system can have a negative impact on driving safety. The Ideal ONE uses the proven Texas J6 chip + Linux driver for the instrument panel and vehicle control screen, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820A + Android Automotive driver for the center control and co-pilot screen to solve the dual needs of information entertainment and driving safety.
Focusing on problem-solving doesn’t always require earth-shattering miracles; sometimes, small things accomplish big tasks.
Recall the product target for the Ideal ONE: an intelligent electric car that eliminates range anxiety.
These design details reflect Li Xiang’s product philosophy: a good user experience shouldn’t come from radical, flashy design and a ton of information and services piled on top. Truly improving user experience hardly increases the BOM cost but requires a lot of thinking and polishing.
Even in the camp of new car manufacturers, Ideal is an absolute outlier. It doesn’t care about what its peers are doing, nor does it pay attention to trendy elements in the industry. As mentioned earlier, due to its product positioning, Ideal is even indifferent to the preferences of young people who are more willing to accept new brands.
Li Xiang tries to prove with the Ideal ONE that in this industry, a super-product manager with the highest authority and who is meticulous in every detail is extremely rare.
Speaking of accepting new brands, the bigger highlights of Ideal’s product experiments are yet to come. As a media outlet that focuses on every new car manufacturer, the impression Ideal gives us is that it is a company that does not do or come close to brand communication.
After the October 18, 2018 launch event, the company immediately “sank.” We haven’t seen any updates on product information or business progress until the announcement of the price today.
Ideal’s strategy is so extreme that Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Tesla, and NIO all have distinct brand propositions. With Ideal, we can’t see any distinct brand propositions. Or rather, it’s hard for us to accept “good-looking + easy-to-use” as the brand proposition for a new brand, even though it’s the part that consumers are most concerned about.
With extremely low brand volume, positive founder image, and precisely defined products, Ideal has positioned its brand in a small group of brand enthusiasts.
This requires that the ideal ONE must have strong product power and reliability, so that brand enthusiasts can spread the word two or even three times, making the follow-up sales of the ideal ONE sustainable. This may be the first product that relies entirely on word of mouth to support sales.
This is an interconnected business model.
Everything is fine, except for the too low-key ideal ONE brand, do you want to get one?
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.