We kind of grew tired of seeing an avalanche of new electric cars that are yet to enter production, designed by companies no one ever heard of. Then something like this pops up, and we’re back in the game.
This week, we heard news of a new electric, smart car brand born in China. The brand is called HiPhi, and the company behind it Human Horizons. And that’s all we can tell you about them because at the time of this writing their website seems to be permanently down.
We can tell you a thing or two about the first car of the brand, though. As you can see, the HiPhi 1 is an SUV with a very peculiar rear door design. At the front, the doors open in the usual manner, but at the rear these elements are a suicide - meets - gullwing doors affair.
But that’s only part of the story. Exterior design aside, the car shows one of the most exciting and high-tech interiors we’ve seen recently. Three massive screens - for the driver, in the center of the console and in front of the passenger – make the dashboard look like the inside of a spacecraft.
The car’s interaction with its humans is powered by a neural network that comprises “four super brain domain controllers and six computing platforms connected by 1G Ethernet.” This should allow it to process an immense amount of data really-really fast, making it ideal for autonomous driving.
Powering the HiPhi 1 is a 96 kWh battery that should give the car 400 miles range (644 km) and place it at the top of the food chain in this respect. No word on power yet and the number of motors, but we do know the acceleration time: 3.9 seconds.
There’s no telling whether this car will make it into production. The company did say it plans to sell it locally at first, and then expand globally, but it gave no target date for the car’s launch.
We can tell you a thing or two about the first car of the brand, though. As you can see, the HiPhi 1 is an SUV with a very peculiar rear door design. At the front, the doors open in the usual manner, but at the rear these elements are a suicide - meets - gullwing doors affair.
But that’s only part of the story. Exterior design aside, the car shows one of the most exciting and high-tech interiors we’ve seen recently. Three massive screens - for the driver, in the center of the console and in front of the passenger – make the dashboard look like the inside of a spacecraft.
The car’s interaction with its humans is powered by a neural network that comprises “four super brain domain controllers and six computing platforms connected by 1G Ethernet.” This should allow it to process an immense amount of data really-really fast, making it ideal for autonomous driving.
Powering the HiPhi 1 is a 96 kWh battery that should give the car 400 miles range (644 km) and place it at the top of the food chain in this respect. No word on power yet and the number of motors, but we do know the acceleration time: 3.9 seconds.
There’s no telling whether this car will make it into production. The company did say it plans to sell it locally at first, and then expand globally, but it gave no target date for the car’s launch.