Million-dollar Electric Luxury Cars: BBA Retreats, Huawei Aims to Break the Deadlock

The Zunjie S800, a million-dollar luxury car jointly developed by Huawei and JAC, has finally been revealed.

The price range of 1 to 1.5 million yuan and the appearance of the vehicle have sparked intense discussions. Some people believe that the first car of a new brand priced at one million lacks the support of heritage. Some question that the appearance is not outstanding or luxurious, not in line with the temperament of a million-dollar price. Anyway, widely implanting the million-dollar price in the minds of consumers is a successful step in establishing the image of a luxury car.

36Kr has also learned from informed sources that the Zunjie S800 will be officially launched and deliveries will commence in 2025, and its first-year sales will aim for 2,000 units.

The production quantity may seem small, but among the currently available million-dollar electric vehicles, it is already an ambitious goal. You should know that the monthly sales of the Mercedes-Benz EQS are only a few dozen, and the BMW i7 is only about 100. If this planned production can be achieved, it is sufficient to make the Zunjie S800 the best-selling million-dollar luxury electric vehicle currently.

But what does the Zunjie use to support this million-dollar price?

The Design Required Course for Million-Dollar Luxury Cars

Domestic brands are not entirely new to manufacturing million-dollar luxury electric vehicles.

Lotus has two top-of-the-line electric vehicle models with a price of over one million. Take the sedan Fanhua delivered this year as an example. Its price ranges from 668,000 to 1,368,000 yuan, with a zero to 100 km/h acceleration of 2.78 seconds. The evaluation of the handling experience is positive. In terms of intelligent driving, it is equipped with 4 lidar sensors, and the large screen in the car is 15 inches and has a smooth experience.

However, since deliveries began in March this year, the number of Fanhua vehicles registered is still less than 300. Consumers seem not willing to pay for these "high-energy" configurations.

Let's take a look at another model with the same million-dollar price, the Porsche Taycan. From January to September this year, the sales of this pure electric model of Porsche in China have declined, and the delivery volume has directly halved compared to last year. But the final number is still 14,042 units.

This model does not have advanced intelligent driving, the optional price of the co-pilot screen is as high as 45,000 yuan, the voice system is not very good at understanding Chinese, and the interior space is not outstanding. Even though it has faced setbacks, it still sells a number that independent brands' million-dollar models dare not imagine.

Brand power is the main force, but the appearance of the Taycan is also a factor that cannot be ignored. After all, the Xiaomi SU7, which looks somewhat similar to the Taycan, has still received thousands of new monthly orders half a year after its release, and the Xiaomi SU7 still attracts the attention of passers-by on the streets.

As a million-dollar luxury car, design must be a required course for the Zunjie.

First, let's look at the intuitive size of the entire vehicle. The Zunjie S800 is nearly 5.5 meters long and has a wheelbase of 3.3 meters. The visual effect is very close to that of the Maybach S680, and the huge body indeed creates an oppressive aura exclusive to luxury cars.

Zunjie S800

Looking closely, the Zunjie S800 has many shadows of luxury cars - the same two-tone body and large cake-shaped wheels as the Maybach, the window design similar to the BMW Hofmeister kink, the same purple and silver color scheme and starry sky roof as the Rolls-Royce Phantom, and so on.

It has to be said that by abandoning the Huawei Hongmeng Zhixing family-style design language, these design elements that are "similar" to traditional luxury cars have accumulated the luxurious temperament of the Zunjie S800.

After all, in the past few decades, the design concepts of traditional luxury brands have been deeply rooted in people's hearts. To quickly establish brand recognition in this consumer circle, this is the fastest way at present.

Design often starts from copying. Before independent brands have a mature design language, imitative works with care and quality will also be favored by consumers. Judging from the car paint that can emit delicate luster from different angles, the Zunjie S800 is meticulous in quality.

Of course, the Zunjie S800 also uses its own design. The most prominent language is "Galaxy". The headlights, door handles, and taillights of the entire vehicle are wrapped in "Galaxy".

This is actually very unique.

For a long time, the core configuration of fuel luxury cars has been a larger displacement and more advanced engine. Therefore, in the design language of fuel luxury cars, a large area of metal air intake grille is used to show dominance. This is the case from Rolls-Royce to Mercedes-Benz to the Chinese independent brand Hongqi.

In the transition to the era of new energy vehicles without an engine, a closed minimalist front face without any excessive decoration has become the mainstream design, as is the case with the once million-dollar Tesla Model X.

How to create a sense of luxury in the closed front face of new energy vehicles? Mercedes-Benz EQS, which has switched from a starry sky to a family design front face, and BMW i7, which advocates a "big nostril", have not yet found the answer.

The Zunjie S800 has made its own breakthrough. A small area of metal air intake is set on the front face, with a low sense of presence, but it lays a luxurious tone with metal elements. The unique Xinghan headlights on both sides are similar to the starlight headlights of Rolls-Royce, but the overall starlight area is larger, and the star points are denser and brighter.

The charm of lights can never be reflected in pictures - Owners of the Zunjie S800 may circle the car to admire the style of the Xinghan headlights every time they turn off the engine and get out of the car.

The "Galaxy" design of the door handles and taillights is also very ingenious, embedding the implication of "being able to pick the stars with one's hand". Between wild dominance and extreme simplicity, the Zunjie wants to create the seclusion and artistic conception of "Chinese luxury".

If an accident occurs, the maintenance cost of the Zunjie S800 on the front and rear light groups may be very high. But this just hits an important feature of luxury car design, pursuing design value regardless of cost and practicality. In the Chinese market where practicality is the consumption trend, independent brands rarely make such attempts.

The first-generation Porsche Panamera was criticized for its bloated design, and the Mercedes-Benz S-Class was not hailed as a design classic until the seventh-generation model.

The Zunjie S800 is only the first design attempt of Huawei and JAC in the million-dollar luxury car. In this attempt, many of its design details and quality are worthy of praise. Moreover, in addition to borrowing, the Zunjie S800 has a unique design concept that belongs to the Chinese brand.

The first model may not be recognized by all consumers, but the design concept and ability will progress, and the future models of Zunjie are still worth looking forward to.

How Can Luxury Electric Vehicles Support a Million-Dollar Price?

Consumers with different preferences are all looking forward to how the Zunjie S800 will support its price with product power. Judging from the information released at the launch event, the Zunjie has made an upgrade in hardware configuration.

On the one hand, it is the L3-level intelligent driving architecture design. This seemingly very cross-era technology, the core of which is to increase the safety redundancy design. Both the software algorithm and the execution hardware are set with backup solutions to ensure operation.

For a vehicle with a price of more than one million yuan, the Zunjie S800 has enough cost space to prepare for multiple sets of intelligent hardware.

Of course, for car owners who buy at this price, the driver is likely to be a professional driver. Therefore, the brand value of cutting-edge intelligent driving technology may be far greater than the practical value.

The other side of the technology of the Zunjie S800 is the adoption of the 2.0 version of the self-developed chassis platform by Huawei. According to Yu Chengdong, the Zunjie S800 has achieved the integration of the chassis, cockpit, and intelligent driving in three domains.

The chassis, which fuel luxury cars are proud of, is often a pure mechanical structure. Advanced mechanical equipment, exquisite layout, and careful tuning have become the unique superior experience of luxury cars.

However, mechanical tuning is difficult and the ceiling is also limited, and the chassis is destined to move towards intelligence. The multi-domain integration including the chassis is one of the trends.

The addition of the cockpit domain that dominates the in-car intelligence will definitely bring more intelligent experiences. For example, in the Zunjie S800, perhaps an immersive 4D movie can be watched with the help of the chassis movement. But what specific functions will there be? This greatly tests the creativity and engineering capabilities of Huawei and JAC.

Huawei's thinking direction on technology is actually correct, because the foundation of a luxury car has always been technology, and it is technology that provides more convenient and intelligent services.

Take the best-selling Mercedes-Benz S-Class as an example.

In 1951, the highlight of the first-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class was the innovation of the engine and suspension. By the third-generation model, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class had applied air suspension. The leapfrog leadership of the three major chassis components has made these generations of Mercedes-Benz models the undisputed luxury cars currently.

The fifth-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class began to pursue the user experience. In 1972, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class began to be equipped with a cruise control system; in 1979, the electric adjustment function began to be installed; and in 1991, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class already had power-closing doors and a voice control system; by 2005, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class had entered the era of active safety.

In the same period, the Hongqi Mingshi model listed in the Chinese market was even criticized for the abnormal sound when closing the door. The updates of these generations of models in terms of intelligent electric aspects have almost established the top position of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class in the luxury car track.

Up to now, Mercedes-Benz is still pursuing the technological leadership of luxury models. Their L3-level intelligent driving system has chosen the S-Class and the electric model EQS as the carrying models. One of the great significances of a luxury car is that it can appreciate the power of technology one step ahead of the times.

Today, the configuration of power-closing doors has been made available to 200,000-yuan models. In new energy vehicles, the penetration rate of this configuration has exceeded 10%. Even the high-end vehicle configuration of air suspension has a penetration rate approaching 10%.

Not to mention the upgrade of the software-level experience - the voice control system has developed to the point where the voice large model is installed, which can realize the recognition of the information of the vehicle in front and the surrounding buildings, and the headlights have also developed a projection function.

The Chinese brand, with its strong supply chain capability, has enabled the configurations that were once only available in imported luxury cars to quickly reach ordinary households.

This is the advantage of independent brands, but it has also become a stumbling block for independent brands to move upwards: When the average vehicle configuration line is rapidly improving, what kind of technical configuration should a luxury car have?

It took 30 years for the power-closing doors, which were once unaffordable for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, to be made available to models that are within the reach of Chinese consumers, and it took nearly 20 years for active safety. But the road of chasing the configuration of traditional luxury cars seems to have stopped here, and Chinese independent brands and BBA are already on the same starting line.

Huawei's attempt to use the intelligent experience as a sign of the technological leadership of luxury cars is inevitably faced with the same "technological equality" dilemma.

First, the speed of model replacement and modification of Chinese cars is too fast, especially the progress of intelligence. The software OTA is updated once a month; in order to have a better software experience, the model is even modified three times a year to improve the hardware configuration. It is true that the Zunjie S800 uses the L3-level intelligent driving architecture design, but how many new cars will adopt the same design in 2025?

Second, do luxury car consumers need so many and so advanced intelligent experiences?

Judging from the sales of the domestic brand Lotus, perhaps it is because the brand focuses on performance, so the intelligent experience is not top-notch; but from the first-generation Tesla Model S, Model X, and even the flying car that Xiaopeng is about to launch, the young group with strong purchasing power is very willing to pay for the trendy technology.

The group that the Zunjie S800 is targeting obviously has more experience, or has consumed more traditional luxury cars. Will they pay for intelligent driving? Or, for what kind of intelligent driving experience will they pay?

The S800 is the first model of the Zunjie. In fact, this is like a test by Huawei on the market.

This new car uses a shell of a traditional luxury car and includes the most cutting-edge technology. In the future owner research, Huawei has a complete opportunity to clearly understand whether this group of middle-aged people with abundant purchasing power will pay for the appearance or the interior.

The million-dollar luxury electric vehicle is almost a blank field, and no independent brand has really understood the luxury of electric vehicles. Huawei is brave, and taking this step is also inevitable.