In 2024, many salespeople sighed that cars were hard to sell, but some joked that it was because the dishes you served were not impressive enough. Indeed, in the sluggish auto market, there were several enviable internet-famous models. For example, the AION RT, this new car with the reputation of "Big-Eyed Little Panamera," has had very gratifying sales since its launch last November. In its first month on the market, sales reached 11,811 units, making it the first pure electric sedan to exceed 10,000 units in its launch month, and the following month it climbed to a new high of 16,000 units. In other words, it sold nearly 30,000 units in two months after launch, showing great potential to become "the first blockbuster of 2025."
What "extraordinary talents" does the AION RT have? What makes it stand out and charm people among a multitude of cars? Combining peer road tests and our own personal experience, we found that the new car mainly has the following notable advantages: long range, fast charging, and advanced intelligent driving, while also being as charming as a Panamera.
Let's start with range. After all, for a pure electric sedan, what most consumers care about most is still the range. No one wants to charge two or three times a week, or even once every day or two, and feel annoyed every day while driving.
The AION RT is equipped with a large-capacity magazine battery of up to 68.1 kWh, and is the first in its class to feature 400V silicon carbide technology, thereby achieving a maximum electronic control efficiency of 99.85%, and in one stroke realizing the class-leading lowest power consumption of 11.7 kWh per 100 kilometers and the class-leading longest range of 650 km. It is worth mentioning that in the A-segment car market, even achieving a 600 km range is currently very rare. The AION RT not only achieved it, but exceeded it a little, breaking the range ceiling in one stroke and solving consumers' range pain points.
In actual tests, the AION RT's long range is not just an empty reputation. From our test-drive experience and peer road tests, under different road conditions and different regional environments, the AION RT's range achievement rate was mostly as high as over 98%, and some peers even measured range data exceeding 100%, with the new car's average comprehensive range achievement rate exceeding 95%. It can be said that with the support of silicon carbide chips, which are more efficient and have lower energy loss, the AION RT's long range is truly real range.
With long range, there is no need to panic. Let's take commuting in a first-tier city as an example. Even if a user has to drive 100 km back and forth every day, the class-leading longest range of 650 km can ensure that only one charge per week is needed to meet the daily commuting needs; during holidays, the class-leading longest range of 650 km is also enough to support a family on a self-driving trip across mountains and rivers.
Not only is the range long, but the AION RT also charges quickly. The new car's silicon carbide technology supports 3C fast charging, replenishing 1 km in 3 seconds, and charging for 10 minutes can provide 200 km of range. The charging time from 30% to 80% takes only 18 minutes. At present, from 30% to 80%, the industry mainstream speed is 25 minutes, and the AION RT shortens the charging time by 7 minutes. Seven minutes is neither long nor short, but on long trips, a shorter time will undoubtedly provide a better experience, making charging like refueling and waiting less agonizing.
In actual experience, the AION RT is also a sufficiently smart model. Its intelligent cockpit is equipped with the ADiGO 5.0 intelligent interconnected ecosystem. This system is not only smart enough, but also fast in response, and also has high emotional intelligence: one sentence, "It's a bit hot," and it thoughtfully automatically turns on the air conditioning for you; one sentence, "I'm hungry," and it enthusiastically recommends and navigates you to the nearest restaurant, truly knowing cold and warmth, understanding you, understanding the car, and understanding life. As for controlling multimedia, phone calls, navigation, air conditioning, seat heating/ventilation, sunshades, and so on, you only need to move your lips and tell "North Baby" and it will be done automatically.
Even more explosive is that the AION RT is not only smart, but also equipped with the industry's exclusive lidar high-level intelligent driving system, bringing a million-yuan-class high-level intelligent driving experience down to a 150,000-yuan pure electric family sedan (and it is the only one among those at 150,000 yuan). This system, together with the fourth-generation end-to-end large model and NVIDIA Orin-X high-computing-power chip, as well as 27 intelligent driving hardware components including 3R11V1L, has high-level intelligent driving functions that better understand Chinese roads. In addition to supporting L2-level intelligent driving functions such as full-speed adaptive cruise, the system also has three super practical functions: urban NDA, highway NDA, and automatic parking.
For example, in the urban NDA function (mapless intelligent driving), the AION RT can not only handle high-difficulty intelligent driving scenarios such as urban villages, rural roads, muddy water roads, straight-line U-turns, width-limited stone bollards, narrow roads, detouring around white obstacles, and construction sections without lane markings. Even in rural market towns with mixed pedestrian and vehicle traffic, and in signal-less underground garage mazes, it can also smoothly avoid obstacles, change lanes, and achieve "0 takeovers." To be honest, in these extreme scenarios, even an experienced driver needs to be careful when taking over personally, but the AION RT can handle them easily without you having to worry or tire yourself out.
In the highway NDA function, the AION RT also performs equally well. Various intelligent driving sensors on the body can not only accurately identify all traffic signs and ensure compliant and safe driving, but even in environments such as rain, fog, and late at night, they can also intelligently avoid, automatically overtake and change lanes, and get on and off ramps, making people feel very reassured.
For another example, the AION RT's class-leading one-key automatic parking function also has powerful abilities. It can not only easily park into more than 300 common parking spaces on the market, as well as various extreme parking spaces; it can also park efficiently and smoothly in one go, in as fast as only 22.3 seconds, with a parking success rate of over 99%, which is even better than a battle-hardened veteran driver. Not only that, during automatic parking, the AION RT can also monitor the surrounding conditions at all times. When it senses a pedestrian suddenly appearing nearby, it will promptly brake and avoid, maximizing the prevention of accidents.
According to official introduction, the AION RT's high-level intelligent driving system fully covers 35 main scenarios and 357 sub-scenarios, with extremely strong scenario adaptability, and does not rely on high-precision maps. It realizes "mapless global access, intelligent driving wherever there is a road" worldwide, allowing you to be safer, more reassured, more comfortable, and more relaxed during travel.
In addition to these "extraordinary talents," the AION RT also satisfies young people's preference for good looks. The new car's low-slung front face, paired with radiant phoenix-eye headlights and daytime running lights like "lying silkworms," makes the front face look fashionable and youthful enough.
On the side of the body, the new car's dragon-head and swallow-tail body crease lines are smooth and gorgeous. The Y0 line on the roof is not only 3.48 meters long, but also has not a single inflection point, flowing in one go and extending to the rear spoiler. This not only brings an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.208Cd, but also gives the new car the most popular and most gorgeous fastback design, which also makes the AION RT look stretched and imposing, brimming with youthful vitality.
It is worth mentioning that, viewed from a 45-degree angle, the AION RT also shares a beauty similar in approach but equally excellent with the Porsche Panamera. Even the new car's paint has been lavished with investment, adding an extra layer of sparkling primer compared with the same class, and the thickness is three times the industry level, with materials also benchmarked against the Porsche Panamera.
Not only is the exterior moving, but the new car also has a rear-seat large space comparable to the B-segment. The rear seat height is 320 mm, legroom reaches 943 mm, and the cabin headroom is as high as 1,184 mm. In addition, the hip angle is close to 95°, all achieving cross-class leadership, making sitting sufficiently comfortable and relaxed. It is worth mentioning that the front and rear seats of the new car both use double-layer high-density foam filling inside, one layer more than the same class. The new luxurious dual-layer sofa seats bring ample support and a sense of envelopment.
As GAC AION's second global strategic model, the AION RT's product strength is indeed strong enough: long range, fast charging, large space, and high intelligence. The key is that it is also as charming as a Panamera, especially with the explosive urban NDA high-level intelligent driving function available at 150,000 yuan, which makes the AION RT especially tempting.
Even more pleasantly surprising, in addition to the five-fold gift upon launch, AION currently also offers related benefits such as a New Year subsidy and "trade-in" guarantee protection, which allows consumers to get this elegant "Big-Eyed Little Panamera" for as little as just over 100,000 yuan.
