“Chinese lotus blooms in Buckingham Palace,” said King Charles III, who has drawn attention for choosing a chinese-made electric car to drive. For the British royal family, the international media often use the label is“Luxury” and“High-end”, from the palace castle to the crown dress is no exception. Charles, a long-time advocate of environmental protection, chose the wuhan-made lotus electric car to highlight the world status of chinese-made electric cars. Chinese car brands are redefining“Boutique” and“Luxury” with the help of cost-effectiveness, good-looking design and smart technology. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post has reported that luxury goods have long been defined by the west, but new trends are emerging. No matter the automobile, or the jewelry, the clothing, relies on the huge production capacity and the market, the Chinese brand obtains the more speech power gradually on the international stage. The Global Times Financial Observer, under the label“China + Luxury”, looks at companies in the industry that are now redefining Chinese brands internationally and reports on how they tell the China story well. In this issue, we start with the automobile, focusing on the development of Chinese luxury.
Wuhan Lotus Global Smart Factory
“Charles rejected Tesla’s offer to buy wuhan-made Lotus.”
A year ago, King Charles III refused to let Tesla buy an electric car from Wuhan, China, according to a report on the website of the beast daily, if King Charles had ordered a state-of-the-art electric car, many thought he would have chosen the Tesla. But now the King is opting for a greener, all-electric car made in Wuhan, China.
The Chinese head of Lotus sports car confirmed to the global times that Charles III bought the ELETRE, an all-electric smart supercar SUV produced by Wuhan Lotus Global Intelligent Factory. Described by Lotus as an “All-electric Super SUV with racing DNA”, it costs about # 120,000 and has a range of 280 miles, it can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds and has a top speed of about 260 km/h. Lotus specially ordered the new cars for Charles to be painted in the traditional royal crimson, or “Royal Burgundy”.
Founded in 1948 by British engineer Colin Chapman, Lotus is a British luxury sports car brand that was acquired by Zhejiang Geely in 2017 with a 51% stake. The company moved production from the UK to Wuhan in 2022. According to media reports, Charles’s car was designed at the Lotus Technology Creative Centre in central England but built in Wuhan, China.
The royal family has long favoured British luxury brands such as Rolls-royce, Land Rover and Bingley, with sources telling the sun that Charles has always been a fan of green cars. The royal family has indicated that if Bingley can not produce an electric executive limousine, they will consider other manufacturers.
Charles’s choice was widely greeted positively by the media, with the times describing it as “A transition from a boutique sports car to a broader luxury market”. According to the BBC’s Top Gear website, “Lotus seems very interested in learning and trying new things”, “This is the best-built, least broken, fastest lotus ever built,” he said.
In an interview with the Global Times, a Chinese official with Lotus sports car said that Wuhan Lotus Global Intelligent Factory is the core of the global intelligent manufacturing system for Lotus sports car, current mass-produced models include the ELETRE, a pure-electric smart supercar, and the EMEYA, a pure-electric Supercar. Describing the brand as “British genetics, Chinese ingenuity”, he said it was one of the top three sports car brands in the world — Ferrari, Porsche and Lotus, the only deep integration of China’s smart electric industry chain brand.
“The core users of the Lotus electric sports car are three groups of people who love driving, pay attention to the scarcity of brand technology, and are top race track players in the world.” The above-mentioned person-in-charge introduced a series of intelligent functions of the lotus sports car to reporters, take Lotus Eletre as an example, it can realize the city’s unmapped Noa (navigation assistance driving) function, that is, the intelligent assistance driving function that can be driven with navigation without relying on the high-precision map. In addition, Lotus sports car is also exploring more intelligent in-car AI voice technology and other solutions, so that car owners convenient control of the vehicle.
Local Chinese brands have also tried to establish a high-end brand image in the international market in recent years. BYD Japan President Tomoji Tomoji told the global times recently that Japan’s auto consumption trend is quietly changing. Compared with the traditional value of“The higher the price, the more luxurious”, today’s consumers are more inclined to pursue the balance between practicality, reliability, comfort and environmental performance. While local brands still dominate, “Efficiency and peace of mind” has become the main criterion for an increasing number of Japanese consumers.
“From attention to the test-drive experience, to trust and recommendation,” says T?fuku-ji, there is also a positive shift in Japanese consumers’ perception of Chinese car brands, particularly Jády. This, he believes, is the result of years of Chinese brands cultivating a mature, sophisticated market in Japan. BYD Japan has built a multi-dimensional after-sales support system around the“Comfortable experience after car purchase”, including Ota (air download technology) Remote Upgrade Service, battery extended warranty system, official certification used car circulation mechanism.
“It’s a cool experience to drive an electric car made in China.”
In recent years, China’s auto companies in the direction of smart manufacturing, to create the auto industry’s“Chinese boutique.”. The Hong Kong University of Science and technology (HKUST) has signed a framework agreement with BYD Auto Industries Limited to jointly set up the “Hong Kong University of Science and technology-byd Embodied Intelligence Laboratory”. “The laboratory will focus on cutting-edge research in robotics and intelligent manufacturing, and strive to promote technological innovation and industrial application,” the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said in a statement
Tan Ping, professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, is the principal director of the laboratory. In an interview with the Global Times, “I’m not a big fan of cars,” he told reporters with a smile. “I don’t know how to drive cross-country or cross-country. For consumers like me, the most important thing is whether the car can bring me to my destination safely and comfortably. The ultimate goal is self-driving.”
Tan, whose research interests include computer vision and graphics, previously headed the XR Lab at Alibaba’s Baltimore Campus and served as Chief Scientist for computer vision at the Artificial Intelligence Lab. “I’m more concerned about bringing AI into the physical world than cars,” he says, arguing that a typical combination of AI and the automotive industry is self-driving technology, the essence is to move the vehicle from point A to point B.
“From the perspective of consumers, what we need is not a car. We just need to travel. Autonomous driving can help consumers complete their journeys. Even the cars can not be owned by consumers. Instead, they can use a shared platform to travel. Consumers can place orders directly, take the autonomous driving tool, and then arrive at their destination.” Of course, the technology is not yet mature, tan said, and“This scenario is likely to be the ultimate scenario for the future of autonomous driving”.
In an interview with the Global Times, Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired Magazine, repeatedly mentioned driving a chinese-made electric car while traveling in China, saying it was a“Cool experience.” And imagine 2049 that “China will make the best cars in the world, and design students will fall for them.”.
In his new book, “2049-what the next 10,000 days might look like”, Kevin Kighley looks at what will happen to the space inside a car once self-driving becomes commonplace, open-ended imagination: “Every piece of glass in the car will be a display screen… … No more driving-related devices in the car, you can turn the space into a mobile home, living room, office …… Autonomous driving will really liberate the space in the car.”
Tan Ping believes that if Chinese car companies want to lead the industry in such a trend, then must be in the field of autonomous driving or embodied intelligence. “In terms of cars, my assumption is that when self-driving becomes widely available, there will probably be no need for a private car, just a tool that can get people to their destination safely and comfortably. There will be a lot of disruptive innovation opportunities in this industry, and whoever catches them will become a world-class car brand!”
At present, the auto-driving function in China is only assistant driving, but at least 10 years ago, a number of self-driving start-ups have been established. Tan believes this is because“Everyone believes in the descriptions of future scenarios”. “AI is now confined to the screen of a computer or a mobile phone. How to get it out of the screen and into the real physical world to solve the problems of the physical world is the next important stage in AI’s development.” It takes time for technology to enable thousands of industries, tan ping believes that“From technology to application, go for 10 years 20 years, is a very normal thing.”.
“We’re not selling a car, we’re selling a piece of art that just happens to run.”
German brands such as BMW continue to dominate the luxury Lianhe Zaobao Market, but in recent years, china’s high-end electric car brand in the beauty, high-tech, high-value performance, re-defined the“Made in China”, and quietly changing the market pattern. “We position red flag as a new generation of global luxury brand that represents the future of Chinese cars,” Guo Fengcheng, founder of Eurokars, the red flag car dealership group, was quoted as saying
As far as leading the car trend is concerned, tan says, “The best storyteller was Tesla, who first told the market about electric cars, then about autonomous driving, then about Android”.
But now, according to Teng Tai, head of the New Economic Research Institute at Huambo, it’s time for Chinese cars to tell a good story. In an interview with the Global Times, Teng cited Mercedes-benz and Tesla as examples of how companies should change their minds and create “Soft value”. “We’re not selling a car, we’re selling a piece of art that just happens to run,” he said, quoting the former chief designer of Mercedes-benz, which Tesla added was not selling speed, it’s about environmental protection, fashion and intelligence.
Referring to“Chinaxury”, Teng Tai said that from the producer’s point of view, any kind of product or service, carrying a country or region-specific culture and way of life. From the consumer’s point of view, every purchase is a lifestyle choice. As an example, he said that silk was sold to Rome through the Silk Road in the Tang dynasty, and that Roman princes and nobles not only bought the physical function of silk, but also showed off the Tang culture that silk represented. In the 1990s, coca-cola, mcdonald’s represented by the U. S. fast food culture swept the world, behind the American way of life is actually the export.
Teng Tai believes that China’s new energy vehicles have already won a good reputation at home and abroad by virtue of their good quality and low price. The next step should be to try to lead the world in areas such as intelligence, fashion and environmental protection. Chinese car manufacturers should learn from the Mercedes-benz, through their own narrative, into high-quality high-end and other ideas, “If you just sell a cheap means of transportation, price war, ignoring the creation of soft value, is no prospect.”.
There is a good chance that a company as great as apple will emerge from China, tan judged. At present, the gap between China and the United States AI development is not large, there is no special AI technology is only the United States, and China does not have, there is no generation difference between the two sides. He said, “If you try the products of the top autonomous driving technology companies in the country, their technology will amaze you. Chinese technology is developing very fast, whether it is autonomous driving or embodied intelligence, we are already in a state of the art. And China’s manufacturing capacity is so outstanding that there are many opportunities and advantages for China in the future, both in terms of physical smart software and hardware.”