6C fast charging with a 0-100 km/h acceleration time in the 3-second range

Author: Wang Lei

Editor: Qin Zhangyong

The Hangzhou Bay Cullinan has arrived.

Last night, ZEEKR's most premium, and arguably the most respected flagship luxury SUV among domestic independent brands, the ZEEKR 9X, made its official debut. It simultaneously launched a pre-enjoyment program and will begin pre-sales at the end of August.

Although it was only a technology conference without mentioning all the parameter configurations and pricing, the effect was enough to send shockwaves through the industry.

For example, the world's only full-stack 900V high-voltage architecture in the hybrid field, a megawatt-level hybrid electric drive system with over 1,400 horsepower, a pure electric range comparable to pure electric vehicles, and an assisted driving system with over 1,400 TOPS of computing power.

Such achievements have made the ZEEKR 9X's reputation extend beyond that of the "Hangzhou Bay Cullinan," as it aims to compete with supercars.

01 Pure electric, extended range, hybrid, and fuel options available

Since it is a technology conference, it must convince with "technology." The most significant technology introduced at this conference is the all-new super electric hybrid technology architecture, Haohan-S (SEA-S).

It is worth mentioning that the previous Haohan structure on the ZEEKR 009 was an architecture for a pure electric platform. Now, it has transformed into an electric hybrid architecture, which also illustrates ZEEKR's approach when developing this electric hybrid architecture. Since it is derived from a pure electric architecture, its parameters must align with the pure electric experience, even if it is only an electric hybrid vehicle.

The Haohan-S architecture is not a simple addition of oil and electricity. To summarize its complete capabilities, we can discuss it from four aspects: super electric hybrid, digital chassis, safety armor, and intelligent assisted driving.

In terms of the Haohan super electric hybrid, ZEEKR has introduced the world's first full-stack 900V high-voltage electric hybrid platform, supporting 6C ultra-fast charging and possessing the world's first hybrid megawatt electric drive system with a total power exceeding 1,000 kW. Based on the 70 kWh 6C super hybrid battery, it achieves the longest CLTC pure electric range of 380 kilometers among global hybrid SUVs.

In fact, a 900V high-voltage platform is not uncommon nowadays, as automakers like NIO have already adopted it, and BYD has even gone up to a kilovolt platform. Moreover, compared to many 800V platform pure electric vehicles, 900V is not an iterative upgrade.

However, the 900V announced by ZEEKR is special because of the words "electric hybrid."

You see, the ZEEKR 9X is a hybrid vehicle. In the context where the vast majority of current hybrid and extended-range products still use a 400V architecture, an ultra-high-voltage platform means faster charging rates and longer endurance capabilities.

As we all know, although the hybrid vehicles currently on the market have basically shaken off the reputation of being "a dragon with electricity and a worm without it," they still face many issues under people's "want it all" demands, such as too short pure electric range, too slow charging, and poor power performance when the battery is low.

Although starting from this year, many automakers have upgraded their hybrid or extended-range models to 800V high-voltage platforms, ZEEKR 9X is the only one with 900V.

Precisely because the Haohan-S architecture is derived from a pure electric platform, it has a natural advantage in the layout of the three electric systems. ZEEKR 9X globally premiered a three-motor hybrid megawatt electric drive, with a 290 kW motor on the front axle and two 370 kW motors on the rear axle, achieving a maximum power of 1,030 kW and a maximum horsepower exceeding 1,400.

This also allows a full-size SUV to achieve a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of only 3.1 seconds and a top speed of 240 km/h, a performance that is enough to make this full-size hybrid SUV compete with supercars.

In addition, ZEEKR has packed a 70 kWh large battery into the 9X, which is unprecedented in hybrid products, directly increasing the CLTC pure electric range to 380 km.

This battery is also a 6C battery. Relying on the 900V high-voltage platform, the ZEEKR 9X only needs 9 minutes to charge from 20% to 80% and 10.3 minutes from 10% to 80%, which is already faster than most pure electric vehicles on the market.

What does this mean? The free duration in commercial parking lots is generally 15 minutes. If you charge to 80% while shopping, you may not even need to pay until you leave.

This means that in most daily commuting scenarios and even short trips, the ZEEKR 9X can be used as a pure electric SUV, and it is currently the first truly large-battery hybrid model.

What if there's no electricity? Don't forget it also has an engine.

The ZEEKR 9X adopts a 2.0T electric hybrid dedicated engine with a maximum power exceeding 200 kW and a combined thermal efficiency exceeding 46%. Its combined fuel consumption per 100 kilometers is 5%-10% lower than that of products of the same level equipped with a 1.5T engine.

Even in low-battery mode with only 20% battery remaining, the 0-100 km/h acceleration time of the ZEEKR 9X is only 0.2 seconds slower than when fully charged, almost providing a seamless experience.

Most importantly, this engine can directly drive the wheels or drive the generator to achieve extended range mode. When the battery is sufficient, the system will prioritize pure electric power to exhaust the 380 km range; when the battery is insufficient, the system will automatically select extended range or direct drive intelligent switching based on different operating conditions to balance power and energy consumption.

In ZEEKR's words, this hybrid system can achieve the strongest pure electric, hybrid, and extended range capabilities.

02 5 LiDAR solution

With such a top-tier core electric system, the chassis and intelligence will not be too shabby either.

The AI digital chassis under the Haohan-S architecture aims to smoothly transmit the powerful 1,400-horsepower to the ground and convert it into an excellent driving experience.

ZEEKR has provided four keywords: Dinghai intelligent central motion control system, 48V active stabilizer bar, closed double-cavity air spring, and dual-valve CCD variable damping shock absorber.

The closed double-cavity double-valve air suspension of the ZEEKR 9X adopts a closed double-air-tank design, which provides faster lifting and descending speeds and is not afraid of altitude sickness. It has a maximum adjustment stroke of 110 mm, can achieve a maximum ground clearance of 288 mm, and can also achieve a maximum climb gradient of 100%.

In addition, there is the 48V active stabilizer bar technology, which is a first for Chinese brands. It can provide a maximum torque of 1,400 Nm in just 0.2 seconds, achieving a maximum lifting effect of 80 mm.

Besides allowing the ZEEKR 9X to barely feel any lean when taking high-speed corners, when a side collision is imminent, the ZEEKR 9X can quickly lift the chassis on the same side within 0.7 seconds, with the sturdiest sill beam bearing the impact. Through simulation comparison, the ZEEKR 9X can reduce the intrusion amount of side collisions by up to 27%.

When it comes to safety, "Road Tank ZEEKR" has always been ZEEKR's brand name card. The body torsion stiffness of the ZEEKR 9X reaches 41,600 N·m/deg, surpassing that of the Land Rover Range Rover and Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Additionally, over 91% of the body is made of high-strength steel and aluminum alloy, with 10 parts using high-strength steel with a strength of 2,000 MPa.

At the same time, the integrated hot-formed reinforced sunroof ring, integrated main body 2,000 MPa hot-formed door ring, integrated die-cast aluminum rear body, and integrated die-cast aluminum CD pillar reinforcement structure cover all positions for vehicle occupants.

The Dinghai intelligent central system is the brain that drives this chassis. It uses AI algorithms to recognize road information and real-time invokes the assisted driving system and vehicle perception components to uniformly command actuators in multiple domains such as the chassis, powertrain, and cabin, ensuring stable vehicle operation under multiple complex conditions.

As ZEEKR's most premium flagship SUV, it naturally embodies ZEEKR's highest level of intelligent assisted driving. Therefore, the top-tier scheme of Qianli Haohan, Qianli Haohan H9, appears on the ZEEKR 9X as expected.

In addition, the slightly lower-tier Qianli Haohan H7 will also be equipped. The core difference between the two lies in computing power: H7 uses a single Thor chip with 700 TOPS of computing power, while H9 uses two Thor chips, achieving 1,400 TOPS of computing power.

At the same time, ZEEKR also released its unique Smart AI Agent technology architecture. It has built a "cloud-based large model" and a "world model" in the cloud. The cloud-based large model endows the vehicle with scene understanding and reasoning abilities similar to human drivers, capable of recognizing electronic signs, special vehicle sounds, and even traffic police gestures; the world model can simulate complex scenarios in the physical world, allowing the base large model to conduct reinforcement learning within it.

On the vehicle side, a multi-modal VLA general scene large model is deployed, which can perform real-time road risk reasoning, identify risks in advance, and allow the vehicle to actively decelerate and avoid obstacles, giving the vehicle a smarter predictive ability.

One tangible ability is autonomous roaming in uncharted parks. Besides the autonomous exit-finding function, it can also be voice-controlled to achieve seamless human-machine co-driving without the need for learning, memorization, or waiting for map downloads. It can be used for the first time in parks nationwide. Chen Qi, Vice President of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology, stated that this is the ultimate experience of L2-level assisted driving.

The above are functions that can be achieved by Qianli Haohan H7, while Qianli Haohan H9 is an intelligent assisted driving solution oriented towards L3 level. Chen Qi said that the ZEEKR 9X not only meets the hardware requirements for L3 intelligent driving but also has the potential to be upgraded to L4 intelligent driving in the future.

The Qianli Haohan H9 solution adopts the world's only 5-LiDAR configuration and achieves 360-degree full coverage of LiDAR for the first time.

Specifically, the front adopts one long-range LiDAR with the world's only 520-line solution, which can accurately identify any object with a length and width exceeding 0.75 meters at a maximum distance of 300 meters, far surpassing the current mainstream 192-line LiDAR.

The other four are the world's first four-directional high-precision solid-state LiDARs independently developed by ZEEKR. Each has a horizontal scanning range of 150 degrees, a vertical perception of 112 degrees, and a detection distance of 15 meters. The four cover an area of nearly 1,000 square meters, providing the largest perception range in the industry and the ability to accurately perceive suspended and negative obstacles.

In addition, the entire solution also includes five 4D millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, 13 high-definition cameras, two wading radars, and six external microphones, totaling 43 perception units.

Qianli Haohan H9 also adds an "end-to-end adversarial model" based on the H7 model, using AI to verify AI and backing up each other with the "multi-modal VLA."

From a hybrid architecture comparable to pure electric vehicles to an assisted driving solution oriented towards L3 and even L4, the ZEEKR 9X has proven with the Haohan-S architecture that ZEEKR has the ability to create a luxury SUV that dominates technologically.

Next, let's see how the pricing goes

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