Author: Chang Yan

Today, LINGPAI held a launch event for the C11 in Hangzhou, and the gift given at this event was a car model.

For media professionals, this is an ordinary occurrence. I can’t even remember when I received my last car model.

But I will always remember the process of receiving a LINGPAI car model for the first time…

It was early 2019 when LINGPAI’s first mass-produced car, the S01, was officially launched at the Beijing Water Cube.

Although it is a huge relief for new energy players to launch their first mass-produced car, it may not be the case for LINGPAI.

At that time, LINGPAI’s production was not yet mature, brand awareness was low, and the S01 was a unique and controversial work in terms of design.

I still remember the tone of a media teacher from a portal website after the meeting that day. He joked, “Keep this car model in good condition. It might become valuable if this brand disappears one day.”

Two years later, the media teacher’s S01 car model did not “keep in good condition” and was destroyed by his newborn son. However, LINGPAI did not “disappear,” and even ranked higher among new energy players.

This story was retold in a different way at the beginning of today’s launch event. The founder, chairman, and CEO of LINGPAI, Zhu Jiangming, said:

“Without perseverance, we might not have survived 2019;

Without enough passion, we might not have been able to create the third car.”

Regarding LINGPAI’s previous predicament, he summarized it as “not being well-regarded and not being understood.”

LINGPAI’s second car, the T03, might be the reason why LINGPAI is now well-regarded and beloved. This car proves a point: in the field of pure electric vehicles, as long as a manufacturer grasps the explosive point of the market and produces a product that exceeds expectations in terms of configuration and price, regardless of the brand, it will receive positive feedback from the market.

Therefore, the C11 is an amplified version of this concept…

Value

Whether in terms of performance or size.

# Translation

The C11 release conference today is estimated to have flooded the screens of many electric vehicle enthusiasts. Unlike previous conferences where only a few special slides need to be presented from dozens of PowerPoint pages, this time every slide of C11 seems to require attention…

Therefore, I recommend starting from the end of the conference.

On this slide, C11 currently provides and promises to provide all configurations through OTA, with a line of text that reads: “Expectations in the 500,000-yuan level can be achieved for less than 200,000 yuan.”

To prove this sentence, in the previous hour, Zhu Jiangming passionately explained from five dimensions: specifications, performance, intelligence, luxury, and convenience.

After the C11 price, which is less than 200,000 yuan after subsidy, the highest offer is 90 kWh battery pack and less than 4.8 seconds of 0-100 km/h acceleration performance with dual-motor four-wheel drive.

The wheelbase of 2930mm, longer than many mid-to-large-sized pure electric SUVs, and the corresponding interior space, front double-wishbone suspension that represents high performance, rear multi-link suspension, and a 76.2% body structure made of high-strength steel are also standard across the entire lineup.

This doesn’t even count the intelligent part which we will discuss separately in the next section.

Since we haven’t driven a C11 yet, we cannot comment on the driving experience. However, regarding these practical hardware configurations, the term “value for money” has indeed been expressed too specifically.

After introducing these five parts, Zero Run pushed the conference to its climax on the next page.

At the time, I told Karakush teacher sitting next to me that it felt like watching television shopping.

But that was only the first half. The second half was that I couldn’t seem to find any flaws.

IntelligenceIn the previous configuration table, most of the features waiting for OTA upgrade are advanced driving assistance functions of C11.

Although the cost-effectiveness is more like the magic of LINGLONG, they would rather attribute the most important part to efforts towards intelligence.

It’s like when you ask LINGLONG why their cars can be so cheap, they often say it’s because they have achieved full-stack self-research in many key parts.

Indeed, all models of C11 use LINGLONG’s self-researched electric drive and battery integration, and it is also announced to come standard with the intelligent cockpit and L2 level advanced driving assistance.

Before the opening, LINGLONG has been circulating the intelligent cockpit video of C11 in the venue. The three-screen configuration plus the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 configuration also represents the top experience of today’s intelligent cockpit. Moreover, LINGLONG announced that it will adopt a hardware design of separating the screen from the chip, which can ensure the upgrading of vehicle intelligent functions during the 10-year life cycle.

What’s particularly special is that LINGLONG offers many innovations in multi-screen interaction, especially in multi-user interaction. For example, video content can be shared among the three screens. Two different music accounts can be logged in at the same time on the car TV. With Bluetooth headphones, the driver and the co-pilot can listen to completely different music contents at the same time.

Also, similar to “quick applications” like mini-programs, can quickly add content to car TV.

The focus is mainly on advanced driving assistance.

Since the Lingxun 01 autonomous driving chip is self-researched, LINGLONG has indeed achieved full-stack self-research in chip, algorithm, perception and data.

For the target group of C11, the 8.4TOPS computing power composed of the twin Lingxun 01 is enough to serve specific scenario-based driving assistance and active safety features in all scenarios.

However, the delivery time of this software as scheduled may be what people really doubt.After the delays in the assisted driving function for the previous two models of Leapmotor, and given that the internal testing time for the C11’s Navigation Assisted Driving function was announced to be in the second quarter of 2022, the exact time when the full user experience can be ensured is not yet known.

However, today Leapmotor has once again expressed its goal to surpass Tesla in autonomous driving within 3 years.

As for the reason for using the character “和” (meaning “and”) in the title, it’s because aside from the C11, Leapmotor also had a major move today.

Leapmotor basically has had a silly catchphrase from an engineering-style male student at every press conference.

This will gain a lot of attention, but also cause a lot of controversy.

For example, the aforementioned goal of surpassing Tesla in autonomous driving within 3 years.

Zhu Jiangming’s reason is that China’s artificial intelligence technology is globally leading, so there is no reason why it should not be the world’s number one in the field of intelligent driving.

And this is not the only goal that Leapmotor has set for itself at this press conference.

Leapmotor also set a completely new brand goal at this press conference.

By the end of 2025, Leapmotor will launch 8 new models covering price ranges below RMB 350,000.

Next year, Leapmotor will begin to enter the overseas market.

So when Zhu Jiangming said “global”, he meant it seriously.

So what is Leapmotor’s goal? It is to “become a respected world-class smart electric vehicle enterprise”.

Although it sounds much more serious than the previous sentence, it is indeed more bold.

The shock that the C11 brought to the industry at the configuration level actually began from its debut in December of last year. However, issues related to services and guarantees outside of the model still need to be observed continuously.

I hope that in 2025, we can still talk about our story in 2021, just like at the beginning.

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.