2024-01-22 11:30:50
The change of shifts between the old technology and the new generation is picking up a gear. You feel it with every new model that arrives in Israel (and there have been many of them in recent months) and especially with every new brand that lands here. We are not talking about electricity versus gasoline, this discussion has already exhausted itself and is behind us, but about the experience of use, the wealth of systems and accessories, high technological quality alongside modern safety systems that are marching us towards the autonomous future that is approaching at a moderate pace, but no one doubts that it will happen Here in the not too distant future.
Now it’s the turn of Zeekr, the premium brand of Geely, the same Chinese manufacturer that fell in love with the European concept and broke the boundaries with the purchase of Volvo and giving (a kind of) independence to Polestar, the legendary Lotus, and together with Mercedes created the interesting partnership in Smart. Now it opens a door to its own premium worlds, like Toyota did with Lexus or Hyundai and Genesis. Perhaps this should be the point of comparison between the young manufacturers from East Asia that were born from strong brands, and maybe we should even include in the equation those who came and said in advance: “We did not invent the car or electricity, but we want to invent the driving experience” and we mean XFang and Neo, of course.
The meaning of the brand’s name is SHE (Zero) E (Evolving the Electric Era) KR (Krypton), meaning the starting point zero, the development of the electric age and krypton which is a rare gas that emits light when it is electrified. These are actually the manufacturer’s statements, how is all of this reflected in the Zikr 001?
Summary
Design and cabin: The shooting break style design turns heads, the passenger compartment is high quality, but the human engineering requires adaptation.
Ride quality and accessories: The ride comfort is very good, the noise insulation is good, and the equipment list is long.
Performance and behavior: The performance is excellent, certainly in the double drive versions. The road behavior is dynamic, but not sporty due to high weight.
Who is suitable for: If you are looking for a large, spacious, well-equipped and high-quality car and don’t want to part with half a million shekels.
Current price for the test date: From NIS 269,990 (test vehicle NIS 329,990)
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Design and cabin
The banal phrase “size doesn’t matter” can’t be said about the Zikr 001, because it’s a car that constantly turned heads thanks to its dimensions, its unusual design in the landscape, and also the special orange-black coloring that undoubtedly created the feeling that it’s a car lower than its actual height, along with its rims. 22 huge, the stylish front lights and the rear ones embedded in the tailgate that complete the picture. There is nothing innovative or daring here that we haven’t seen before but an excellent connection of all the elements created in the Zikker design workshop in Sweden.
Entering the car is easy from the front and back thanks to large doors and a wide opening angle. The passenger cabin reveals excellent space and high quality of materials and assembly. In the back, the space is also very good thanks to a wheelbase of 3 meters and a flat floor, so that four passengers will enjoy luxurious seats and excellent space, and three will also fit in, but the one in the center will face a bump resulting from the retractable armrest. The trunk with a volume of 490 liters is also quite useful.
In this day and age, if they had to place a button for every action in the car, we would get a passenger cabin that looks like the cockpit of an airliner, crowded and ineffective for any driver. In the case of the Zikr, the unification of operations comes in the form of two contact surfaces on the steering wheel that require learning and getting used to. Using these surfaces, several systems are activated such as the adaptive cruise control and moving mirrors, activating voice commands and a long list of other topics and it does not always work as it should – we tried to adjust the speed of the cruise control while driving and it required a high level of skill in finding the point that needs to be pressed on the steering wheel surface in order for it to work correctly It’s the same every time, it’s a shame there aren’t markings on the “mouse surfaces” where it’s recommended to click without wandering around with your fingers in a tedious search. The multimedia screen has four menu “buttons” that are located on the edges of the screen and can be reached by touching and activate what you are looking for. In most functions, this is done once to customize to the desired style and there is no need to go back there again.
Ride quality and accessories
We did not ignore the temptation to compare the 001 to luxury cars with decades of experience, especially those from Germany or even American, British or Swedish ones. But before that, it was mentioned first that they want to set the bar for Chinese products, when the challenge to the old brands will also come in the future.
Although the Zikr 001 is not a new car, already 3 years old, it is evident that they did their homework well and a comfortable ride was obtained, which may be attributed to the air suspensions in the “Krypton” version tested, which adjust according to the driving situation and took good care of common potholes. You can drive this car for many hours and not get tired or suffer from something that disturbs the passengers, when on a fast road noises penetrate, but they are at a completely reasonable level. The urban maneuvering is not excellent with a turning radius that is too large, if there was a possibility of rear steering when driving and parking maneuvers, life would be much better. To summarize the ride quality section, our Zikr gets a high score and seems to have succeeded in setting the bar they asked for.
The equipment list is rich and includes items such as electrified seats with heating and ventilation, an excellent Yamaha audio system with lots of speakers. A huge 15″ multimedia screen (without Hebrew) that also offers personalization options and wireless mobile connectivity that worked well (probably the fast Qualcomm processor does the job), there is also a voice assistant that is happy to change driving modes, activate most of the vehicle’s systems, except for the safety system, And we didn’t hesitate to ask her to arrange the car according to demand with heating, cooling, ventilation, radio, navigation (original) and much more. There is also a wireless charging surface that doesn’t always manage to hold the phone in place and in the future an application will be added to control the field of charging and preparing for the trip and to activate a few other things In the back, too, we found quite a few luxury-indulgent elements, including tilting seats, charging sockets, and air conditioning vents for the body and head separately.
The editor of the automotive section spared you the technical details of the multitude of safety systems because this coverage would go on forever, but we will mention the array of cameras and radars that come from the Israeli Mobilai, with a system that is ready to be autonomous at the push of a button, with the approval of the state in the future of course, all the systems that were tested worked well, but Tend to an excess of beeps and alerts that became disturbing at times. We also note that the driver’s gaze monitoring warning and the traffic sign detection warning must be canceled at the start of a trip due to the European safety regulations that require them.
performance and behavior
As an electric car with two engines, dual drive and a power of 544 hp and a jump from a standstill to 100 km/h in less than four seconds (3.8), we got exactly what we expected. The responses are strong, although incredibly restrained and that’s a good thing, especially in extreme modes like “Sport”. Along with noticeable braking in the mode of using one pedal, when the regeneration for the battery can be selected at two levels and they are pleasant to use and do not cause nausea.
In more dynamic driving, some testers felt the weight of the car with 2.4 tons very well, others were not really excited by it, since the power is more than enough at these levels, and we would not be surprised if there are those who will be satisfied with the entry version with 272 hp from a rear engine in order to extend the driving range The official (620 km). We should note that the order of selecting the travel modes shown on the multimedia screen confused us a little at first and it does not seem logical to us because we are used to going from light to heavy with economical, comfort, sport, personal, off-road and off-road sub-modes such as sand, snow and mud, but here someone chose to sort it out Other. We got around this by using the voice assistant.
At the end of the test in very varied conditions, the electricity consumption was 18.8 kWh per 100 km, which means a realistic driving range of 500 km. A very good figure in relation to the size and performance and not far from the official figure (580 km). The 100 kWh battery (94 kWh net) is capable of charging at a rate of up to 200 kW, while at the ultra-fast 180 kW station where we stopped, it was filled with an additional 150 km in just 13 minutes, which would be enough to get from Tiberias to A. No problem.
Summary
A growing sub-category of premium-tech cars, such as the Xpeng and New and the soon-to-be-launched BYD Seal, seeks to take a bite out of the others, both from the popular and luxury segments. Zikr 001 is a saloon car with a sporty atmosphere, designed, useful, and has many elements from the premium worlds that are not yet able to cope with the branding of German luxury cars with a long tradition that brought them to a very high level of knowledge in the production and development of premium cars. So it’s true, it also doesn’t have rear steering and the urban maneuvering is not outstanding, the human engineering also requires learning and adaptation and the road behavior is not sporty in nature.
But Zikr 001 is not at a great distance from them, and when you compare it to the Tesla Model S for example, it turns out that in terms of ride quality, equipment and quality of materials, it does not leave the American a great chance. The air suspension in the top version also makes a difference in the driving experience and precise steering completes the driving experience. It also brings a special character in the design, high quality materials, a useful driving range, and together with aggressive pricing, the bottom line here is an excellent deal that will not require you to part with half a million shekels.
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