Ok, so trying to be cool here, but WHAT IS THAT?
It’s a car… vehicle… ‘transport solution’(?) by a Chinese company called Li Auto. It’s the Mega. And it’s Li Auto’s first attempt at a purely electric people carrier. The weird thing is, because Li Auto’s other products – mainly SUVs like the L6, L7, L8 and the new i8 – are all PHEVs, it considers the Mega to be what it feels is more of a city car. Must be one hell of a city.
So it’s an electric MPV?
Yup. Some 102.5kW of 5C CATL Quilin 102.7kWh NMC battery (this will be relevant later) stuffed under what looks like a cross between a bullet train and a Renault Espace. That’s 350 miles of range in normal conditions, 400 if you’re careful or in town a lot.
Photography: Mark Riccioni
Finally, a few people are making electric cars that don’t just look like ICE’d cars with electric bits inveigled into and under them. It’s properly striking, and was designed by Ben Baum, who evolved the Porsche 992 911. Can you see ghosts of racing Porsches in there? Anyway, seven seats in a 2+2+3 arrangement, with the middle two being what can only really be described as mini-thrones.
Are the Battlestar Galactica looks for show?
Nope. It looks like it’s from the near future, but there’s method here. It’s not designed to bully the air, more convince it that it’s slimmer than it is. Because even though it’s got a very useful co-efficient of drag at 0.215 – a slippery Tesla Model X SUV is 0.24, and even Porsche’s own Taycan is point two two – it’s still got a big frontal area, which will increase drag. But it’s also got very few sticky-out bits and a Kamm tail that lops off at the back and chops out the airflow. It feels like it cuts through the air on a motorway, and for a car this big, that’s strangely satisfying.
It is big though – stand next to it and you’ll realise this isn’t a particularly modest thing. And that camera set up on the roof does remind you a bit of either a) a Waymo or b) an old black cab.
Is it fast?
Yup. Perhaps not quite bullet train speeds, but enough to keep up with traffic. You might be a bit wary of such a big car, but with the dual-motor set-up giving all wheel drive and 536bhp, it’s nippy; 0-62mph in 5.5 seconds. It surprises people, but it doesn’t feel overpowered – more that it can merge with decisiveness. Which is weird.
But does it handle like it’s on (bullet train) rails?
Uh… no. The Mega is deeply disinterested in what we might like to call ‘handling’. More like a hovercraft than a car. It’s not ridiculous – the brakes work, the steering is weirdly accurate and the car stands up – but the Mega is set up for passenger comfort above all else, and the trade-off is precision. It’s a bit of a waterbed.
The other end of that is the ride quality and comfort. Of which the Mega has a lot. The dual chamber air suspension, 60-profile tyres, double-glazing and sound proofing encapsulate you in a noise-cancelled bubble, and it feels like you’ve drugged all the sleeping policepeople and filled in all the potholes. In the UK, that feels like a miracle.
It’s also got a very decent turning circle, is shaped like a fancy brick so easy to place on the road, and the view out is good, so intimidating as it looks, it’s not stressful to pilot. Just disconnected.
So it’s more about the passengers than the driver?
Absolutely. Up front you get two seats and twin 15.7in screens for car stuff and passenger entertainment respectively. There’s a touchscreen on top of the steering wheel – albeit small – to change modes and see speeds and gear positions, plus a big HUD for other stuff. All seven seats are heated, the front four heated and cooled, with the front four also featuring a Swedish town’s-worth of massage functions.
There are also wireless charging pads and cupholders everywhere. You can recline the first four all the way back for nap time (there’s a nap mode with a timer that plays birdsong at you), plus you can convert the back into a decent double bed. Albeit a bed with armrests, so no hanky-panky, thank you. And yep, the rear bench both folds and rolls electrically to give you a van-sized space in the far rear and still have four more than decent seats. In fact, it’s LWB BMW 7 Series in the middle, 5 Series legroom in the back. It’s big.
After that, there’s a drop-down OLED screen in the roof that looks crisp as anything, and it’s capable of gesture control. But you feel a bit daft using it.
How does that work?
Well, the Li Auto Mega is conceived as having an AI component from the start, so it’s got Mind GPT – an offshoot of ChatGPT – in it from the get-go. So you can point at things and they’ll happen. If a kid says ‘open this’ and points to a window, for instance, the car recognises the gesture and complies. And that works with the voice control – which is brilliant, but only speaks Mandarin, so it got complicated during the test. And it’s both predictive and learning, so the car will get more bespoke for you the longer you have it.
Sounds… a bit Big Brother?
Get used to it. A lot of the really funky ease-of-use functions feel a bit weird initially, but it’s easily assimilated with exposure. Think of Siri, but with physical interaction. Although the car really only works fully on a 5G network – almost ubiquitous in China, not so much in rural Lincolnshire.
It sounds intriguing, but does it have any other tricks?
Ah, the big one. The Mega is one of the fastest-charging EVs in the world. That fancy battery we mentioned? As a ‘5C’ capable unit, the Quilin battery (a Quilin is a Chinese mythical creature than looks like a cross between a dragon and a horse) can strip 312 miles of range into the car in 12 minutes. Some 150 in less than six. That’s 520kW of capability at work.
It’s got 13 different-but-related systems dedicated to finding the Goldilocks thermal window for the power pack, and it takes the stress out of charging. If, that is, you can find a charger big enough. Again, in China, you can Hypercharge (that’s what it’s called) in quite a few locations. In the UK, you’d struggle to find a 350kW charger that actually delivered 350kW. Park Garage Services in Balckpool has 480kW chargers, but that’s just one place. And it’s in Blackpool. Must be something to do with the Illuminations.
Let’s guess – you can’t buy it here, and it costs 10k in China…
Correct, and… not quite. As a glimpse as to what’s already possible in China with regards to charging, and a quick look at bold Chinese EVs, the Li Auto Mega is super fun and massively interesting. Weird electric cars for the win. But we won’t get it. We will see this sort of charging ability though, and when it gets this good, it’s going to be a question of how fast is fast enough – it’s knocking on the door of being faster to ‘fuel’ than an ICE car.
But the kicker? In China, the Mega starts at £58k. Which feels like solid value. The closest we get to the unconventional limo-esque experience over here currently is the Lexus LM350h, CVT, hybrid and all. That’s better quality inside, but less space-age and starts at £90k, with the full-on executive Jet ‘Takumi’ grade £113k. With Lexus having killed the LS, that’s the best passenger-centric experience we can access. Still Volvo might bring in the EM90, based on the same bones as the Zeekr 009, and that’s got all the right ingredients.
Verdict?
Hugely interesting, lots of fun, a family car that treats every generation like pop stars. And there’s some seriously interesting tech in there, too. Just a shame it isn’t coming to the UK.
