Land Airbus is coming!
Geely's new brand LEVC L380 was officially launched, with a total of four models, and the new car is positioned as a medium and large MPV. The price range is 379,900-479,900 yuan, and the price range is 349,900-449,900 yuan under the limited-time equity of the listing.
Don't look at the name of LEVC Yizhen, but the press conference can be said to be unprecedentedly strong compared to the previous lineup.
At the scene of the press conference, in addition to Nan Shengliang, chairman of LEVC, not only Li Shufu was his platform, but also An Conghui, Gan Jiayue, Lin Jie, Yang Xueliang and other senior executives were brought to help, and even Ding Lei, the founder of NetEase, was brought to his platform.
It is rare for a model to be held at the press conference to collect all the "family photos" under the Geely system, which is enough to see how much Geely attaches importance to LEVC.
And in terms of pricing, it is not difficult to see that L380 has a clear distinction from Zeekrypton 009 under the same Geely system. ZEEKR 009 focuses on the high-end travel market of more than 500,000 yuan, while LEVC L380 focuses on less than 500,000 yuan.
Land A380?
It is not difficult to see from its title of "Land Airbus" that it must be at least big.
And it can also be seen from the naming of L380 that its name comes from the world's largest wide-body passenger aircraft manufactured by Airbus in Europe - Airbus A380.
The concept of "big" L380 gives the answer in two dimensions, one is size, and the other is space.
The length, width and height of the L380 are 5316/1998/1940mm, respectively, and the wheelbase is 3185mm. The body length is close to that of the Ideal MEGA, but it is taller than the MEGA, but the side wheels are smaller, and the overall look and feel is larger than the MEGA.
In addition, the space in the car, from the perspective of the model structure, the L380 has a variety of layouts from 3 to 8 seats, while the 8-seat version of the model adopts a rare 2+2+2+2 layout.
Taking the most conventional six-seater version of the model as an example, the space in the first row reaches 790mm, the second row has a space of 1000mm, and the third row space can reach 940mm, which is also the origin of the L380 "Land Airbus" title.
And unlike the traditional MPV passenger compartment, where only the second row of seats is designed independently, the second and third row seats of the Yizhen L380 are independent aviation seats, and they can also reach a width of 200mm passenger compartment aisle.
The core of such a large space performance lies in the SOA architecture used by Geely on the L380.
The biggest advantage of the SOA architecture and other pure electric platforms is the utilization of cabin space, which is a pure space-oriented pure electric architecture.
SOA has replaced the ODP-integrated on-board power management module, which was previously arranged vertically, between the power battery pack and the floor, and has been placed horizontally tiled. In addition, the SOA also has a low-voltage battery in the middle and a steering machine in the front, freeing up more space for the front cabin.
In addition, the SOA architecture optimizes the direction of the body longitudinal beam and the efficient and flat design of the rear suspension, and the space utilization rate of the whole vehicle under the SOA architecture can reach more than 75%.
Of course, both belong to Geely, and the difference between the SOA architecture and the SEA vast architecture is only one word, so the outside world is also curious about the relationship between the two.
Kent Bovellan, head of architecture at Geely, has said that while there are some shared parts between SOA and SEA platforms, the two are largely unrelated.
The SOA platform, jointly developed by teams in China, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Germany, lasted two and a half years, and from the perspective of suitable models, it supports vehicle sizes with a length of 4860mm-5995mm and a width of 1945mm-1998mm, and the wheelbase can be expanded from 3000mm to 3800mm.
The SEA vast architecture, developed by domestic and European R&D centers, can cover models with a wheelbase of 1800-3300mm, and is suitable for various categories from A-class vehicles to large commercial vehicles.
It is not difficult to see that the SOA architecture is technically the same as the SEA architecture, but the models under the SOA architecture are obviously larger and more oriented towards the business segment.
Smart and decent
However, the L380 does not blindly pursue large space and ignore other vehicle configurations.
Looking at the exterior first, the LEVC L380 has a more rounded design, and its front occupies a relatively small proportion, which is obviously a concession for the interior space.
The front end features a popular closed design, with a three-segment LED strip above the split headlight cluster and a high and low beam light cluster below. In addition, there is a deflator design under the headlight cluster, and there is a silver trim strip under the front face.
The new car features all-black ABC pillars and a roof, and a waistline-less design that gives it a chunky look from the side.
The rear part of the car, using a through-type rear taillight group, is interesting is the taillight shape, the overall appearance of the middle of the thin two thick H-shaped shape, the official called it "peacock open screen" lighting effect. The English logo of the brand with the word LEVC is embellished under the taillights, and the license plate area below is an inverted trapezoidal design.
In terms of power, the LEVC L380 will be available in front-wheel drive and four-wheel drive versions, of which the single-motor version has a maximum power of 200kW and a maximum torque of 343N · m, 4WD dual-motor version with a maximum power of 400kW and a maximum torque of 686N · m。
In terms of batteries, CATL Kirin batteries with capacities of 100kWh, 116kWh and 140kWh are available, with a CLTC pure electric range of 675 km and 805 km, and thanks to CATL's CTP 3.0 battery technology, fast charging can be from 10%-80% in 30 minutes, and 200 km can be replenished in 10 minutes.
It is also the world's second luxury pure electric MPV model equipped with this battery after ZEEKR 009.
In terms of suspension design, L380 for the first time uses a double-ball joint MacPherson air spring front suspension similar to BMW, taking into account the center of gravity and bearing conditions of the body, the rear axle adopts a high-load multi-link suspension, with wide tires at the front and narrow at the rear, the elk test score of this 5-meter car can reach 75.8km/h, which is not easy for an MPV.
In addition, in terms of intelligent configuration, since Geely is under Geely, the Flyme Auto in-vehicle system is naturally indispensable, equipped with ECARX's Antola 1000 Pro computing platform based on two 7nm automotive-grade high-performance "Dragon Eagle No. 1" SoCs, the BEV mode of the whole cabin seat and the "butler mode" of one-key vehicle control, which can realize the comprehensive translation of the operation habits from the mobile phone to the car machine.
In addition, SenseTime SenseNova 5.0 model has also been introduced, which can detect and monitor a number of health indicators such as occupant heartbeat, respiratory rate and blood oxygen concentration.
In terms of intelligent driving, the LEVC L380 is only equipped with L2+ level driving assistance functions, with active braking, lane departure warning, lane merging assist, lane keeping assist, automatic lane change assist and other conventional functions
The second spring of the century-old depot
At first glance, the LEVC brand may seem unfamiliar, but it has a long history.
When it comes to Geely's global overseas M&A experience, most people know about the "snake swallowing elephant" acquisition of Volvo Cars. But as early as 2006, Geely's first overseas car brand participation experience was LEVC.
If you've ever been to the UK or watched the action movie Kingsman, you'll remember the taxis on the streets of England and the Black Cab from the movies.
This brand is the predecessor of LEVC - London Taxi Company (London Taxi Company), its history can be traced back to 1906, so far this brand has a history of 118 years, three generations, serious 100 years of car enterprises.
In fact, the predecessor of LEVC was not called LTC, but Carbodies. However, Carbodies was not a car manufacturer, but a body builder, because in the context of the time, there was a clear division of labor between the company that produced the mechanical part and the company that produced the body, and it was not a complete machine factory like it is now.
Soon after its establishment, it won the favor of many brands, and received a large number of orders to build bodies for MG and Rover.
The first turning point for the LEVC brand came in 1948, when Austin partnered with it to begin manufacturing the bodywork for the FX3 taxis in London, and completed the processing and delivery of the whole vehicle, mainly destined for London, which became the symbol of London taxis.
In 1971, Carbodies took over the manufacturing of the London taxi from Austin. Two years later, it was acquired by Manganese Bronze Holdings. In 1992, the company officially changed its name to the London Taxi Company.
The second turning point of LEVC came in 2006, when Geely, which hoped to acquire relatively advanced technology through the acquisition of foreign car companies, began the "buy, buy, buy" model, and the first thing was to take a stake in LEVC.
In 2006, Geely partnered with Manganese Bronze Holdings, a manganese copper company, to form a joint venture to manufacture taxis in China. It became a shareholder of Manganese Copper Holdings, and subsequently established Shanghai British Dihua Company to produce classic black cabs in London and sell them in the Chinese market.
Geely has also started to launch new models in the Chinese market. Geely once launched the Geely England model, which used the logo of LTC London Taxi.
Although this merger and acquisition did not bring Geely real money, it made Geely appear in the global field for the first time.
In 2012, Manganese & Copper Holdings declared bankruptcy, and Geely took advantage of the situation to acquire LTC wholly for £11 million. In 2015, Geely announced a £25,000 investment in the construction of a new London taxi factory in Coventry. A year later, Geely invested £300 million in its research and production site in the West Midlands to develop a new generation of London taxi, the TX5.
Two years later, the UK factory was inaugurated, and Geely announced that the London Taxi Company had officially changed its name to the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC). This is the current LEVC.
It was also at that time that LEVC began to transform from a taxi manufacturer to a new energy manufacturer, and for both parties, LEVC ushered in a transformation, which is also a key step in Geely's overseas planning.
From LEVC's slogan: "Fill the world with Geely", you can see why Geely chose to acquire a taxi brand.
However, looking overseas, judging from the feedback from the domestic market, compared with hybrid MPVs, pure electric MPVs do not seem to be favored by consumers, and even the ideal MEGA, which had a very high flow at the beginning, was also cold.
Moreover, the current sales of MPVs in the market are the first in the sales of the Denza D9, and the sales of its EV version are not more than a fraction of that of the hybrid version, and among the top 10 MPVs in monthly sales, they are basically oil cars and hybrid models, and in the top 20, only Xpeng X9 is a pure electric model on the list.
Nowadays, the L380 only has a pure electric option, even if it has a century-old history and Geely's endorsement, what are the odds?