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Knight-errant: copycat tilting at windmills?
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IN ancient China, youxia was the archetype traditional hero, a knight-errant who roamed the land restoring justice in an evil world.
In today’s China, Youxia is the name of an electric car Internet startup that is making headlines by acting like a Don Quixote.
With a team of about 50 young people, many of them non-automotive backgrounds, Youxia Motors is confronting the auto industry, intent on cracking the cozy club of established carmakers, which it considers lacks imagination.
Why, this company asks, can’t China build a domestic car like that intelligent, cool auto in the classic TV series “Knight Rider?” Youxia Motors took its name from the Chinese translation Pili (Thunderbolt) Youxia.
And their answer to this question is a concept electric supercar called Youxia X, a “big toy” that they aspire to bring into mass production in two years.
The top selling point is an Android 5.0-based operating system called KITT, which can help users interact with the car via a big touchscreen inside the cabin and by voice command. It can adjust the in-cabin color theme to one’s liking, simulate the rolling sound of a supercar engine to fill in the quietness of an electric motor, and even change the look on the car’s face, which is a big LED screen in the place of a grill that an electric car doesn’t need for air intake. The open application-programming interface (API) is waiting for more Android Apps to be uploaded.
The company is also touting the fun of driving: zero to 100 kilometers an hour in 5.6 seconds and a maximum mileage range of 460 kilometers.
Despite all the inspired talk at a recent Youxia press conference, the event was generally regarded as a farce.
What the company presented is a car bearing a striking resemblance to Tesla inside and out.
Of course, copycats aren’t particularly frowned upon in China. They are more commonly viewed as shortcuts in a development catch-up game.
But has Youxia gone too far?
It took only 482 days to “put together” this new car. The company has not been coy about borrowing a page or two from Tesla, the US electric car innovator known for its open-source altruism. But Youxia denies its car is just tweaking the shell of the Tesla Model S. If Youxia X is really based on a self-developed chassis, built with funding of only 20 million yuan (US$3.2 million), then the team working on it has shockingly reckless style that would put many engineers out of a job.
Industry conscience
Youxia is still millions of yuan and several years away from building a serious prototype.
It is generally agreed that vehicle development is not as simple as assembling parts sourced from suppliers. That is not a matter of industry protectionism but rather industry conscience.
With lives on the line, carmakers have very low tolerance for error rates. The need for professional experience is a natural disadvantage for a newcomer like Youxia. There are no easy cram courses.
Does anyone believe this company can pull it off? The company hasn’t even done any market research yet to find out if consumers might be interested in such a “thunderbolt.”
At the media briefing, no one was allowed to photograph the Youxia X up close. That aroused suspicion that all of the impressive figures and functions don’t go beyond a slick powerpoint presentation.
Youxia needs to fix the rear window design, which isn’t even fit for full roll-down, and present durability and performance test results for its battery-management and KITT operating systems. Cases of Tesla models catching on fire and over 1 million Fiat Chrysler cars being recalled recently for risk exposure to hackers are serious lessons about the life-and-death risks involved in the carmaking business.
Youxia seems to be well aware of the uphill battle it is fighting.
“Don’t fail youthhood,” Youxia founder Huang Xiuyuan said at the media presentation, trying to muster up the team’s courage and inspire onlooker confidence.
Even its role model Tesla is struggling, its high investment in research and production capacity development has been a drag on its profitability for more than a decade since its launch. In the first quarter of this year, the company reported a net loss of US$154 million.
Sadly, the auto industry is a poor platform for selling the idealism and can-do spirit of Internet startups. The harsh reality is that the car industry is not driven by imagination so much as by experience, cost consciousness and market demands. Measured against all that, Youxia looks like it’s tilting at windmills.
It is hard to tell if the new knight-errant is really serious. In China, everyone knows that an Internet car like Youxia is a good story for fundraising purposes.
If Youxia really has the power to live up to its name, it would be a great success already. Knights-errant fight for the well-being of others while knowing how to defend their own honor.
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