Geely Starwish, 310km on a 30 degree battery, competing with BYD Dolphin with ride control?

A new rival for the BYD Seagull?

At the beginning of September, Geely Automobile released a new pure electric A0 class sedan - Star Wish. With a wheelbase of 2 metres 6, standard independent suspension, rear-wheel drive, equipped with Ningde Times lithium iron phosphate batteries, and also gave Flyme Auto intelligent cockpit, it is planned to go on sale in the fourth quarter of this year. It can be said that Starwish seems to be giving the market a good appeal in all aspects. So the question is, how is it going to steal the market with BYD's Dolphin?

With 110 kilometres less entry than the Dolphin, does the Starwing really have no advantage?

First of all, let's talk about the three electric technology performance of these two cars. Battery part, Geely chose to Star Wish equipped with Ningde Times lithium iron phosphate battery, currently in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has declared two specifications, 30.12 kWh and 40.16 kWh, compared to the Dolphin is equipped with 44.928 kWh and 60.48 kWh lithium iron phosphate blade batteries, the Star Wish's battery pack capacity is not large, reflected in the range to look at the CLTC conditions Star Wish is 310 kilometres and 410 kilometres, the same conditions, the Dolphin can reach 420 kilometres and 520 kilometres. Under CLTC conditions, the Starwing has a range of 310km and 410km, while the Dolphin can reach 420km and 520km under the same conditions.

In terms of motors, the Starwish will be equipped with two kinds of motors from Grabo Intelligent Power Technology Co., Ltd, with maximum power of 58 kW and 85 kW respectively. On the Dolphin side, it is equipped with BYD's self-produced motor, with a maximum power of 70 kW, of which the top version (Dolphin Knight Edition) is even equipped with the same code-named TZ200XSQ motor as the entry level of its flagship sedan, the Han EV of its own dynasty, with a maximum power of 150 kW. So from the data level, the overall power efficiency of the Dolphin is obviously to take some advantage.

Focusing on the electric drive system, the Dolphin uses BYD's 8-in-1 highly integrated design, which specifically integrates the drive motor, motor controller, reducer, vehicle controller, high and low voltage DC converter, high-voltage power distribution module, as well as the battery management system and bi-directional car charger. Starwing, on the other hand, uses an 11-in-1 highly integrated design, integrating a thermal management system, a high-voltage battery testing system and a low-voltage battery testing system more than Dolphin. The most obvious feature of the highly integrated design is the smaller size of the components, which can be interpreted as the original scattered layout of the core components have been placed in a box with specific specifications, the purpose of doing so is very simple, so that the electric drive efficiency is higher, the scale of the reduction of weight and volume of the components, and the maximisation of the use of space.

The final result is that the interior space of the two A0-class cars are enough for daily use, the Dolphin boot can be expanded to a maximum of 1,310 litres, the Starwing can be 1,320 litres, and in view of the Starwing's centre console below the central hollowing out of the design, which is 20 litres of storage space, the rear seats are also arranged under the 28L storage drawer, the seat under the factory drawer box, I think the Tesla owners will be very envious of. Tesla owners will be very envious.

Then talk about the intelligent aspect. This time Geely gave the Starwish Flyme Auto car system, which is exactly the same car system of the previous Galaxy E5, hardware using Geely self-developed car-grade 7nm car chip, which is also the same as the Link 07 and other models equipped with the same, specific to the operating experience, it can achieve the centre control screen, instrument screen, HUD, mobile phone four-screen linkage and other functions. BYD is not stingy to the dolphin, in addition to the whole system standard with everyone is already familiar with the DiLink system, but also gave the high end models DiPilot intelligent assisted driving function. It can be said that in the past, the A0-class pure electric car which is just a vehicle for travelling, now the user's experience of using the car has been completely subverted.

In short, the Star and Dolphin in the space utilisation are each maximised, intelligent driving and intelligent cabin also gives the user a different experience, only in terms of range data, the Star seems to be a slight loss, I do not know whether the subsequent Geely will launch a large battery pack configuration version, which will need to wait for further official news. But then again, the range data is not advantageous, it means that the Star Wish must be ‘run’ than the Dolphin? Let's move on.

Rear-wheel drive + sole suspension + lightweight + wide body, Starwing is more fun to drive than Dolphin?
If you simply look at the range data on a level of conclusion, which is obviously biased, after all, the factors that affect the pure electric car range in addition to the size of the battery pack, as well as wind resistance, vehicle weight, tyre specifications, and, of course, the user's own driving habits, so the main direction of the Geely Star Wish is by no means a traditional pure electric car, continue to dig its product features, in fact, you can see a clear user! The key point that is quite informative is the driving pleasure.

Let's start with the vehicle weight. According to the official data given. The current BYD Dolphin four on-sale version of the overall quality were 1435 kg, 1460 kg and 1600 kg, Geely Starwish currently released two versions, the overall quality of the smallest 1215 kg, the largest 1285 kg, of which only the entry level there is a 220 kg drop, which is for pure electric vehicles, vehicle lightweight means lower energy consumption, the performance of the range to be obviously more Fragrance.

Is the lightweight body less stable than before the weight reduction? Not really, because vehicle stability can also be achieved by tuning the suspension, body design and optimising the aerodynamic package, so it's time to move on to analysing what Starwing and Dolphin have done.

From the parameters, the Dolphin and Starwish are both 1 metre 57 high, but, the vehicle width is different, Starwish is 35mm more than the Dolphin, and the most critical thing is that the Dolphin front and rear wheelbase are 1530mm, Starwish front wheelbase is 1555mm, rear wheelbase is 1575mm, which means that the Starwish's bodywork is a narrow front and wide rear design, and this explains why the Starwish looks to be a kind of wide-bodied and low-slung visual effect.

Moving on to the suspension. In addition to the entry-level model with a rear torsion beam non-independent suspension, BYD is still generous on the Dolphin, giving a rear four-link independent suspension, due to the placement of the motor in front of the relationship, which allows the rear axle space on the rear axle space has a lot of room for adjustment, so after tuning, in addition to suppressing the cornering produced by the side of the swaying problem, but also can optimise quite a lot of the rear ride comfort.

Geely is also generous to the Starwing, the whole system standard with independent suspension, but different from the dolphin is that the Starwing from Geely ‘new rear-drive pure electric platform’ to build, that is to say, the Starwing's rear axle needs a large space to stuff a motor, and the common multi-link layout of the class of the rear axle lateral occupancy of space is very large, which is destined to not be able to add other large parts. big parts, so what would Geely do? Is it too high rear seating position + multilink suspension, or ensure seating space to upgrade the rear suspension? This will require further official news and our actual ride experience to verify.

It's worth mentioning that although both cars use 60 flat ratio tyres, the Starwing's tyres have a larger cross-section and have a larger area of contact with the road, so the ride stability will certainly be better. Regardless, rear-mounted rear drive + sole suspension + lightweight + wide-body, with this setup Starwish, has enough to remind users of the fun of driving similar to a go-kart, you know, the biggest difference between rear-mounted rear drive and front-mounted front drive lies in the driving experience, one is to push you, the other is to pull you, and this difference is especially obvious in the corners.

Since it is a pure electric car with rear-mounted rear drive, in fact, it is impossible to avoid another problem, that is, how to ensure that the efficiency of the rear drive wheels is maximised? To put it simply, how can we ensure that there is no serious slippage? Officials did not mention, but it may be worth speculating, Geely will be like the Galaxy E5, a separate set of ‘G-TCS all-weather drive anti-slip system’?


The logic of this system is actually very simple, the system will control the torque output according to the wheel adhesion, to ensure that the wheels and the ground have a suitable friction, but to consider the cost alone, I'm afraid that the Star's pricing will be very difficult and dolphin to form a competitive edge, but from the point of view of the enterprise system force and integration of the force, this speculation in fact can also be established, after all, is not the main high-end market BYD Xia, are able to use a lot of their own Tengshi D5, but also the company's own Tengshi D5, and the company's Tengshi D5. With a lot of their own Tengshi D9 of the same technology results, of course, this is also need to see Geely's final action.