This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly public account.
Author: Wild Xiao Chen
“What will happen next?” – This has always been the question that drives human curiosity and innovation.
Over the past hundred years, we have witnessed the flourishing development of creativity, and at this moment, the emergence of artificial intelligence may be a sign of the second Renaissance. But even if robots can create art or handicrafts, we will still value more the objects and experiences created by humans. Innovation can promote productivity, enabling more people to become artists and craftsmen, but all modern civilizations are not built out of thin air. Classics are like a bottomless bright light. If it goes out, modern civilization may become an orphan in a savage world. Without the past and the present, the question of “what will happen next” becomes a false proposition.
When it comes to Ford’s classics, most people’s first reaction is to think of the Ford Focus, but many people do not know that the name Ford Escort is also a milestone legend in Ford’s history. The former Ford Escort not only existed as a successful compact family car, but also opened up the path for Ford to participate in rally races in Europe with its economic motorhome sport version, establishing Ford’s avant-garde image in this class of vehicles. Today’s Changan Ford Escort has entered the Chinese market with a new approach adapted to local conditions, and in the years of successful sales, generation after generation of Escorts have gradually become what we desire. As a classic that has not faded in the torrent of time, at the Shanghai Auto Show, the new generation of Ford Escort continues to inherit its classic with a high-value and immortal myth.
What can you get for 100,000 RMB? In the past, this seemed to be a multiple-choice question: appearance, technology, safety, power, configuration… You always have to make compromises, but the new generation of Ford Escort in 2021 seems to have turned this multiple choice question into an all-choice question, even a full-choice question.
Among the joint venture compact sedans in the 100,000 RMB price range, products with full LED lighting as standard are rare. The new generation of Ford Escort has instantly raised the bar in this class of vehicles by offering a standard LED front and rear lighting system across the board, with a hardcore performance of 850lm for low beam and 1,400lm for high beam, instantly upgrading its appearance. The extremely long wheelbase of 2,687mm makes for a spacious interior, fully ensuring the seating space of the front and rear rows. The seats are wrapped in soft material with zero gravity punching leather specifically designed for Chinese consumers, and are equipped with 6-way electric adjustments, ensuring luxurious comfort.
Open the car door and the ambiance of technology created by the central control console and instrument panel is immediately evident. Equipped with a 10.25-inch * 2 intelligent network screen, with a 0.2-second response time, not only makes interaction more convenient, but also avoids response delays that could distract the driver’s attention. Installed with the “Xiaofu Online” on-board intelligent information entertainment system, which includes a “King of Glory” voice package and an on-board WeChat instant messaging feature, seamlessly integrating socializing with commuting. It is the mission for vehicles that are level 200,000 and above, and the new generation of Focus, is a car that definitely exceeds expectations.
Fully equipped with six safety airbags / air curtains, and using the same level of leading high-strength cantilevered car body, equipped with the highest strength of up to 1,500 Mpa high-strength martensitic steel, also has a new air fresh system + HE micron-level efficient filter to guard breathing health.
Preserving classics, upgrading classics and integrating classics into the modern era is the mission of the new generation of Focus.
In 2016, Barack Obama declared: “If you had to choose one time in history in which to be born, and you did not know ahead of time who you would be–you didn’t know whether you were going to be born into a wealthy family or a poor family, what country you’d be born in, whether you were going to be a man or a woman–if you had to choose blindly what moment you’d want to be born, you’d choose now.” At the transitional moment of gasification and electrification, there are still some awkward situations, either not particularly convenient or advanced enough. But now, the brand new Kuga PHEV, which represents the turning point of the era, was born with the setting of high-tech hybrid ecology and has laid the foundation for the current demands.
Equipped with Ford’s brand-new fourth-generation hybrid architecture electrically-driven platform, the brand new Kuga PHEV accelerates from 0-60 km/h in just 4.5 seconds and is matched with a brand-new electrically-driven continuously variable transmission, providing a more smoother driving experience. With nearly 1000 kilometers of driving range and a low fuel consumption of only 1.2 liters per 100 kilometers, it also has four driving modes that combines driving pleasure with fuel economy. With the strongest four-wheel drive high-performance ST Line in the same level, a two-wheel drive high-performance car model at start-up, and the native plug-in hybrid high-performance all-new Kuga PHEV, the Kuga family is continually expanding and offers multiple possibilities before electrification reaches a mature stage.
Today, it is the mission of Kuga PHEV to enable an orderly transition between innovation and classics.
A whirlwind journey through the history and future of artificial intelligence and electrification has arrived. We have heard countless brilliant and magnificent plans, but very few of those ambitious plans have a practical and forward-looking perspective.At the just-concluded 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, the all-new mid-to-large-sized SUV from Changan Ford, the Ford EVOS, officially made its global debut. It is the first global strategic vehicle model launched under the Ford China 2.0 plan and the first model to adopt the design concept of “energy aestheticism”. Its design work was led by the Ford China Design Center and created through collaboration with the Ford Global Design Team.
The Ford EVOS is a new embodiment of Ford’s century-old brand spirit of “pioneering innovation”, not only representing Ford’s further efforts to create high-end products with a consumer-centric approach in response to the increasingly diversified demands of the Chinese market, but also serving as the pioneer of Ford’s next-generation intelligent products, indicating the future direction of Ford’s product intelligence development.
The latest evolution of Ford’s design language is the “energy aestheticism” design concept officially released at the 2020 Beijing Auto Show. Its three pillars – “Dynamic and Flexible Styling”, “Creative and Intelligent Response” and “Powerful and Commanding Presence”- highly summarize the essence of Ford’s century-old design and combine it with contemporary consumer aesthetics, pushing it to the forefront of the trend, and creating a harmony and sculptural artistic beauty.
The design details, such as the through-type air blade light strip design, the breathing and 3D parameterized scales, and the parameterized scale-penetrating taillights that fuse Ford’s classic design elements with Chinese aesthetics, are adopted. Inside the car, as the core of the intelligent cockpit, the Ford EVOS traverses the front cabin, and the overall width of the super-wide panoramic screen, which is more than 110 centimeters long, consists of a 12.3-inch high-definition instrument screen and a 27-inch 4K high-definition central control screen. The intelligent surrounding cockpit through the extension and crossover of design elements such as decorative strips, soft materials, and stitching, which have a high-tech sense, together create an intelligent cockpit with both texture and technology. At the same time, the entire cockpit simplifies physical buttons, bringing users a more intuitive, efficient and safe interactive experience.
For the huge horizontal screen spanning the driver and the passenger, unique functions such as “Joint Driving Fun” and “Free Paradise” have been customized, making the cockpit a moving “third space” with a sense of ceremony and warmth. With the addition of the BlueCruise advanced driving assistance function, Co-Pilot360 becomes “more road-aware”, achieving “semi-automatic driving” for long periods of time on highways and city expressways, and becoming the first mass-produced model in China to be equipped with cellular vehicle-to-everything technology (C-V2X), opening the door to empowering intelligent driving in smart cities.Using the OTA capability of Ford EVOS, Ford will provide customers with a series of unique full-lifecycle digital experiences through software upgrades in the future, just like using a smartphone. Owners can subscribe to personalized in-car rich media, more direct real-time communication with car owners, and a series of high-end value-added services as needed.
Ford EVOS is equipped with Ford’s new generation of electronic and electrical architecture, the FNV smart interconnected network architecture, which can continuously evolve and grow through the vehicle’s OTA upgrades. The “joint venture brand leading car machine” SYNC+ system, which integrates Baidu’s artificial intelligence technology and the domestic Internet application ecosystem, has been upgraded to the second generation on Ford EVOS, and provides high-performance, high stability, and high expandability in-vehicle computing capabilities and cloud computing platforms.
SYNC+ 2.0 Intelligent Mobility Connect System is equipped with Ford’s first virtual artificial intelligence assistant, the VPA Intelligent Mobility Partner. The blue energy ring design is inspired by the classic ellipse of the Ford logo, and supports 70+ semantic categories. It can quickly respond to the needs of the driver and passengers and control various interior scenes of the car, including air conditioning, seats, sunroof, steering wheel, ambient lighting, etc. The new SYNC+ 2.0 Intelligent Mobility Connect System adopts Ford’s latest UI design style, with more intuitive and concise functional distribution, and a “relief” design that makes the touch screen experience more realistic. It is equipped with Ford’s first virtual artificial intelligence assistant, the VPA Intelligent Mobility Partner, with a blue energy ring design inspired by the classic ellipse of the Ford logo, full of dynamic and technological sense, vividly conveying the brand’s core of “pioneering innovation”.
Representing the future of Ford, the Ford EVOS, with the image of a highly intelligent electrical monster, is further certifying the future towards the tide of the times.
A new era is coming.
As the wave of intelligent vehicle and electrification approaches, Changan Ford is always gradually completing every mission of the times, caring more about the needs and desires of users than chasing popular culture. Standing at the forefront of change and upgrading, Changan Ford will continue to practice the promise of “More Ford, More China,” accelerate the entry into a comprehensive technology and intelligence era, and unlock the correct way to move forward with the wave.
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.