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Text｜No. 7-Song

Human beings can no longer prevent the colonization of "refrigerators, color TVs and big sofas".

Ever since Ideal launched its home decoration method, everyone has been despising this practice of piling up configurations as not advanced enough, but at the same time, they are flocking to it and striving for perfection.

Recently, the BYD Z9GT was revealed to be equipped with two refrigerators, one located in the front center armrest box and the other in the rear center armrest. The front refrigerator has a capacity of 4L and can hold 4 to 6 bottles of drinks; the rear refrigerator has a capacity of 10L and can hold 2 bottles of champagne or 4 bottles of red wine, which is very comfortable.

Of course, more people complain that two refrigerators are unnecessary, and even because the rear refrigerator and heater cannot be folded down with the seats, it affects the flexibility of the space inside the car.

This debate reminds me of many "boomerangs" in the history of automobiles - they started out as "unnecessary" and then gradually became product definitions worthy of frame-by-frame analysis. In fact, most comfort configurations are like this.

These boomerangs can be summarized into two categories of characteristics:

1. It is easy to use and solves technical shortcomings or responds to the needs of technological development;

2. It provides a high enough emotional value to turn "unnecessary" into "necessary".

For example, the design of in-car projection screen is generally only seen in MPV models. As for sedans or SUVs, due to the limited space size, it is generally believed that placing a projection screen in such a small space will be particularly eye-swelling and easy to cause dizziness.

butQJM9After it was installed, no one said anything bad about it, and the sales volume in half a year was nearly 60,000 units.

Its projector is placed above the third row, and the giant projection screen can be electrically raised and lowered, and is 32 inches when unfolded. From my experience, the M9 projection screen has a very obvious feature, which is that it does not lose too much color under strong light during the day.

It is said that the QNEX M9 has passed the Rhine Eye Comfort Certification and the Swiss SGS Anti-dizziness Certification. In fact, even in the TV industry, not all brands will pass these two certifications.

Going back further, car headrests were invented in 1921, but they were not widely used at the time. It was not until 1969 that they were really widely used.

This is because early car designs tended to design car seats to be similar to sofas. Which home would install headrests on a sofa?

But it turns out that this thing really doesn't work without installation.

Because many accident cases have shown that without the protection of headrests, passengers are prone to "whiplash" in vehicle collisions, resulting in neck fractures or even more serious injuries, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has mandated that all new cars must be equipped with headrests, and headrests have gradually become standard equipment in automobiles.

From the above perspective, the double refrigerator also has the opportunity to go down in history.

Although it still has some shortcomings in terms of experience, the rear seats cannot be fully folded down, which limits the flexibility of the space. However, users at this level usually do not need to fold down the rear seats completely, and it does not damage the car to tow goods with Huolala.

BYDHe Zhiqi, executive vice president and chief operating officer of passenger cars, said on social media that the design of the two cold and warm boxes is not redundant, but rather necessary and scenario-specific redundancy that can meet the differentiated needs of different users.

He gave examples of various usage scenarios, such as when a father picks up his child, the father can drink ice cola and the child can drink hot milk; or after picking up the child from school, the child can eat a hot meal first and then eat ice cream, etc. In addition, women can use one warm and cold box to store facial masks and the other for heating, which is very convenient.

Some friends may argue that these are still "non-essential". How should I put it? If we want to discuss "fundamentally" what kind of demand is rigid, then except for the parts that make the car move, everything else is non-essential. The necessity/non-essential we are talking about today is more of a psychological "I want what I feel", which is a decision driven by emotion. For car companies, the essence of necessity is not to meet basic needs, but to create products that make people feel they want.

On the other hand, this is also a show of skill to adapt to the new energy revolution.

Because new energy vehicles can provide continuous power for 24 hours, even after the vehicle is turned off, as long as the battery has power, the car refrigerator can continue to work to ensure the freshness of food and drinks. Fuel vehicles are powered by internal combustion engines, and their power supply systems are more restricted. If the car refrigerator is powered by the cigarette lighter socket, it will not be able to continue cooling after the vehicle is turned off unless an additional power source is used.(If the inverter is connected to a battery), otherwise the car refrigerator will not continue to work.

Moreover, the startup noise of new energy vehicles is lower than that of fuel vehicles, which makes the car refrigerator have less impact on the vehicle's internal environment during operation and improves the driving experience. The engine noise of fuel vehicles is relatively loud, which may affect the use experience of the car refrigerator, especially in occasions that require a quiet environment.

Looking back at the changes in automotive products over the past decade, we can find that the designs that ultimately remained on the table can all be applied to these two items.

for exampleTeslaThe central control uses a huge touch screen to replace the traditional physical buttons, and integrates multiple functions such as entertainment, navigation, and vehicle control to achieve centralized information management and convenient operation.

The large screen solves the shortcomings of traditional car interiors, which have too many buttons and complex operations. It can also keep the vehicle functions up to date through OTA. At the same time, this screen that can control the car has also withstood the test of automotive standards and can work stably in exposure, vibration, and cold environments, solving the technical shortcomings of automotive-level large screens.

On the other hand, its Silicon Valley aesthetic makes many consumers feel that it is an elite in technological innovation.

Another example, such as zero gravity chairs, includesNIO、Xiaopeng、Ask the world, Ideal, etc. all have similar configurations. In the past, people might have thought that there was no difference between car seats? Aren’t they just for “sitting”?

No. Today, tired people in society have great respect for lying down as much as possible. Zero-gravity chairs can keep the body in the most relaxed state with the minimum load. Even if you sit in the same position for a long time, you will not feel tired. In addition, they can fully support the chest, lumbar spine, and pelvis, reducing the burden on muscles and spine.

From the perspective of technical realization, as zero-gravity seats become more popular, they pay more attention to optimizing safety. When the car is shifted to D gear, the zero-gravity seat will automatically retract to prevent diving and causing injuries to passengers in a collision.

The anti-dive design of car seats is an important safety design concept. It aims to prevent passengers from sliding forward and downward due to inertia when the vehicle collides, causing the waist belt to slide into the soft tissue of the abdomen. This phenomenon is called "dive".

Another example is the smart color-changing glass, which is gradually gaining popularity in the home decoration industry and has also begun to be tentatively installed in cars.

The photochromic glass launched by Shanghai Gantian Optics can effectively block more than 99% of ultraviolet rays and 61% of solar heat in sunlight.

The Hongqi H9's stepless LC dimming glass uses dye liquid crystal dimming technology, supports wide-temperature intelligent dimming from -20℃ to 85℃, millisecond-level light change response, and can block 99.9% of ultraviolet rays and 99.5% of visible light.

If judged by home decoration standards, the "refrigerator, color TV and big sofa" in a car is still very rudimentary. So far, only a small part of the configuration has been optimized through technology and costs to achieve a relatively large scale of installation.

I think we need to get used to leaving room for trial and error for more configurations. If no restrictions are considered, cars will definitely become bigger and richer. At the bottom level, they tend to meet our demand for an independent space outside the house.