Do you still remember the Zhijie S7 jointly developed by Chery and Huawei? The sales volume of this car reached 4,546 units in April, entering the mainstream market in one fell swoop.

However, this car is actually the same "parent" as the Xingjiyuan ES under Chery Xingtu. While cooperating with Huawei, Xingtu still wants to develop the ES series.

On May 10, Xingtu's Xingjiyuan ET was officially launched, with a price range of 189,800 to 319,800 yuan. So, can the Xingjiyuan series, with its growing product lineup, lead the Chery brand to develop upward?

What is the selling point of Star Era ET?

The Star Era ET is a medium-to-large SUV, and its price is relatively affordable among the same-level models. However, it is obviously difficult to gain a foothold in the market by relying on this alone. The Star Era ET also provides a strong product lineup.

In terms of power system, the Star Era ET provides both extended-range electric and pure electric power modes. The extended-range version has a pure electric range of 200km under CLTC conditions, and a range of 1518km when fully fueled and fully charged.

The pure electric model has a maximum power of 413km and a maximum range of 760km. In addition, it also supports 800V high-voltage fast charging, and the two high-end models also provide CDC electromagnetic shock absorption system and air suspension.

In terms of space, the Xingjiyuan ET has a body length of nearly 5 meters and a wheelbase of 3 meters. It adopts a conventional large five-seat design. After the rear seats are folded down, an extra-large space of 1835L can be obtained, which can be used to load various daily necessities and can also be transformed into a large bed when camping.

In terms of intelligence, the Star Era ET is equipped with the Ultimate Intelligent Cockpit 6.0, and also incorporates the Chery Lion AI large model. It has a high-level intelligent voice interaction system and supports various car usage scenarios such as car-home interconnection, baby mode, and karaoke mode.

In addition, the Star Era ET is also equipped with NVIDIA's intelligent driving assistance chip, which realizes L2 level intelligent driving, and city and highway navigation assistance are also available.

Obviously, the Star Era ET is tailor-made for home users. Its relatively affordable price, leading power system and intelligent performance at the same price point are very attractive to home users.

What can Star Era ET bring?

There is no doubt that the Star Era ET is a highly competitive model. It is the second car in the Star Era new energy product series and the first medium and large SUV. It can be called a strategic-level model.

In fact, the current Star Era series does need more heavyweight models.

Many people are relatively unfamiliar with the Star Era series. Let’s first take a look at the origin of this car series: Chery has a high-end brand called Starway. Starway has created a high-end new energy series named Star Era, which was officially released on April 7, 2023, and it has been just over a year now.

In addition to the Star Era ET, the Star Era series also has another new energy vehicle: the Star Era ES. However, all the Star Era ES are pure electric models. Perhaps considering that the pure electric models have a small audience and there is anxiety about battery life, the Star Era ET directly started to walk on two legs: extended range and pure electric.

In theory, it is not a slow progress to come up with two competitive main models in one year. However, the Xingtu brand has planned as follows: the existing fuel vehicles Zhuifeng, Lanyue, Lingyun and Yaoguang will continue to be updated, and their new energy versions will be launched at the same time, gradually realizing the transformation; and the Xingjiyuan series is a newly developed new energy vehicle.

According to the previous plan of the Xingtu brand, the Xingjiyuan series will cover multiple market segments from B-class to C-class, from sedans to SUVs to MPVs, and there are even plans to enter overseas markets such as the European Union.

The launch of the Star Era ET has expanded the product lineup and opened up a new brand, which is exactly what Xingtu hopes to see. Next, the Star Era series will launch more heavyweight models. Now Xingtu really needs to expand its product lineup.

After repeated failures in diversification, can Chery succeed this time?

In recent years, domestic brands have gradually become more prosperous. After their sales increased, they began to launch various sub-brands, among which Geely and Chery are the most representative.

But Geely likes acquisitions. Volvo, Lotus, Proton, and SMART were all other people's children at the beginning. Chery is not in pain. It is good at self-division. Chery, Xingtu, Jietu, and iCAR are all siblings. Although Xingjiyuan is not a sub-brand, the idea is the same.

The problem now is that Chery's multi-brand strategy does not seem to have achieved the expected results. Take the Xingtu brand as an example. If the two models of Xingjiyuan are also counted, the Xingtu brand has 8 models on sale, but only the Xingtu Yaoguang C-DM and Xingtu Lingyun have an average monthly sales of more than 1,500 units, while the monthly sales of the remaining models are all below 1,000 units, and some models even have less than 100 units, which is basically marginalized.

Looking at the Star Era series, the first model, the Star Era ES, is equipped with Chery’s own system. Logically, its performance is not bad, but its monthly sales have never exceeded 1,000 units since its launch.

In comparison, the sales of the Zhijie S7, which is based on the same mothership as the Xingjiyuan ES, soared to 4,546 units in April.

This seems to prove two things: first, Chery's core technology level is relatively high, but its combat effectiveness in the high-end market is relatively weak, and there is a big gap with Huawei; second, Xingtu has not established a firm foothold in the high-end market.

Fortunately, domestic new energy manufacturers have now taken a leading position, and consumers are increasingly accepting them. Although the Xingtu brand cannot be called a high-end brand, it has at least gotten rid of its low-end image. If the product performance continues to improve, the Xingjiyuan series may not be unable to make a name for itself, but it is more difficult than expected.

The Star Era ET is only the second car in the Star Era series, and it is difficult to make a conclusion about its future. But one thing is certain: Chery's long-standing independent research and development strategy will not fail, and if the Star Era wants to achieve a breakthrough, it can only start from product performance and technology.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.