HiPhi Z goes into mass production - deliveries start in January
Human Horizons announced its second flagship electric car the HiPhi Z just went into production yesterday. First cars have already left the factory and are on the way to showrooms across China with the customers expected to take deliveries next month.
First cars are intended as display vehicles for the showrooms and for customer test drives which should begin shortly, the company wants the cars to be available to customers before this year ends.
HiPhi Z is a luxury 4-door coupe and it joins its bigger sibling, the HiPhi X, as one of the most expensive electric cars in China. Human Horizons offers some of the highest priced personalization options for its vehicles and it caters for individual needs of customers.
The company has managed to bring the HiPhi Z to production despite other companies struggling with supply chains and production delays due to Covid restriction. Its first EV, HiPhi X, is a luxury SUV launched in October last year but went on sale only in May of this year with a starting price of nearly $82,000. The luxury 4-seat version is even more expensive at nearly $115,000 at current exchange rates.
HiPhi Z was officially launched in August with two versions available - regular 5-seat and the more luxurious 4-seat option. The car starts at RMB 610,000 and RMB 630,000 respectively which works out at $87,470 and $90,400 depending on the version of the car.
HiPhi Z is over 5 meters long and just over 2 meters wide with a whopping 3,150 mm wheelbase - it is only 17 cm shorter than the Mercedes EQS for comparison. The car gets its electricity from a 120 kWh battery pack and according to CLTC its range is 705 km or 438 miles. Two electric motors have combined output of 494 kW and 820 Nm of torque which is enough to propel this futuristic coupe from standstill to 100 km/h in just 3.8 seconds.
This is the very first Chinese luxury 4-door electric car, despite the Chinese market being flooded with electric cars in every imaginable segment - the luxury offerings mostly come from the European automakers.
Human Horizons with the HiPhi Z is the first company to venture into this niche and apparently it managed to beat Nio to a punch - Nio is rumored to be working on its own luxury electric sedan that the company wants to compete with the likes of Maybach.
The two companies have more in common than Nio possibly would like, it turns out that over 60 percent of HiPhi X owners are former Nio customers. Whether that statistic repeats for the new HiPhi Z remains to be seen but it’s clear there is room for luxury EVs in China.