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Zeekr 007 Challenges Tesla Head-On! CEO Declares: The Best Way to Pay Tribute to Competitors is to Surpass Them

Latest updated: Dec 28, 2023

Zeekr EV


On the evening of December 27, Zeekr's first all-electric luxury sedan, Zeekr 007, officially hit the market, offering 5 versions with an official starting retail price of ¥209,900. Compared to the previously announced pre-sale price (starting at ¥224,900), the entry threshold has been reduced by nearly ¥20,000. Times Weekly reporters on-site learned that Zeekr 007 will commence deliveries on January 1, 2024.

 

In addition to the reduced final price, Zeekr has played several trump cards with the 007: a new design language, an 800V high-voltage system across all models, a standard 8295 intelligent cockpit chip, the debut of the Kr AI artificial intelligence large model, the introduction of the "Vast Intelligent Driving" smart driving system, a 0-100 km/h acceleration in just 2.84 seconds, and the premiere of the "Golden Brick Battery," Zeekr's self-developed battery technology.

 

As the fourth model under the Zeekr brand, the company expresses confidence in the combat effectiveness of Zeekr 007. Zeekr Intelligent Technologies CEO An Conghui stated on-site that with each product Zeekr creates, they aim to overturn a market. "Coming with a mission to overturn, this time we set our sights on the sedan, the most important mainstream market globally." According to An Conghui, from the start of pre-sale to the official market launch, Zeekr 007 accumulated 51,569 orders in 40 days.

 

EV Body


Desiring to replace Tesla as the "new king" of the pure electric sedan market, An Conghui boldly declared at the beginning of the launch event, "The best way to pay tribute to competitors is to surpass them."

 

He claimed that with the advent of the 800V era, combining all the capabilities of the previous three products and Zeekr's latest self-developed technology, Zeekr 007 will once again overturn the sedan market, leading China's new energy to lead the world.

 

Behind the tags such as "Pure Electric Sedan Subverter," "King of the 800V Era Pure Electric Sedan," and "A New King Is Crowned" for Zeekr 007, the car indeed boasts significant highlights in three electric systems, performance, intelligence, and more.

 

Specifically, Zeekr 007 is equipped with an 800V system across the entire lineup. The official claim is that every component of the car can adapt to a maximum voltage exceeding 800V, accompanied by an 800V power battery and a 475kW high-performance silicon carbide electric drive system. Zeekr 007 also supports V2V direct current supply across the lineup, with a maximum output power of 60kW, enabling cross-brand vehicle-to-vehicle charging.

 

Zeekr 007 offers two power battery versions, one equipped with Zeekr's self-developed "Golden Brick Battery" and the other with CATL's "Kirin Battery." Under the 800V architecture, the Zeekr 007 with the self-developed Golden Brick Battery achieves a maximum range of up to 688 km, while the Kirin Battery version reaches a maximum range of 870 km. In terms of charging speed, with Zeekr's 800V ultra-fast charging network, the Zeekr 007 equipped with the Golden Brick Battery can increase its range by over 500 km in just 15 minutes, and the Kirin Battery version can increase its range by 610 km in the same time.

 

Regarding performance, official data shows that the four-wheel-drive performance version of Zeekr 007 achieves a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 2.84 seconds. According to data quoted by An Conghui from an Autohome test, in conditions of minus 2 degrees Celsius, the four-wheel-drive performance version of Zeekr 007 outperforms models such as Audi RS e-tron GT 2023 base model, Porsche Taycan Turbo, and Tesla Model 3 Performance high-performance all-wheel-drive version on the 0-100 km/h acceleration list.

 

In terms of intelligence, Zeekr 007 is equipped with the 8295 intelligent cockpit chip across the entire lineup, providing 30 TOPS of computing power. The car's OS 6.0 also introduces the Kr AI large model for the first time, enhancing voice interaction capabilities. For intelligent driving, Zeekr 007 debuts the "Vast Intelligent Driving" smart driving system, covering all scenarios of intelligent parking, highway, and urban intelligent driving. Based on the standard NVIDIA DRIVE Orin intelligent driving chip, its computing power can reach 508 TOPS. Furthermore, Zeekr 007 provides two sets of hardware solutions for perception: "Lidar + Visual Fusion" and "Pure Vision," with the highest number of perception hardware reaching 31 units. To address the most challenging and frequently encountered parking scenarios for users, Zeekr 007 has developed a special feature called "Fingertip Parking."

 

The city-oriented "Vast Intelligent Driving" NZP will begin public testing in June 2024, with the commuting mode being the first batch of functions to open for public testing, gradually expanding based on user coverage. The city NZP commuting mode can smoothly handle complex scenarios such as electric vehicle yielding, pedestrian yielding, displaced intersections, unprotected left turns, etc., without intervention.

 

In terms of design, Zeekr 007 was designed by Stephen Silaff, former design director of Bentley. It features a new design language and a 90-inch integrated smart light curtain composed of 1711 LEDs, independently controlled by 75 vehicle-grade high-power chips, offering 27 preset lighting effects and 11 intelligent expressions.

 

Despite Zeekr 007 achieving new heights in various aspects, it faces a challenging task to overturn Tesla's achievements. Taking the more competitively priced Model 3 (starting at ¥261,400) as an example, since its introduction to the Chinese market in 2019, the annual delivery volume of domestic Model 3 has consistently exceeded 100,000 units. Public data shows that from 2020 to 2022, the annual delivery volumes of Model 3 in China were 137,000 units, 151,000 units, and 124,000 units, respectively. In September of this year, the refreshed version of Model 3 began pre-sale in China, marking the first redesign since the launch of Model 3.

 

Apart from Model 3, Zeekr 007 will also face competition from various domestic brands in the pure electric sedan market, including existing or upcoming models such as XPeng P7, BYD Han EV, Human Horizons GT, Zhiji S7, NextEV ES, and the upcoming Xiaomi SU7.

 

In November of this year, BYD sold approximately 20,800 units of the Han. The Human Horizons S7, featuring several Huawei "black technology" elements, had already received over 20,000 pre-orders before its launch. Additionally, Xiaomi's first car model, the SU7, is also aiming at the pure electric sedan market with a significant investment of billions of yuan in research and development. Whether Zeekr 007 can stand out in a market surrounded by strong competitors is closely watched.

 

In fact, as Zeekr's fourth model and its first pure electric luxury sedan, Zeekr 007 bears a heavy responsibility. In terms of the product lineup, Zeekr has previously launched the off-road coupe Zeekr 001, the all-electric MPV Zeekr 009, and the compact luxury SUV Zeekr X. According to official data, in November of this year, Zeekr delivered 13,100 units, and as of now, its cumulative delivery volume exceeds 190,000 units.

 

An Conghui previously mentioned in an interview that if an automaker cannot produce a popular sedan, it cannot establish itself in the Chinese automotive market. CPCA data shows that in the first 11 months of this year, the cumulative retail sales volume of sedans in the domestic market reached 9.13 million units, accounting for 47.2% of the market share in the narrow sense of the passenger vehicle market, close to half of the market.

 

In An Conghui's view, entering the sedan segment with the Zeekr 007 is entering his familiar territory. "Back at Geely, our rise started with sedans, and sales quickly increased. In the traditional era of automobiles, Chinese people have a high understanding and affinity for sedans. I proposed 'Whoever gets the sedan gets the world,' and many years later, people still remember the brand of Emperor Hao."

 

Public records show that in 2009, under the leadership of An Conghui, the Geely Emperor model was released. This transformation work by Geely reached a sales volume of one million units after seven years on the market. In October 2020, the 3 millionth Emperor rolled off the assembly line at the Linhai factory.

 

It is worth noting that Zeekr is currently aiming for a listing on the U.S. stock market, and how to further increase sales, gross profit margins, and tell a compelling follow-up profit story is one of the issues that needs to be addressed now. In addition to Zeekr 007, An Conghui previously revealed that Zeekr will launch two new high-volume models next year.

 

Zeekr


Apart from entering more mainstream markets, Zeekr is also building vertical supply capabilities to reduce costs. In the power battery aspect, which accounts for more than 40% of the entire vehicle cost, the self-developed "Golden Brick Battery" by Zeekr made its debut on Zeekr 007. In terms of body technology, Zeekr 007 adopts an integrated die-cast aluminum body, known in the industry as a "cost reduction tool."

 

"Zeekr believes that to be a smart electric vehicle company, the battery is a core and fundamental element. This is one of the moats for Zeekr's future development," said An Conghui. He emphasized that progress in technology and mastery of core technological capabilities by the company are crucial. Leading technology and low costs are needed to form core competitiveness.




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