6 years, nearly 50 times OTA, more than 880 functional upgrades and optimizations.
Even if you look at the entire mobile phone circle, only a few models such as the iPhone can get such a long period of update and maintenance.
But for the car owners who bought the original Weilai ES8, the “often used and often new” promised by Brother Bin was indeed achieved through the OTA again and again.
Recently, Weilai once again launched the OTA version 2.0.5 of the “Alder Chiyang” system for the first-generation platform model equipped with Qualcomm 8155 chip.
The update incorporates the features of the “Banyan Banyan” system on a number of second-generation platforms, especially the mobile car interconnection experience related to NIO Phone.
Today, we are looking for an original version of the 2018 Ulai ES8 to see what novel experiences the old owners of Weilai can gain after this OTA.
The NIO Phone is better matched with the old model of Ulay! As one of the highlights of the OTA, the interconnection experience between the Weilai old model and the NIO Phone of the first generation platform is believed to be the focus of many car owners.
Specifically, under the version 2.0.5 of the “Alder Chiyang” system, the main functions that can be realized at present are: Sky window, navigation relay, navigation flow and mobile phone control of the car.
According to the actual experience, the experience of the first three functions is basically the same as the Weilai model of the second generation platform, and the fluency is also more satisfactory.
Compared with the traditional mobile phone screen, the Weilai Sky window function can open two different APP at the same time on the car side and the mobile side without interfering with each other.
Sky window, as for navigation relay and flow, although it does not look as bright as the Sky window function, it actually improves the user’s daily experience of the highest frequency navigation function.
Users only need to copy the address they want to go on their mobile phone, or initiate navigation in Amap’s APP, and the Weilai car can directly synchronize the address information or navigation planning, eliminating the tedious step of setting up navigation twice on the car.
Navigation flow, and finally, I would like to share with you perhaps the most noteworthy mobile car control experience.
It should be pointed out that due to the early development of the Weilai first-generation model, the UWB function support on the car side was not planned at that time.
Therefore, in terms of the number of functions of mobile phone car control, it is naturally not as rich as the second-generation model.
However, common functions such as vehicle unlocking, vehicle positioning, air conditioning control and so on are not absent.
To put it simply, after the first-generation model has been upgraded to a new version, the mobile car control function that originally needed to be turned on APP can now be used more quickly through NIO Phone’s car control card.
Under the new version, the car-machine ecology is also richer.
In addition to enhancing the interconnection experience between the first-generation model and the NIO Phone, this OTA has also brought some new faces on the car-machine side.
For example, car fish audio-visual, browsers and Xilai’s own app store, which were well received in the second-generation models, are now on the first-generation models.
Dozens of APP are now available for download in the app store, covering video, music, games, children and other types.
In the app store, Weilai also distinguishes different types of APP, which is very intuitive.
As for the new car fish audio-visual APP, it can be regarded as the ceiling of the current short video experience.
After all, the vertical screen layout that Weilai has always adhered to is inherently more suitable for the content form of Douyin.
In addition, in addition to watching Douyin, the car fish has also made in-depth optimization for the in-car use scene.
For example, in the lower left corner of the screen, there is a functional entrance to listen to Douyin, which avoids the driver’s easy distraction when driving.
Insist on giving regular users OTA, why did Weilai do it? From this upgrade, it is not difficult to see that although the Weilai model of the first-generation platform is different from the current selling model in hardware, it is still trying to narrow the experience gap between the two generations of models.
This time, Weilai pushed the “Alder Chiyang” system 2.0.5, which is another regular update after the 2.0.0 version, synchronizing the latest features of the second-generation platforms such as NIO Link driver interconnection and app store to the regular users of the first-generation platform.
Through the form of OTA, continuously empower the whole life cycle experience of the old model.
However, insisting on OTA for regular users is not the norm in the automobile industry! In fact, for most brands, the frequency of OTA generally falls off the cliff after the honeymoon of the first year on the market.
One of the important reasons for this is that it is limited by the people and energy of the software development team.
After all, developing the next new car is obviously more noteworthy than maintaining an old one.
However, this practice of “cosying up to new car owners and abandoning old car owners” is obviously not in line with the self-cultivation of Xilai as a user-oriented enterprise.
Even though the first-generation platform models have been delivered for nearly 6 years, there is still a team of more than 100 people engaged in daily operation and maintenance.
According to AutoLab, in the past 2023 years, two intelligent cockpit systems, “Aspen White Poplar” and “Alder Red Poplar”, respectively, which are first-generation platforms, have pushed OTA 10 times.
Compared with competitors’ OTA maintenance of old models, Xilai can be described as far ahead in terms of OTA quality and frequency.
It is thanks to the continuous investment in R & D, which promotes the continuous iteration of technology and products.
With the passage of time, these technology dividends have become not only a technical moat, but also a word-of-mouth moat for Weilai car owners to express their views.
In the end, for a fuel car of a traditional brand, it is likely that six years will not lead to any improvement in intelligence.
For the electric cars of the new powers, six years later, it is often difficult to escape the fate of being gradually forgotten by the brand.
However, Weilai insists on using the OTA again and again to show everyone that “often used and always new” is the greatest significance of choosing smart electric vehicles.
For Weilai, which practices long-term doctrine, the car experience of users in the whole life cycle after buying a car is also the focus of attention.
With regard to the stability maintenance of the vehicle life cycle, it is not only a verbal promise, but also put into practice.
Finally, you are also welcome to come here and share your suggestions and thoughts on the current car experience in the comments section, which may appear in the next OTA, return to the home page of the first electric network.
