The Zhijie R7 with a 70,000 yuan deposit is in a head-on competition with Tesla.
Hardcore companies like DeepSeek and Unitree Technology are rising rapidly, while tech companies such as Huawei are making continuous breakthroughs. The new energy vehicle industry is influencing the world, and Chinese tech companies are exerting a strong appeal.
In this industrial era with the emerging technology wave surging, the concept that technological luxury is the real luxury has deeply rooted in people's hearts. And Chinese automotive brands immersed in this industrial environment are also making great progress and seizing the market. The Zhijie Automobile under Huawei Hongmeng Zhixing is a typical example.
According to official information, Zhijie R7 has received 70,000 large orders. This is an achievement realized less than half a year after its launch, and it has also begun to shake the electric coupe SUV market dominated by Tesla Model Y.
Zhijie is the second automotive brand launched by Hongmeng Zhixing, jointly created by Huawei and Chery. Zhijie R7 is the first SUV model of the Zhijie brand, and currently, two power forms of pure electric and extended-range versions have been launched.
As an intelligent electric vehicle priced between 250,000 and 300,000 yuan, the achievement of Zhijie R7 is quite shocking. Because in the system of Hongmeng Zhixing, such achievements have occurred many times. For example, Wenjie M9 has won the sales championship of models above 500,000 yuan, replacing the BMW X5 that has dominated the list for many years.
And Zhijie R7 has attacked the hinterland of the intelligent electric vehicle pioneer Tesla, forcing the latter's main sales model Model Y into a defending position.
After entering the Chinese market in 2014, Tesla's sales in China have shown a rapid growth trend. China is a major automotive country and also the core position of the new energy vehicle industry. Over the years, both new car-making forces and established car companies have launched successive assaults on Tesla's market position.
However, there are many challengers, but few beneficiaries. Most of the so-called "Tesla killers" have become an empty slogan at the press conference, and it is difficult to dislodge the other party's position in terms of sales.
Zhijie R7 is obviously different. It is a strong challenger with comprehensive capabilities in technology, product, and brand. 70,000 large orders correspond to a monthly sales volume rushing towards 20,000 units. And this is already nearly half of the data of Tesla's SUV model Model Y with the same positioning.
At present, Zhijie R7 has become the sales champion of Chinese brand pure electric SUVs above 250,000 yuan, leading the strong rise of the second generation of Hongmeng Zhixing. The super-strong pure electric + Snowy Owl extended-range creates two popular models, becoming the biggest dark horse in the beginning of 2025.
Now, Zhijie R7 is still rapidly iterating, upgrading, and accumulating word-of-mouth with sales volume to expand its influence. It can be predicted that after winning the sales championship of Chinese brand pure electric SUVs above 250,000 yuan, Zhijie R7 will launch a more fierce attack on Tesla.
Standing on the Shoulders of Huawei
As a pioneer of intelligent electric vehicles, Tesla's brand recognition status has been formed.
Counting the brands or products that have challenged Tesla in the past, most are limited by insufficient intelligent technology and weak brands. Compared with the intelligent electric vehicle pioneer Tesla, most domestic automotive brands find it difficult to create a sense of technological aspiration.
But these are all strengths for Huawei. For example, starting in 2023, Huawei took the lead in launching the high-level intelligent driving popularization that "can be driven nationwide" in China. With its excellent technical accumulation and execution ability, Huawei has landed the high-level intelligent driving technology that can be comparable to Tesla's FSD on the more challenging Chinese urban roads.
In terms of brand power, as an ICT technology giant, Huawei's leading position in China's technology is self-evident.
Under the premise of fully enhancing the technological strength, Huawei is particularly good at the product experience. Huawei Terminal Business Group, after years of bloody battles in consumer electronics such as mobile phones and tablets, has precipitated mature product system methodologies such as IPD.
With the comprehensive support of Huawei's technology, products, and brand, and the empowerment of manufacturing and industrial systems such as Chery, Zhijie R7 naturally has the confidence to challenge Tesla. With Huawei's strong product shaping and user experience capture capabilities, Zhijie R7 will launch an unsparing offensive against Tesla Model Y.
"Hexagonal Warrior" Product Strength, Competing Head-on with Tesla
Technology and brand are only the stepping stones for Zhijie to enter the high-end new energy vehicle market, and as an automotive consumer product, solid product strength and experience are the biggest trump cards of Zhijie R7. This is also the long-term confidence for Zhijie R7 to continuously gain recognition, positively roll out sales volume, and quickly accumulate 70,000 large orders.
First in design, Zhijie R7 adopts a fastback design, breaking out of the traditional SUV product framework and choosing to attract a large number of differentiated automotive consumer groups with a technological, sporty, and youthful style.
Matching the personalized design style, handling and performance have also become the product business cards of Zhijie R7. The pure electric version of Zhijie R7 is equipped with the HUAWEI DriveONE 800V high-voltage silicon carbide platform, with the fastest zero to 100 kilometers acceleration in just 3.9 seconds, and the braking distance from 100km/h to 0 is only 34.7 meters.
At the same time, its HUAWEI "Full Blood" Turing platform is equipped with front double wishbone and rear five-link independent suspensions, and the whole series is standardly equipped with continuously variable damping shock absorbers and air suspensions. Based on the HUAWEI iDVP intelligent vehicle digital platform, the hardcore mechanical quality is maximized with AI and software capabilities.
Intelligent technology is also a traditional strength of Huawei. Zhijie R7 is equipped with the HUAWEI ADS 3.0 high-level intelligent driving system, which uses an end-to-end network architecture for the first time to achieve a more anthropomorphic national road pilot driving.
In particular, the PDP decision-making neural network realizes a pre-decision and planning network, achieving human-like decision-making and planning. For example, in the selection and execution of lane-changing timing, it can flexibly control the vehicle speed and steering angle like a human driver, making lane-changing more comfortable and the lateral and longitudinal acceleration and deceleration more smooth.
Similarly, when merging into or out of highways or urban expressways, it can also grasp the timing more flexibly, make better decisions, and have higher traffic efficiency. Unlike the previous technical framework, the intelligent driving system generally starts to change lanes 2 kilometers in advance, resulting in a poor experience such as following the large vehicle on the right for a long distance.
Safety and convenience are both indispensable. Huawei ADS 3.0 also adds a new instinctive safety network to ensure the safety lower limit of the intelligent driving system.
In terms of power, the pure electric model of Zhijie R7 offers an 800V platform and an 800-kilometer range configuration. It not only runs far but also charges quickly with the 800v platform architecture. It can replenish 400 kilometers of energy in 15 minutes. And ultra-fast charging is precisely one of the core vehicle use pain points that Tesla has ignored for many years.
In addition, Zhijie R7 has also launched an extended-range version to meet the needs of consumers in the vast Chinese territory.
From the perspective of experience, the extended-range system of Zhijie R7 also presents differentiated highlights in the industry. It provides a pure electric range of 251 kilometers, a comprehensive range of 1570 kilometers, achieving a worry-free long-range driving. At the same time, it also solves the problem of slow charging of large-battery extended-range vehicles, and is equipped with fast-charging battery technology. It only takes 15 minutes to charge from 20% to 80%, and the range can be increased by 150 kilometers.
Considering the energy consumption and economy of the product, Zhijie R7 is also equipped with an extended-range engine that can use 92-octane gasoline. Combined with intelligent algorithm optimization, the oil-electric conversion rate is 3.7 kWh/L, and the WLTC fuel consumption is 5.68 L/100 km, achieving a low vehicle use cost.
In addition, in the space experience where traditional coupe SUVs generally have shortcomings,
Zhijie R7 has also carried out targeted optimizations. It follows the One-Box design concept, with dimensions of 4956mm × 1981mm × 1634mm and a wheelbase of 2950mm. The second-row legroom is nearly one meter, and the headroom is over one meter. The space experience even surpasses Tesla's flagship SUV Model X.
The storage space is also taken into account. Zhijie R7 has a large three-layer trunk of 837L (pure electric version) / 796L (extended-range version). The pure electric version also has the industry's first electrically suctioned and spring-loaded front trunk and an innovative rear double-drawer storage space, making travel storage more enjoyable.
In other words, Zhijie R7 has the styling of a coupe and also has the space utilization rate of a traditional SUV.
"Both wanting and having" is the standard quality of a good product. While having both handling and performance, Zhijie R7 also achieves a "fully equipped" luxury and comfort, providing superior comfort configurations such as the zero-gravity seat for the co-pilot, the cold and warm box Minibar, and the electric sunshade.
For latecomers to challenge pioneers, there are never many path options. Only by achieving comprehensive overtaking in technology, product, and experience can they succeed. Zhijie R7 is such a "chosen one". With the dual support of Huawei and Chery, it emerges in the Chinese industrial soil.
Perseverance and Challenge, Carrying Out the "Horse Racing" Strategy to the End
In the 200,000 - 300,000 yuan market segment where Tesla Model Y is located, there is an intelligent electric vehicle sales volume of at least 50,000 units per month. However, in the past, there were few high-quality intelligent electric vehicle supplies.
And Zhijie R7 obviously becomes that strong challenger with its seamless product concept, beginning to attack Tesla's core position.
From the perspective of the path, Zhijie R7 adopts the classic "horse racing" strategy. That is, under the condition of not losing in brand and technological strength, it offers higher configurations and more choices of energy forms, such as the "Double 800" platform, the intelligent and quiet extended-range system with a range of up to 1570 kilometers, the fully equipped luxury and comfortable cockpit experience, and the high-level intelligent driving system that has been fully delivered and rapidly iterated.
Tesla is also iterating, but judging from the configuration of the revised Model Y, it has fallen into a typical situation of a "defender". Limited by the previous platform architecture, the core configurations such as battery power and range can only be slightly upgraded.
China undoubtedly has the world's rather rich intelligent electric vehicle industry fertile soil. Battery technology is being rapidly updated, and capabilities such as 800V architecture, 5C fast charging, and low-temperature domain adaptability are being iterated and applied to vehicles year by year.
And intelligence is changing with each passing day. Just after the "intelligent driving city-opening battle that can be driven nationwide" came to an end, the competition of "end-to-end" intelligent technology has begun.
Even this year, Huawei has taken the lead in launching the technical charge of "L3 autonomous driving". On the Zunjie model, Huawei has demonstrated a multiple-redundant intelligent driving hardware configuration, laying the foundation for L3 autonomous driving.
These technologies will also be reused on brands such as Zhijie and Wenjie.
At the same time, the emergence of AI companies such as DeepSeek will also continuously provide nourishment for the development of China's autonomous driving technology from the source technology of artificial intelligence.
Driven by these technology industries, Zhijie R7 and even Chinese automotive brands are rapidly iterating.
Just as shown in the new vehicle announcement of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that has just been released, Zhijie R7 will usher in a product upgrade. Its extended-range system will be equipped with an extended-range system with a higher battery capacity, which can support a pure electric range of over 300 kilometers. This will further attract more electric vehicle consumer groups.
It can also be predicted that the upgrades of Huawei's high-level intelligent driving and Hongmeng cockpit this year will also be simultaneously implemented on Zhijie's models.
Under the escort of Huawei's technological and product strength, as long as Zhijie follows the "horse racing strategy", continuously releases products and iterates, it will no longer be a doubt to surpass Tesla and gain sales achievements.
