AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/28 Report--

At the 2023 Chengdu Auto Show, BAIC New Energy's new compact MPV model, the polar fox koala, officially opened for pre-sale, with a total of four new models with an advance price range of 133800 yuan to 171800 yuan. The new car, the first pure electric parent-child model designed for the mother-and-child market, is positioned as a compact 4-seat MPV and is expected to go on sale in mid-late September.

In terms of appearance, the shape of the new car is very round and lovely, with the overall continuation of the family design language of the ARCFOX polar fox alpha model. Specifically, the front face of the new car is designed with a closed front grille, with split headlights on both sides, a narrow daylight design on the upper part, and a fog lamp on the upper part of the lower square. there is a through grille decoration between the fog lamp frames on both sides of the front bar, and the bottom is equipped with spoiler design, which looks very avantgarde as a whole.

On the side of the body, the shape of the new car is also more round, the left side is the conventional front and rear flat door, but the right side is the use of side sliding door type rear door structure, and the side sliding door has no door handle, which is electric induction type, which makes it more convenient for Bao Ma to get on and off. The new car also has the characteristics of short length and long wheelbase. The length, width and height of the new car are 4500/1870/1655mm, and the wheelbase is 2820mm. In the rear part, the shape of the new car is relatively simple, using through-type taillight decoration design, while the taillight introduces C-type design elements, the roof has a protruding large tail wing, the rear enclosure echoes with the front encirclement, with a set of color decorative board.

In the interior part, the shape and layout of the center console in the car is simple and three-dimensional, equipped with a suspended dashboard and a large central control screen, the round air outlet at both ends is decorated with metal texture, and the three-frame flat-bottomed steering wheel is wrapped in two-color leather. It has a good sense of grade. In terms of seat layout, the new car adopts the 4-seat layout of 2x2. In addition, due to the "mother-child friendly" concept of the new car owner, the back row of the car will also provide baby seats with mercury-free ultraviolet germicidal lamps and other configurations.

In terms of power, the new car is equipped with Ningde-era 58.86kWh lithium iron phosphate battery, the maximum motor power 120kW, peak torque of 240N ·m, CLTC mileage 500km, support single pedal mode.

In November 2022, Beijing New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. officially registered and established its Weibo account "KAOLA". In January this year, the new model koala was officially launched, which makes a clear distinction between the new car product positioning and the polar fox, and the koala is more like a new attempt by BAIC Blue Valley Field to build a car, focusing on the mother market.

BAIC New Energy was established in November 2009. since then, it is mainly oriented to B-end markets such as taxi, car-hailing and car rental industry, relying on cost-effective EU and EX series. BAIC New Energy went public through backdoor vanguard shares in September 2018, and then changed its name to BAIC Blue Valley New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., followed by the launch of high-end brand ARCFOX Polar Fox, which is also BAIC's new energy vehicle brand. According to the official website, polar fox currently owns three models: Alpha S, Alpha S HI and Alpha T. In May this year, BAIC New Energy upgraded the new HI version of Polar Fox Alpha S to "Polar Fox Alpha S advance version" and reduced the price by 100000 yuan to 329800 yuan. However, as the first production car equipped with Huawei HI smart car solution, despite a price discount of 100000 yuan, the car market sales are not eye-catching, with figures showing that only 10600 cars were delivered from January to July this year.

For BAIC Blue Valley, what BAIC Blue Valley urgently needs to solve is the problem of sales growth. From the positioning of the new car, the new car cuts into a niche market, targeting mother-to-child parent-child travel scenes, similar to the Euler brand of Great Wall, focusing on female consumers.

With more and more products competing in the new energy vehicle market, the homogenization of smart cars is becoming more and more serious. in this context, BAIC Blue Valley conversion track through the cultivation of new brands to sprint sales may be a good choice. But it should be noted that before the koala, Ola was considered to be a deviant player in the automobile market, and its position was to "love women more", while the koala cut into the more niche smart parent-child car market, which is still in a blank stage, which also provides it with a blue sea market, but on the other hand, as a major consumer goods, the market needs to be cultivated and verified under a blank. At present, it is still doubtful whether the koala model based on parent-child conceptual design can attract more consumer attention and love, or whether it can boost BAIC Blue Valley sales, and it still needs more time to verify.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat