Writing by | Kimo
Editing by | Zhou Changxian
“Because R7 is FEIFAN’s first flagship model, we give consumers as much choice as possible.”
At the recent Chengdu Auto Show, FEIFAN CEO Wu Bing repeated this sentence again. The repetition, it is not just a slogan, nor is it just a “paper tiger.”
FEIFAN is really doing it.
After the Chengdu Auto Show, many media outlets quoted another sentence from Wu Bing as the title: “We want to be a big-shot in the smart driving circle, not a loud mouth.”
This sentence is the perfect description for today’s FEIFAN automobile. There is a feeling of having gone through storms and trials, eventually finding the right track.
“We spent a long time thinking about what kind of car company FEIFAN is and what kind of values we should convey. It’s something we must figure out.” Wu Bing’s team never shied away from the problem of “how to tell users who FEIFAN is.”
What to say? How to say it?
Since FEIFAN began operating independently, the answer to this question has never been clear enough. Although it is clear that new energy intelligence and electrification are the right paths, Wu Bing has thought about how FEIFAN can firmly establish itself on this path.
After a long period of reflection, the FEIFAN team has a clear answer: “define FEIFAN as a high-end intelligent pure electric mobile space.” And “truthfulness, innovation, and taste” are the brand’s core values.
“First of all, **truthfulness. We want word of mouth, not just slogans. We want to be a big brand, but not a big mouth. Second, innovation. We hope that high-end smart driving can enable more consumers to use it well, and we can provide users with relatively mature products through our efforts. Third, taste, representing an international design concept.” Wu Bing said.
Whether it’s high-end intelligent pure electric or brand core values, all this “storytelling” falls on FEIFAN R7. The RISING OS cockpit interactive system, RISING PILOT high-end intelligent driving system, support for renewable and replaceable batteries… all the technical labels can be said to be the great things that FEIFAN has given to this model.
This is a completely different brand structure and technology from before. From the FEIFAN R7, you can see a promise, a promise that FEIFAN made to SAIC Group’s transformation, and a promise to consumers in the era of intelligence.
Looking at FEIFAN’s foresight from its renewable batteries
FEIFAN is very forward-looking when it comes to the development of the R7.This can be seen from the importance of automobile energy supplementation being included as an integral part of the overall product definition. The mentality behind RisingAuto’s product development is different from the past and also differs from the route taken by many brands in the market.
Starting from the source, RisingAuto seeks to understand and cater to consumer needs while also verifying the founding principles. Wu Bing stated that “from the beginning, RisingAuto Automotive was not just a simple name change, but a comprehensive adjustment of product, brand, experience, channel, and even brand positioning”.
According to “AutocarMax”, RisingAuto can be described as bold and precise, and these two qualities have not wavered even in the early stages of exploration.
The RisingAuto R7, built on a new architecture and technology platform, is a bold move to make it the first electric vehicle with swappable batteries to usher in the era of standardized battery swapping.
As a new model that has not yet been tested in the market, the decision to adopt the battery swapping model as the first platform carries a significant responsibility to push for battery swapping standardization. This also showcases RisingAuto’s other quality, precision – precision in judging the industry situation and user demand, and mastery of technology.
Choosing the fast-swapping technology route is a judgment of product value and user demand, as well as an observation of industry trends because RisingAuto recognizes that the entire battery swapping technology will become one of the inevitable trends. Wu Bing fully understands that consumers have a rigid demand for range and energy supplementation. Therefore, RisingAuto provides consumers with two choices, which are technical support for swappable batteries and charging.
RisingAuto is confident in its battery swapping technology, mainly due to the model jointly developed with Jieneng ZhiDian, which, with the support of “national teams” such as PetroChina, Sinopec, CATL, and Shanghai Automotive Group, can build a complete vehicle-electricity separation ecosystem from multiple perspectives, create standardized platforms, accelerate the layout of battery swapping stations, continually expand user’s travel radius, and promote the standardization of battery swapping.After operating independently, FEVAN has been maintaining its foresight. Currently, in terms of energy supplement ecology, FEVAN is accelerating the construction of brand charging stations (114 stations), equity charging stations (1000+ stations) and the number of third-party charging piles has reached over 530,000.
FEVAN’s confidence also comes from the foresight of FEVAN R7 battery technology.
FEVAN R7 is equipped with a 90kWh CTP large module battery pack which, in conjunction with the industry’s first double-layer horizontal cell technology, increases energy density to 185Wh/kg, with a maximum range of 642km. The ultra-thin battery with high energy density can achieve L0 safety level without thermal propagation of the battery. The battery is replaceable and upgradable, and has QUICK CLICK patented battery reinforcement and fast replacement technology, making battery replacement safer and more efficient.
In addition, a unified casing standard better promotes the separation of the powertrain and innovative business models.
Battery replacement technology demands high precision and will impose high demands on future construction. Fevan Automotive hopes to make technology more solid, ensuring the reliability of the entire product, for the sake of safety and user experience.
“We need to have very solid technology to create a truly good technology that is also very delicate.” Said Wu Bing, striving for delicate technology is Fevan’s pursuit.
Being a big name in the smart driving circle instead of a big mouth is a key strategy for Fevan. Battery replacement technology is just the tip of the iceberg for Fevan’s “delicate technology.” To support the launch of the battery swap mode, Fevan’s pursuit of “high-end intelligent pure electric” is critical.
“We hope to be exploratory, and bring the front-end technology into every car, allowing users to experience the charm of extreme intelligence.” Wu Bing admitted that the important goal this year is to integrate the label of high-end intelligence into the brand itself, through R7 and future products.
“High-end intelligence means that we will continue to invest in the fields of smart driving and smart cabin.” Starting with R7, Fevan will follow the six words: high-end, intelligent, pure electric, to carry out product planning.
As the first model, Fevan R7’s performance in advanced intelligence is particularly important.In terms of smart cockpit, RisingAuto R7 is equipped with Rising OS interactive system, and is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon SA8155 chip. Based on the mainstream virtualization technology and RTOS+Android AOSP operating system in the field of vehicle, and equipped with many platform modules needed for cloud management integrated SOA software architecture.
In terms of smart driving, after more than two years of time, RisingAuto has built RISING PILOT full-fusion high-level smart driving system, based on 33 top-performing perceptual hardware including the world’s first LUMINAR 1550 nm LiDAR, 4D Imaging LiDAR, and 8 million high-definition cameras. These are important components of RisingAuto’s smart strategy.
“Smart driving is very important for the future development of intelligent electric vehicles, and also reflects the technology and technical content of a start-up company.” Wu Bing shared some stories about building RISING PILOT full-fusion high-level smart driving system, or it can be said that it is RisingAuto’s exploration of smart driving technology, and a step-by-step process towards precision.
“How to fully tap the potential of hardware mainly relies on software algorithms. We are the first to propose the concept of full-fusion. We believe that full-fusion will be a new trend in the industry in the future.”
In the past two years, the team of more than 500 people always ask themselves, “What do users need? What can we do for users?”
For example, there is MY PILOT mode in the smart driving process. When doing internal projects, opinions are often different. Some people like more aggressive sports mode, while others like safety, feeling comfortable… What should we do?
“As much as possible to give the power of choice to consumers and can do custom selection,” said Hu Xiaofan, Chief Product Officer of RisingAuto Smart Driving Co-creation Center. This process is not as easy as it sounds and many difficulties need to be overcome. “Smart driving is a complex system, not just sensors or simple computer algorithms. We think about this thing with systematic thinking.”
In the process of doing projects, team coordination is very important. Sometimes it’s like playing football, there are forwards and defenders, and there are goalkeepers. Everyone has their own job, but they all work towards the same goal – user experience.Hu Xiaofan believes that “the team must cooperate and fill in each other’s positions. Sometimes it’s like a relay race. When the signal passes from point A to point B, you must understand what the next step is, just like stepping on cotton bales, never stepping on to air. This is the cooperation between teams.”
The efforts of over 500 people are not just about working hard, but rather following a clear direction. For Intelligent Driving to achieve a certain level of user experience and be accepted by users, “how to convey the perception of a sensor and algorithm fusion to users” is the challenge during execution, according to Hu Xiaofan.
After countless discussions and testing, the answer was finally found. “We directly show users the perception fusion system outputted by deep learning and neural networks based on the algorithm’s results.” Moreover, the fully integrated algorithm not only fully utilizes the capabilities of top-level hardware, but also has the possibility of continuous growth and evolution.
Liuchen, General Manager of RisingAuto Automobile User Development Center, said, “by displaying the visible cars, road lines, sidewalks, traffic lights, and more to users, let them know how the system works, what the results are, where the boundary points are, and then decide whether to trust this system. We hope to create more scenario value for users through a good software experience.”
From some of the feedback so far, FEIFAN has gained a lot of confidence.
Currently, the RISING PILOT Fully Integrated Advanced Intelligent Driving system has completed over 400,000 km of high-speed navigation function road tests, responding to 1% of extreme road scenarios with 100% safety redundancy, bringing users a sustainable and safer, more complete and 99.9999% high confidence advanced intelligent driving experience.
Wu Bing also pointed out that there are a total of 4 decimal places behind the decimal point, for a very important reason, because safety and life are behind the numbers.
First Battle is the Decisive Battle
Wu Bing hopes to concentrate all the hardware and software that can be thought of and seen, including the RISING POWER energy supplementing scheme, on the FEIFAN R7 car, so that consumers can truly feel the sincerity behind the brand.
“Our first car must be technologically and scientifically advanced, because its mission is not only a product, but a brand-defining product that defines FEIFAN Automobile to a certain extent.”
In the early stages of defining the product, FEIFAN gave R7 a very clear positioning: the ultimate intelligent high-end electric SUV, with ‘ultimate intelligence’ referring to Intelligent Driving and Intelligent Cabin, and ‘high-end’ referring to high computing power, high hardware, and high quality.
From the selection of hardware to software, to the formation of algorithm mode, RisingAuto has chosen to develop their own products, which is the first concept of RisingAuto’s product and brand. Many people ask, why spend so much time and effort?
“Only our own things can achieve differentiation, and only then can we update them promptly when users complain, have better user stickiness, and users can see our growth.” Liu Chen said.
Of course, when RisingAuto was developing, it was not arbitrary, but followed two principles in selecting technology and products.
-
Leave the choice to the user, and leave the difficulty to ourselves.
-
A beautiful appearance and an interesting soul are both necessary.
For example, R7 is a masterpiece of RisingAuto’s global team, which interprets the design aesthetics of simplicity and luxury with the new concept of “simple is extraordinary”. This is a beautiful appearance.
For another example, why have 33 top-notch hardware devices? This is also a beautiful appearance. The hardware must be good, which provides an opportunity and possibility for continuous iterative updates in the future.
“Just having hardware is not enough. If there is no interesting soul, no such a team, and no good integration of software and hardware, the functions of the hardware cannot be fully realized. Only when the software matches well with the hardware, can the product be competitive.” Wu Bing explained RisingAuto’s confidence in R7 more explicitly.
In May of this year, RisingAuto released the interior cabin, including RISING OS, which has been fully recognized by the market. Most of the reviews focus on the 3+1 giant screen, which is called the “screen bully”.
RisingAuto R7 uses the largest size 43-inch wide true color triple screen among Chinese brands, with the world’s top AGC Asahi Glass Dragon Trail glass integrated cover, and its strength is six times that of ordinary sodium-calcium glass.
“Why did we not keep the height but enlarge the center console screen? The main reason is that the center console screen is frequently used by users.” Liu Chen explained the reason why the triple screen of RisingAuto R7 is called the “screen bully”.
Such delicate technology is everywhere in RisingAuto R7.
In RisingAuto’s brand DNA, authenticity is a down-to-earth style without empty promises, which is the way RisingAuto does things.Flyme has made a promise to consumers that all software and hardware will be available for use once the Flyme R7 is delivered, such as activating the high-speed navigation feature after the intelligent driving is delivered. Every Flyme employee knows that the Flyme R7 not only carries market expectations of Flyme, but also to some extent, the expectations of consumers for SAIC.
Announcing the listing time and delivery rhythm, as well as the countdown to the Ferris wheel equity, is behind Flyme’s careful preparations. Of course, after delivery, more challenges will follow.
“We will prioritize delivering high-quality products this year as a core task,” said Wu Bing, who also stated that the whole team is ready to win the first battle.
“In my opinion, no brand can be supported simply by one product,” Wu Bing believes that explosive models are few and far between, making the auto industry a long-term commitment. Brand building, especially for high-end brands, requires the accumulation of time and talent.
He revealed that from 2022 to 2025, Flyme will introduce at least one new product each year to quickly cover core markets.
“Enterprises with a complete system, vision, and correct values and culture, have a higher chance of producing explosive models and longer-lasting success. This is our goal,” Wu Bing said.
This reflects Wu Bing’s confidence and his seriousness towards Flyme’s promise.
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.