On 28 September Richard Yu unveiled three cars at once: the on sale Zhijie RX and refreshed Zhijie R7, and the presale Xiangjie V8. The Zhijie RX he called the best driving car in Harmony Intelligent Mobility, and it set a 1:43.210 lap at the Zhejiang circuit, the fastest mass produced Chinese brand SUV, and the only 300,000 yuan class model in the lineup with an L3 architecture.
The RX comes in six versions priced 259,800 to 389,800 yuan, with discounts up to 40,500 yuan on early orders. It uses a virtual kingpin quad ball joint all aluminium double wishbone and a rear five link, dual chamber air suspension and dual valve dampers, and posts a 251 km/h top speed, a 3.6 second zero to 100 km/h, a 32.4 metre 100 to 0 stop and, with a 100 kWh ternary battery, an 852 km CLTC range. The R7 refresh brings four versions at 239,800 to 319,800 yuan after a 545 million yuan upgrade push, with dual 17.2 inch screens and an 855 km CLTC range. The Xiangjie V8 presells from 329,800 yuan on an 800V pure electric and range extender platform, with a 120 kWh battery giving 830 km pure electric and a 56 or 75.4 kWh pack giving up to 1,465 km combined.
Yu opened the event by returning to AITO. Huawei’s cooperation model with Seres was adjusted in mid September, and he stressed AITO is the first Harmony Intelligent Mobility brand, now led by Seres, with all owner rights intact. Going forward the alliance will focus on Zhijie, Xiangjie, Zunjie and Shangjie.
The Porsche line came from Chery chairman Yin Tongyue, who said he has admired Porsche his whole life and that the Zhijie team he backs, led by Guo Rui, is building a “China Porsche”, with the RX as the showcase. Yin noted Zhijie cumulative deliveries are about to pass 200,000 units. The RX drew praise for a 51,040 Nm per degree torsional stiffness, a Huawei 800V silicon carbide powertrain, 594 hp, and a Zhejiang lap that beat the Xiaomi YU7. Yu said the RX already meets the L3 automated driving era and holds an L3 road test licence.
The launch cements Zhijie as the performance face of the Huawei auto alliance while AITO settles into Seres hands. For a Western reader the signal is a Chinese premium EV stack now shipping L3 architecture hardware, 800V platforms and 850 km plus ranges as standard, under a single software brand.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Chedongxi report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://chedongxi.com/p/377085.html.