China: SAIC Introduces Zhiji Motor's IM EV

SAIC Motor, China’s largest carmaker, together with Shanghai Pudong New Area and Alibaba Group, launched in November 2020 a new, high-end BEV car joint venture Zhiji Motor, which today unveiled its first model - under the "IM" brand.

It's an all-electric long-range sedan with a 93 kWh battery (standard) or 115 kWh (option), which will be available for order in April 2021. In 2022, Zhiji Motor intends to launch also an SUV.

Zhiji Motor has received over 10 billion yuan ($1.52 billion) in initial financing. The company will combine SAIC's manufacturing know-how, Pudong’s resources and Alibaba's technological strength in the field of artificial intelligence and big data.

The cars look really interesting, although probably not all will like the fancy lights. Anyway, we guess it will be one of the direct competitors to the recently announced NIO ET7.

Zhiji Motor IM

We read that the IM cars will be equipped with high energy dense batteries from CATL (up to around 300 Wh/kg, 0% degradation for up to 200,000 km) and NVIDIA Drive tech for autonomous driving.

By the way of 2021 CES, NVIDIA explains:

"These models will have multi NVIDIA Orin SoCs (system-on-a-chip) at the core of a centralized computer system, achieving 500 to 1,000+ TOPS of performance for automated and autonomous capabilities in addition to in-cabin personalization that is continuously upgradable over-the-air for a truly software-defined experience."

See also

NIO Reveals Stunning ET7 Flagship Sedan