This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly WeChat official account
Author: Hu Laquan
On April 20th, just 2 minutes and 12 seconds, the first round of 200 pre-sale quotas of IM L7 were sold out. Today, it was sold out in just 1 minute and 42 seconds.
It is reported that IM Auto will limit the release of 2,000 angel round user seats for 10 days, and you can start the rush on time by opening the IM IM Mini Program at 10 o’clock every morning.
Located at the doorstep of SAIC Group, the Shanghai Auto Show has undoubtedly been dominated by IM Auto, jointly created by SAIC, Alibaba, and Zhangjiang High-tech. Among many new brands that participated in the exhibition for the first time, you will find that the IM Auto booth is one of the most visited booths by passers-by. The pure white models, the pure white booth, and the high and low staggered pure white pillars standing on one side of the noisy exhibition hall even make passers-by can’t help but take a few more glances.
The debut of IM Auto’s first car L7 was unveiled at the exhibition. Its “Angel Round Edition” pre-sale price is 4.088 million yuan.
“Yes, we want to create a smart luxury electric brand.” The tone of IM Auto Co-CEO Liu Tao is very firm, “The goal of IM Auto is to have a place in the luxury car market. It can fully support a luxury brand, whether it is hardware or software.”
Therefore, in IM Auto’s view, not only does it need to focus on the new energy vehicle market, but it also needs to look at the luxury car market, which is currently booming with an annual sales volume of about 3.5 million vehicles. This is its more important goal. In the user group of the luxury car market, the proportion of post-“80s” and post-“90s” is rapidly increasing, and they are the “golden users” of IM Auto.
So, the question arises. Does China’s electric vehicle need a luxury brand? In fact, if this question was thrown to Chinese consumers a few years ago, I think more than half of the people would say no. Luxury is not an independent event. It involves a complete system from product research and development, production, quality management to brand building, marketing and after-sales service, among which product strength is the most important foundation.
But if we put this question in the present, I think most people’s answer is a must. Following the consumption upgrade of Chinese users, the collective upward movement of Chinese auto brands, in recent years, the two biggest strategies with the loudest voice in China’s auto industry, electrification and high-end enhancement, have deeply overlapped, and luxury intelligent electric vehicles have become inevitable.
IM Auto has just taken advantage of this direction. So, when it positions itself on the “smart + luxury” position, where does its confidence come from?
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As for “intelligence”, autonomous driving is a good start.If the roar of internal combustion engines is the ultimate sentiment that we cherish about gasoline cars, then for the vast majority of electric vehicle enthusiasts, the attraction of intelligent pleasure is apparently greater than the pushback feeling of accelerator. And this is also where IM Auto differs from other traditional automakers.
We see that IM L7, for the first time in the industry, applies the full-process data-driven algorithm, taking a more comprehensive data-driven approach. General automakers mostly follow the traditional rule-based approach, highly dependent on the completeness of world modeling to describe external environments, lacking self-learning and self-updating capabilities. The data-driven approach uses actual data continuously produced by the vehicle to enable the system to learn and evolve by itself.
Compared with the traditional approach, IM L7 under the data-driven technical route achieves nearly 10 times the problem recognition rate and 100 times the visual assistance annotation speedup. The updated technical approach relies on the support of perfect hardware. IM L7 is equipped with up to 12 cameras, 5 mmWave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, high-precision IMU, and built-in high-precision maps. Its visual perception solution is not only in the lead in the entire industry but also far exceeds Tesla’s solution of 8 cameras + 1 mmWave + 12 ultrasonic radars.
Under the joint advantage of software and hardware, IM L7, based on China’s characteristic road conditions and driving habits, has realized the world’s first full-scenario and most continuous door-to-door pilot automatic driving experience, maximizing the return of more time to users themselves. L7 has advantages such as high-speed navigation HW NOA, urban navigation Urban NOA, memory parking, and summoning functions, with a takeover mileage up to 14 times that of Tesla and a success rate of 99.3% for ups and downs, far exceeding the opponent’s rate of 52.94%.
IM Auto’s hardware and software in the direction of intelligent driving conform to the characteristics of “Chinese electric vehicles” in terms of intelligence.
Liu Tao also stated that intelligent driving should not become a tool for any business to seek profits, “I believe that in due course, intelligent driving will surely become standard equipment because it can truly reduce the death rate in traffic accidents, it is a social welfare.”
The true future of intelligent automobiles will never let users be bound by the present.At the software level, the IM L7 continually iterates, and at the hardware level, it reserves upgrade space for the NVIDIA Orin X chip and two LiDARs. Even after the IM L7 has been on the market for three years, users can still experience and enjoy the latest future intelligent technology through iterative updates of the software and redundant hardware support. Therefore, the “trouble” of fast iteration of smart cars no longer exists for the IM L7.
IM Automobile also pays great attention to user operation. Data security has become a sharp sword hanging over the head of every Internet company. When Apple considers data security as its core competitiveness and when Zuckerberg faces questioning in the United States Congress, why has data collection become the core conflict between users and companies in this age of development? Is there really no way to balance data collection and privacy security? Can we turn swords into ploughshares?
The CSOP plan is a brave attempt by IM Automobile to turn data into wealth.
In the CSOP plan, IM Automobile’s founding shareholders will return 4.9% of the equity income to users who voluntarily contribute data to IM Automobile, thus achieving healthy exchange of data resources, forming a cooperative relationship between users and companies, rather than potential opposition. IM Automobile’s CSOP plan has achieved the first step of letting user data escape the gray area of privacy, allowing users to share data spontaneously, create value, and receive rewards.
IM Automobile has designed a complete data value system and feedback model, represented by two mediums, “Crystal” and “Rough Stone”, which represent different contributions made by users. Users can accumulate and exchange them for hardware upgrades or services. The mining method of “Rough Stone” and the clear classification of data make the CSOP plan truly refined, and users can share contributions with IM at their will and receive clear rewards.
In other words, whenever you commute to work, drive out for the weekend, or even check the navigation or play music while driving, as long as you are driving a IM car, you may discover unexpected “rough stones.”
“The IM Automobile CSOP is the terminator of data leeching from users,” said Liu Tao. “Following the logic of the era of intelligence, if you continue to leech, you are choosing to be an enemy of the times.”
Now let’s take a look at the IM L7’s efforts in another direction: “luxury”.Walking into the L7 car, the carefully designed high-end private cabin showcases the fusion of technology and warmth. The interior is manufactured in an environmentally friendly manner that meets 1/10 of the national standard, and the wooden panels are selected from the natural texture of the Como Lake at the foot of the Italian Alps. In the warm interior, there is an astonishing 39-inch intelligent widescreen display consisting of two high-resolution panels that can be independently lifted and lowered without interfering with each other, or cross-screen interacted effortlessly to share images. The 12.8-inch central screen on the center console features AMOLED curved design, with a super high contrast ratio of 100000:1 and deeper dark display.
Behind the visual enjoyment is an audio system with an output power of 1120 kW and 4 high-precision voice microphones that is compatible with its intelligent voice function. With the support of smart acoustic field technology, all 22 top-grade acoustic speakers throughout the car can deliver an independent theater-grade sound experience to every passenger. The Tuscana high-end leather seats, laminated glass with high noise reduction and thermal insulation performance, and one-piece large-area domed glass on the roof ensure a quiet and private driving experience, which is the main tone of the L7.
With a body length of 5098 mm and a wheelbase of 3100 mm, the L7’s size surpasses that of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and the BMW 5 Series, giving it an impressive and spacious interior space. The smart rear-wheel steering system allows a turning angle of up to 12 degrees, as much as that of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, significantly optimizing the vehicle’s low-speed agility and high-speed stability. The chassis suspension tuning work is carefully calibrated by the William’s Advanced Engineering (WAE) team, the technical support team of the Formula One (F1) famous racing team William’s, equipped with an intelligent electronic control damping system that responds in just 10 milliseconds.
At a price of 408,800 yuan, the L7 has far more luxury configurations than its class requires. Smart understands that in this bustling new car market, the best way to survive the competition is to maximize users’ driving experience. That’s not just exceeding the standards of luxury, it’s the creativity behind the L7.In the eyes of IM Auto, the era of 5G calls for cars to become carriers of social interaction. The DLP + ISC intelligent lighting system equipped on the front and rear of the IM L7 consists of a 2.6 million pixel DLP and 5,000 LED ISC, which not only illuminate and assist with driving but also have the function of displaying patterns and text. The ISC light group of the taillights can indicate the duration of the red light to the following car, prompt the presence of pedestrians ahead, and even express gratitude to the following car when needed. From now on, communication between drivers and the outside world will no longer rely solely on primitive and reckless horns.
In the era of 5G information interaction, which has entered the short video era, IM Auto has ingeniously equipped the L7 car roof with three 48 million pixel cameras that can automatically stitch together into 180° ultra-wide-angle, distortion-free photos.
Vlogs are no longer new, but IM Auto allows you to shoot Carlogs with your vehicle and easily share the beauty and humanity you encounter on your journey. To make it easy for car owners to create these videos, IM Auto has also collaborated with photographer Ma Liang to provide master photography templates for one-click editing and sharing. The Carlog feature of the IM L7 also provides a live broadcasting interface, making “live streaming with your car” no longer a fantasy.
IM L7 is indeed trying to define its consumer group by incorporating elements of luxury cars.
Taking the theme of this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, “Embracing Change,” into account, it is evident that change is the expectation and direction of all automobile people.
Today, what IM Auto is doing is adapting to the changes of the times and transforming cars.
It is not a dreamer of nothingness, but more like an optimistic technologist who believes that technological progress will inevitably create better things and tries to use those technologies to create better products. It is also answering the question of “Chinese electric cars need luxury brands, and luxury brands are more worthwhile” with its strength.
What is even more heartening is that we can see its imaginative freedom and boundless creativity from all of this.
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.