A few days ago, the closely watched Chery iCAR V23 (parameter | inquiry) model ushered in its official debut.
the new car, jointly built by Chery and Zhimi Technology, is positioned as a small SUV, although it has a figure of only about 4.
2 meters, but it has a wheelbase performance of 2.
7m, which can be said to be a very distinctive product.
It is reported that the new car will make its debut at the upcoming Beijing Auto Show, and will start pre-sale, listing and delivery in the second half of the year.
Officials said that the car “cannot be handled in 149900, but we are sincere.
” , 
, , , , “iCAR V23”, , , , “iCAR X25”.
At the same time, iCAR officials also brought a small color egg, a new model called “X25” was exposed, its small figure, officially defined as One Box off-road MPV, similar to the design idea of V23, it also tries to push four wheels to the four corners of the vehicle.
So that it has a higher internal space utilization, while enhancing the passability of the vehicle.
During an exclusive interview before the launch, iCAR brand executives announced their future product plans.
It is reported that the iCAR brand builds cars for young users.
“the car that young people like is to be fun, easy to drive, to impress them in shape, and to have a sense of technology and soul.
” So we divided the cars we are going to make in three sequences around these directions.
” 
, “iCAR 03” and iCAR 03 represent the 0 sequence and represent the direction of science and technology and refinement.
At present, there are a total of 10000 units off the line, with 8000 units set in the first month on the market, 5487 units sold in March, and the first OTA on April 6th.
The V23 is the first model in the V series, representing the cross-country style, but officials also stressed that it is an urban-style off-road model, not a product suitable for “conquering the polar regions”.
In addition, the X series is a new “new species” of bicycles, and the first model is the X25 released this time, and we expect that this product series will be unusual and open up some new market segments in the future.
In addition to the future product planning of the brand, the official also talked about the company’s operation mode, brand design concept and development direction during the exclusive interview.
The interviewees were Zhang Hongyu, general manager of Chery New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., general manager of iCAR brand division, and Su Jun, founder of Zhimi Technology and chief product officer of iCAR Automobile.
The question and answer part of the exclusive interview is as follows: media: Zhimi calls itself an ecological chain enterprise of Xiaomi, and the distinction between Zhimi and Xiaomi is very vague in the communication.
I would like to ask Mr.
Su to explain what kind of enterprise Zhimi is.
Please tell me how Chery and Zhimi got together.
, 
, Su Jun: actually, everyone has caused a lot of trouble about this.
I’m very sorry.
You can read my personal Weibo and the statement issued by Zhimi Weibo.
The car we do now is the iCAR brand, the qualification is iCAR, and now we all belong to the iCAR Division of Chery Group.
Zhimi began to hatch the car-building team in 2021, and the main incubator at that time was Zhimi.
But in the process of development, the automobile industry has changed, so we found Mr.
Yin, and Mr.
Yin arranged for me to meet with Mr.
Hongyu.
We hit it off and got along very well, and then led our respective teams to begin to merge.
Now the auto startup team incubated by Zhimi is fully integrated into the iCAR division, that is to say, the labor relations of most of our entrepreneurial team belong to the iCAR brand.
Therefore, there is an essential difference between us and Huawei.
ICAR is still built by Chery, but Zhimi’s entrepreneurial team has injected some vitality into iCAR in the form of integration.
Zhang Hongyu: as a traditional independent brand, it is actually quite difficult for Chery to be a brand of new energy.
The “difficulty” here is not only that it is difficult for traditional independent brands like Chery to make new energy brands, but also for the whole industry.
It is difficult for SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng, Geely, Great Wall and Chang’an to be new brands of new energy.
The difficulty is that we add the inertia accumulated by traditional cars to the new energy track, but the old auto people always have inertia in the user thinking, Internet thinking and marketing style required by this track.
Huawei and Xiaomi basically suck up the traffic in a press conference, which traditional enterprises do not have, but in the current market, we have to compete with the stage, so it is extremely difficult for traditional enterprises to do such new energy brands.
But iCAR was lucky that we got together with Dr.
Su’s team while I was thinking about how to break out of the new energy track for iCAR.
Chery has traditional R & D, engineering manufacturing and supply chain capabilities, but Dr.
Su’s team can provide what we lack in Internet play, user thinking, and methodology for making explosive products.
Media: dear leaders, I have two questions.
The first one is what is the meaning of our current naming rules? The first car is 03, now called V23, what kind of rule is it? Do you have 99,000 to make a friend? Thank you.
Zhang Hongyu: after merging with Dr.
Su’s team, the first thing we do is to think about what products iCAR will launch to impress our users, because iCAR is a car built for young people.
Young people want the car to be fun, easy to drive, to impress them in shape, and to have a sense of technology and soul.
So we divided the cars we are going to make in three sequences around these directions.
ICAR 03 represents the 0 sequence, which represents the direction of technology and refinement.
the V23 is the first model of the V series, which represents the off-road direction of style.
in addition, we will launch the X series, which is a new “new species” of scooters.
You mentioned “99,000” just now, and I also explained at today’s press conference that the future prices of our series of models will certainly show our sincerity and strength, that is, to provide young people with such valuable cars.
It must exceed the expectations of young people in terms of price.
However, it ultimately depends on the positioning of the model itself and the core technology we apply.
, 
, media: I follow Dr.
Su Weibo, you often drive off-road vehicles to play, while Hongyu is always a product expert, asking a product-level question: iCAR from 03 to V23 has the meaning of wild in it, the meaning of this wild is more like giving people aKind of yearning wild, it is not purely functional sense of the wild.
I would like to ask whether we will build the first pure electric off-road vehicle of our own brand in the future? Second, young people like cool, to give him a cool foundation, not just to change the shell is cool, it has to do things that others can not do, may I ask our future product planning (what is)? If there is a plan, which part of the technology do you think is the bright spot? Su Jun: product planning is not what we want to do, but the transformation from technical Chery to technical Chery + user Chery, that is, we do what users need.
What you said, assuming that our core users need hardcore pure power off-road, we will do it, and we will do everything from the needs of our users.
Let’s use examples to better understand “user needs”: the core target users of iCAR are high-knowledge youth in first-and second-tier cities, just like Zhimi technology is surrounded by Zhihu, Feishu, 58.
com, Baidu, Xiaomi, good Future, Kuaishou, (our goal) is these young people in these enterprises, how can we achieve insight? Because we are them, we are essentially making products for ourselves, that is, insight into the needs of users and making friends with users, so we are essentially making products for ourselves.
We can’t make a product that we don’t even want to sell to our customers.
we’re part of the core users, and that’s the best way to get to know them.
I think this method has also been proved in the automobile industry, such as why Li Xiang has been so successful? Li Xiang is the core user of L9, and his insight into this product is far more than that of ordinary users.
When boss Lei used to make a mobile phone, he often carried more than a dozen mobile phones in his pocket and hundreds of mobile phones in the drawer.
Do you think he is a mobile phone geek? His insight into the industry is so deep that he transcends the average consumer’s understanding of the industry.
If you look at my Weibo, you may find that when I often say “wait online”, I am actually waiting for your feedback.
This is a way to make friends.
(Wen / auto home du Andy), return to the home page of the first electric network.
