Debates such as "dumplings or dumplings" and "sweet and salty tofu brains" occur every year.
It is not difficult to understand that China is a country with a large population and there are differences in the food culture and dietary needs of consumers in different regions.
🙂 By the way, let's make our position clear: I'm a sourdough party
The car market is the same, consumers have different needs. Faced with the huge market in China, automakers usually launch different models to cover more consumer needs so as to gain a higher market share. Such as sedans, SUVs, etc., and even further segmented models like compact cars and performance cars.
Many newly established brands are thinking along the same lines. Open up the passenger car market by expanding models, work towards 'big and comprehensive', and then make some targeted moves after achieving overall sales growth.
If you want to make it big and strong, of course you have to sell meat and sweet dumplings together.
But that's not how Li thinks, and he might be a little particular.
Since its founding in 2015, Ideal Auto has only released one product, the Ideal ONE, but with this one product alone, it has managed to rank among the top three new powerhouses and become the only brand in the "Azure Minority" to achieve quarterly profitability.
This could be, 'one trick pony'.
When the RISO ONE was launched in '18, RISO CEO Li Xiang said, "This is the only car we'll sell for the next three years," so what about three years from now?
Sofa, TV, video games, is this the living room?
Just now, Ideal Auto has officially launched its second model, the Ideal L9, priced at $459,800.
Like its big brother, the RISO ONE, the RISO L9 is a full-size SUV that is, in Li's words, "the best flagship family SUV in the $5 million range".
Since it is positioned as a "family", the Ideal L9 is certainly not behind in terms of comfort features.
The RISO L9 has a '2+2+2' six-seater layout with all six seats equipped with power adjustment and heated seats, and you read that right - the third row of seats is also available. The third row seats are also available. The third row seats are thinly cushioned, so there's a question mark over their comfort.
The front two rows of seats are naturally better equipped, with the addition of seat ventilation and a ten-point massage. The most luxuriously appointed seat in the car is the right-hand side of the second row, with a four-way power legrest and a well-designed small table in front, giving it a slightly business-class feel.
It's important to note that the second-row, left-side seats don't have leg rests, probably because the front driver's seat can't be folded forward like the passenger seat, and passengers don't have enough room to comfortably use the leg rests.
The Ideal L9's second row of seats also has a rare feature in its class - a refrigerated and heated dual-purpose rear refrigerator. Seeing it, I think the proper use of the Ideal L9's second-row seats might look something like this.
A child seat for the family's youngest child on the left, the missus sits on the right to keep an eye on it, and when needed, milk at the right temperature is taken out of the fridge and pitched to the human pups. In your spare time you can raise the leg rest and open the seat for massage, and an iPad can be fixed to the small tabletop to pass the time.
Nope, the Ideal L9 has a 15.7" rear cabin entertainment screen on top, so I don't think you need an iPad, right?
Yes, that's part of the Ideal L9's 'five-screen 3D spatial interaction'. Ideal L9's home smart cockpit comes standard with two Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chips, 24GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and supports dual 5G carrier switching to ensure real-time network online.
There are five screens inside the Ideal L9, with the three 15.7-inch OLED screens - center, passenger and rear cabin - connecting directly to the Switch via a Type-C connector. Nah, that's about how the picture looks.
If you don't want to play Switch, the Ideal L9 also has a 220V power supply in the car, with an HDMI to Type-C adapter cable, so you can play whatever you want.
In the official scenario portrayed by Ideal, 'spending gaming time with family' is the biggest meaning of this screen, and in my opinion, the screen prepared by Ideal L9 is really perfect for married male friends -
What? Wife won't let you play games? Take the PS5 down and we'll sneak it in the car.
▲ You can hit the old man's ring with PS5 on the Ideal L9
Playing the game, sound matters too. Inside the RISO L9 is a 7.3.4 panoramic sound layout with seven groups of speakers forming a full car surround, three subwoofers forming a bass matrix, four top speakers forming a sky surround and an amplifier with a maximum power of 2160W.
While the stereo is not as good as a true 'million dollar car', it is still considered excellent.
Oh, it's a roadworthy "living room"
That's it for the entertainment part, let's talk about the driving part.
Instead of the Dongan-powered 1.2T three-cylinder engine found in the RISO ONE, the RISO L9 uses RISO's own 1.5T four-cylinder engine with a maximum power of 113kW and a thermal efficiency of 40.5%.
Ideal says that in fuel mode, the Ideal L9 consumes 5.9L/100km hot (in CLTC service).
In the motor section, the RISO L9 features a dual-motor four-wheel drive system with front and rear drive motors of 130kW and 200kW respectively, for a total power of 330kW (442hp) and torque of 620N-m, with an official 0-100km/h acceleration time of 5.3 seconds.
As you can see, compared to the Ideal ONE, the Ideal L9 has a very significant increase in power. The RISO ONE's powertrain has a total power of 245kW (328hp) and 455N-m total torque, with a zero-hundred acceleration time of 6.5 seconds; in terms of fuel consumption, the RISO ONE has an official fuel consumption of 8.2L/100km.
The battery is not much larger than the Ideal ONE, with the former using a 44.5kWh battery pack and the latter 40.5kWh. Official data shows that the Ideal L9 has a pure electric range of 180km and a combined fuel range of 1100km (all WLTC conditions).
In the chassis, the front double wishbone, rear five-link suspension structure provides good ride comfort and comes standard with CDC continuously adjustable damping damping, which automatically adjusts the damping in milliseconds in response to road vibration feedback.
To better control the entire hardware set, the Ideal L9 uses a fully in-house developed XCU central domain controller, which can quickly process complex vehicle information and precisely control the vehicle while it is in motion.
Another small highlight of the Ideal L9's suspension is its air springs that automatically lower the body at high speeds, saving energy and improving handling. It also lowers the body more significantly when parking, making it easier to load and unload luggage and for the elderly to get in and out of the car.
The 'five screens' in the 'five-screen 3D spatial interaction' mentioned earlier also includes the head-up display and the safe driving interaction screen on the steering wheel.
During the launch event, Li Xiang affirmed the Ideal L9's head-up display, calling it "the best-looking head-up display with the best interface", which can provide drivers with clear driving information such as navigation, assisted driving, speed and gears; the safe driving interactive screen below, which can additionally display vehicle information such as remaining range and comprehensive fuel consumption, and can also switch between driving modes.
Before that, the intelligent driving part was the weak point of the Ideal ONE. This time, Li wants to give the Ideal L9 a big enhancement.
The RISO L9 will be equipped with the RISO AD Max Intelligent Driving System as standard, featuring a forward-facing 128-line LIDAR, six 8-megapixel cameras and five 2-megapixel cameras, as well as a forward-facing millimeter wave radar and 12 ultrasonic sensors that enable all-round sensing around the body.
Not only that, but the Ideal L9 is also prepared with dual NVIDIA Orin-X algorithm chips with a total computing power of 508TOPS, capable of processing fusion signals from various sensors in real time.
At the launch event, Li showed us a video of the Ideal L9 driving at 100km/h on a road at night with no street lights. It then accurately identifies an obstacle ahead - it's a car straddling the middle of the road and with the bottom of the car facing the Ideal L9, and finally the Ideal L9 manages to stop in front of the obstacle, the whole process is calm and smooth.
Even veteran drivers are not always able to perform like this," Lee said.
More "ideal ONE" than ideal ONE
In February of this year, during Ideal Auto's earnings call, Li said this.
Ideal Auto's strategy is characterized by focus.
Li wants to leave Auto Home, which he founded, and set up Ideal Auto, whose mission is to "create a mobile home", and the word "home" seems to be on a collision course.
I'm sure many people will laugh when they hear the phrase "the Ideal L9 is the best flagship family SUV for $5 million," because after all, the Ideal L9 is priced far below $5 million.
During the launch event, Li wanted to compare the BMW X7 and Maybach GLS SUV to the Ideal L9, arguing that the Ideal L9 is nothing less than two million-dollar luxury cars. Is that right? Yes, if you limit the conditions to 'family'.
The two "big brothers" have the electric suction doors that come standard on the Ideal L9, but they can't connect to the PS5, can they? You can't play Switch as a family, can you? It's not as convenient as the Ideal L9 for camping, is it? Yes, as long as the condition is limited to "home", the Ideal L9 is the only one.
Make long trips with 6 people in comfort, and the Ideal L9 can do it perfectly.
The L9 is the perfect family SUV in his eyes, according to Li at tonight's launch event, and if there were any regrets left in the Ideal ONE, then today's Ideal L9 makes up for all of them.
Unlike Li Bin and He Xiaopeng, Li didn't expand his product line or go into flying cars, he came up with a 'dumpling' that would cater to the tastes of most of the country.
Ideal L9 is a "dumpling" that not only sweet dumplings but also meat dumplings will enjoy.