The Avatr 12 Is Not a Typo, but a Premium EV With 570 HP and 434 Miles of Range

The name of the Avatr 12 may look like a spelling mistake, but it is not. It has no connection with the Vision AVTR concept car that Mercedes-Benz unveiled at the CES in 2020.

With the not-a-spelling-mistake model, the Chinese joint venture enters the European market, pointing out that it is not a "Twelve" we are dealing with, but a "One, two." The first model of the partnership was the Avatr 11, pronounced not "Eleven" but "One, one." The 11 is an electric crossover that made its debut last year in China, but never made it outside its home market.

The model measures 197.6 inches (5,020 millimeters) in length, 78.7 inches (1,999 millimeters) in width, and 57.4 inches (1,460 millimeters) in height. The wheelbase of the car is of 119.2 inches (3,030 millimeters). That is almost as much as the Mercedes EQ business sedan has, at 122.8 inches (3,120 millimeters).

The Avatr 12 comes in the shape of a four-door coupe with a hatchback at the rear. The Chinese joint venture claims there is a Halo Display on the hood. That is actually a black panel LED display that sends out messages to people outside the car.

The gran coupe will be available with two powertrain options. The rear-wheel version comes with a single electric motor generating 308 horsepower (313 PS). The all-wheel drive example sports a Huawei dual-motor setup capable of delivering 570 horsepower (578 PS).

Both are equipped with a 94.5-kWh cell-to-pack ternary lithium-ion battery pack supplied by CATL. The unit provides a range between 403 miles (650 kilometers) and 434 miles (700 kilometers). There is no word on the testing cycle the car underwent, but it might be the CLTC used in China.

There is no window in the rear, so the Avatr 12 gets a video camera that captures the live feed and sends it to a digital rearview mirror. It also gets cameras instead of the side mirrors, with the images rolling on displays installed at both ends of the dashboard.

The joint venture keeps it simple on board the four-door-coupe-ish hatchback and says that the dashboard resembles a spaceship with expansive wings extending between the front doors. What they call the digital window is actually a wide-band screen that stretches along the dashboard. There are invisible air vents on that dashboard, and the yoke-like closed steering wheel has a gear lever behind it.

The electrochromic glass roof can switch from transparent to opaque with the help of a button, while occupants sit in what the joint venture calls zero-gravity seats.

The Avatr 12 should enter production in China today, September 6. There is no info on pricing yet, but we should expect that closer to the market launch.