L380 has brought a lot of surprises, so can it bring a bright future for pure electric MPV?
On the evening of June 25, Geely's pure electric MPV, known as "Land Airbus", the LEVC L380 (hereinafter referred to as "L380"), was officially launched, with an official guide price of 379,900-479,900 yuan, positioning the pure electric medium and large MPV. So far, the high-end pure electric MPV market has once again ushered in a new force after a generation of players such as ZEEKR 009, VOYAH Dreamer, Ideal MEGA, Xpeng X9, and Volvo EX90.
and the Cullinambi experience
A total of 4 models were brought to the conference, namely:
- 140-degree 6-seat four-wheel drive Ultra: 479,900 yuan
- 140-degree 8-seat four-wheel drive Max: 479,900 yuan
- 116 degrees 6-seat Pro: 439,900 yuan
- 100-degree 6-seater Air: 379,900 yuan
In addition, there are eye-catching car purchase rights:
- an 11-year-old Huanghuali (is there a knowledgeable brother to introduce the gold content);
- Delivery gift: 7kW home charging pile (including 30m line speed) enjoy free installation service, three rows of six original custom luxury lambskin headrests + lumbar support;
- Service gifts: including lifetime warranty of the whole vehicle, free traffic for life, 12 times a year for driving service, free after-sales rescue service;
- 10,000 yuan 30 financial gift: 0 down payment, 12-60 month installment; 0 interest, 200,000 24 months 0 interest; 0 monthly payment, down payment of 5 percent, 12 months.
The most important thing is that before July 31, you can also enjoy 40,000 yuan in cash rights and interests when you buy a car, including 20,000 yuan in exchange for purchase subsidies, 10,000 yuan in purchase tax subsidies and 10,000 yuan in toll subsidies (only 8 seats), so the limited-time price of L380 is 349,900-449,900 yuan, which is nearly 10,000 yuan cheaper than the sales champion Xiaopeng X9 in the market segment, and the knife technique is quite accurate.
However, L380 is not here, if you want to fight the most elite, so from time to time at the press conference, you have to benchmark the landing of 8 million "the most expensive SUV on the surface" Cullinan, LEVC even moved Cullinan, Maybach GLS, BMW X7 and a series of bigwig cars in the experience area for you to actually compare and experience, a good "he is strong, he is strong, the breeze blows the hills" confidence and willfulness.
The L380 measures 5316/1998/1940mm with a wheelbase of 3185mm. Compared to the Cullinan, which has a longer body and wheelbase, the 790mm first-row space is not at a loss, and the 1000mm second-row space is slightly better. In addition, the second-row seats have been moved forward and the rear side tunnel has reached 481 mm, and the second-row center tunnel is 200 mm wide, making it easy to enter and exit from the rear cabin.
And the space of the three rows reaches 940mm, what is the concept? A man with a height of 190+ cm can also have ample knee room when sitting in it.
In terms of power, L380 is equipped with two sets of powertrains, single motor version of the model maximum power of 200kW, maximum torque of 343N·m, four-wheel drive version of the maximum power of 400kW, maximum torque of 686N·m, and the same parameters as Krypton 009, its zero hundred also reached 5.5s, the official claim is comparable to 5.0T big V8, Land Rover Defender sweated profusely, I didn't think that MPV would come to just me.
However, soon the pressure returned to the number one imaginary enemy in the next link, and the L380 adopted Bosch's latest IPB1.1 version of the One Box intelligent brake-by-wire system, so the braking distance of 100 achieved a score of 35.98m, which is better than Cullinan and Phantom. To be honest, such a heavy MPV can make the braking distance into 36m, which can really give a "reassuring pill" to the family users who go out for a family of seven in the market.
In terms of torsional rigidity of the body, the L380 also won with a score of 41000N·m/deg, and the key control arm also adopts the same 40cr special forged steel process as the aircraft landing gear, and the tensile strength is 2.7 times that of aluminum alloy.
In terms of pure electric range, the LEVC L380 is available in three options: 100 kWh, 116 kWh and 140 kWh, of which the 100 kWh and 116 kWh CLTC pure electric range are 570 km and 675 km respectively, while the 140 kWh CLTC pure electric range is 785 km and 805 km respectively due to the configuration of the 8-seater and 6-seater models.
In addition, the press conference also exposed the different seat combinations that I was very curious about last time, such as 7 seats, 5 seats, and even 4 seats, which is actually relatively within the scope of my cognition.
But they actually showed a 3-seater version of the sky, one person enjoys the huge imperial space, and sure enough, loneliness is a one's carnival, and I am already looking forward to the birth of the first owner. With four less chairs, this range cannot be more than 50km!
In addition, if you have friends who want to know what the space of this car is, you can move to the detailed static experience article "Ideal 'High-speed Rail'" we did before, LEVC has pushed "Airbus", pure electric MPV you can roll. If you want to know more about the dynamic performance, you can click on the first-hand hot test drive video brought by my colleague Snail.
Okay, that's all we have to talk about the sharing of products, and I want to discuss another topic with you: Do MPVs really need pure electricity?
"Pure electric" may be more like "putting a long line" to MPVs
Pure electric sedans can be popular, pure electric SUVs can be popular, but pure electric MPVs have been tepid.
Let's start with two stats:
- According to the statistics of the Passenger Car Association, the cumulative sales of pure electric MPV models from January to April were 31,500 units, the cumulative sales of pure electric sedans from January to April were 845,000 units, and the cumulative sales of pure electric SUV models from January to April were 641,000 units.
- According to the statistics of the Passenger Federation Branch, from January to April this year, among the 320,000 MPV sales, fuel MPV sales accounted for more than 70%, hybrid MPV sales accounted for 17.8%, pure electric MPV accounted for less than 10%, and the rest were others.
In other words, even if car companies get into it, even if the three-child policy is relaxed and consumer demand is upgraded, pure electric MPV seems to be far from ushering in the previously predicted "bonus period".
Chunjiang plumbing duck prophet, we can get a better glimpse of the market's acceptance of pure electric MPV from the sales side, just past 5 months, Xiaopeng X9 won the sales championship of the pure electric market with 1625 units, the second place may be the Pentium NAT that everyone has rarely heard of, and the ideal MEGA, Extreme Krypton 009, and Denza D9 EV with a huge volume on the Internet only handed over 614, 450, and 473 vehicles.
Back to last year, Buick GL8 lost its dominance after entering the Chinese market in 2000, and the wind of electrification finally blew to the MPV track, Geely, GAC, SAIC, HONGQI, BYD and Great Wall and other independent brands have entered the game and reshaped the pattern of the market segment, and the track of high-end pure electric MPV seems to have a "blue ocean" trend.
Li Xiang once revealed that "the company will not release a new pure electric model this year", perhaps he was really heartbroken by the MEGA with half the effort, after all, "MEGA is confident to become the first in sales of more than 500,000 people" The ambition is still in his ears.
So, what's the problem?
In my opinion, it is the contradiction between supply and demand, and the job of MPV is to be bigger and farther, not faster and stronger. Nowadays, many new cars will flaunt the performance separately, which is understandable, but the "farther" related to the fundamental pain points of users has not been done better than fuel vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and most of their actual range does not exceed 700km, which is unacceptable to users.
A research data shows that more than half of the MPV belongs to public cars, accounting for 56.58%, the most used for this part of the model is business reception, from time to time there will be "thousands of miles to send the official seal" emergency treatment, for the charging time spent, they would rather spend more money to avoid. For these users, high efficiency is far more important than low cost, which is why the low cost of pure electric vehicles seems to have "failed" in the MPV field.
It is also difficult for family users who are not so eager to pursue high efficiency to take pure electric as the first choice, because there are already many medium and large SUVs in the market that can provide a similar space experience as MPVs to choose from, and the overall price is relatively more affordable. The most important thing is that many of them have plug-in hybrid and extended range options with better battery life or energy supplement. As many of the Ideal store sales say, "There are many consumers who come to the store to see MEGA, but most of them join in the fun, and they all end up buying L7, L8, and L9." Even back in the MPV field, people still give preference to hybrid or fuel models, and the pure electric sales champion can only rank outside the top 10, which is a fact.
Could it be that the pure electric MPV is a dead end?
Not necessarily, pure electric MPV has its own "Noah's Ark", at least for now, it seems that one of the battery life or energy supplements needs to be solved. This is also why the battery of MPV is basically above 100kWh, and the nominal range has exceeded 800km, but the relative inconvenience of energy replenishment still exists, even with overcharging. So at this time, everyone will think of battery swapping, and their eyes will naturally focus on the "first brother of battery swapping" NIO.
NIO has 2,420 battery swap stations, and has also launched strategic cooperation with FAW, GAC, Changan, Geely, Chery, Jiangqi, Lotus, Sinopec, CNOOC, Shell, State Grid and other car companies or units. Therefore, there is a plan and a way to follow for pure electric MPVs to go on the battery swap track.
However, for the car companies themselves, it is not a long-term solution to bet on a third party, and it is even more laborious to build their own battery swap stations. Therefore, looking at it, the pure electric MPV is more like the strategic layout of "fishing for big fish with a long line", and it seems that it is not the best choice to rely on this market segment to find new growth poles before digging out new user needs.
Pure electric MPV, multi-divergent, multi-divergent.
Voyage divergent road, may you develop your ambitions
Back to the question we asked at the beginning, can the L380 bring a bright future to the pure electric MPV?
No one dares to make up their minds. But what is certain is that the current luxury, high-end route of pure electric MPVs is correct. The Passenger Federation Branch also believes that with the change of China's family structure, the future high-end growth of MPV is not a flash in the pan. At least I didn't see that after the high-end of the independent brand MPV, the Buick GL8 was pulled off the altar, and the Alpha is no longer dominant, and the top of the list Denza D9 has also raised the price of the domestic MPV past the bottleneck of 300,000 yuan. Although ZEEKR 009, Xpeng X9, and Ideal MEGA are still on the way to explore the unique value of pure electric MPV in the high-end luxury field, and they are not yet successful, it must be known that the revolution is to "bleed". To paraphrase a great man:
Without sacrificing and ambitious, how can you teach the sun and the moon to change the sky?