Remember the Knight Rider TV series from the 80s? In it, a young David Hasselhoff drove the talking supercar KITT aka a black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. I have no doubt that this cult issue has a large fan base not only here, but also in the world. However, probably no one is as big a fan as 28-year-old Chinese entrepreneur Huang Xiuyuan , who named his new car company after the American series.
Youxia means "Knight Rider" when translated from Chinese to English, but Xiuyuan went much further. What you see in the photos is not some new specification Tesla Model S , but the all-new electric sedan Youxia X , which is intended to go head-to-head against the upcoming Tesla Model III . Probably the biggest specificity of the otherwise relatively neat body with many "borrowed elements" is the front mask. So it's not a mask as such, it's an LED display on which various images can be projected, from the logo of the car company to a sequence in the style of KITT.
The interior, upholstered in Nappa leather or Alcantara, is fully due to the era, when its center console and instrument panel are made up of a digital display. The infotainment has a diagonal of 17.3 inches (0.3 inches more than the Tesla Model S) and works based on the KITT operating system . It is based on Android 5.0 and, in addition to common functions such as radio control, air conditioning, Internet access or TV viewing, it can imitate the sounds of various cars in cooperation with the audio system. Apparently they don't bother with any licensing conditions in China, so you can choose, for example, Jaguar F-Type or LaFerrari. In addition, everything is supplemented by a photo of a specific model in a clear list. The instrument panel is considerably smaller, offering "only" 10.2 inches.
The electric motor under the hood has a power of 348 hp and a torque of 440 Nm , which is enough to accelerate from 0 to 60 km/h in 2.8 seconds and from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.6 seconds. The range varies depending on the selected battery capacity – with 40 kWh it is 220 km, with 60 kWh 330 km and with 85 kWh even 460 km. So the values are not bad at all, especially for the price (including government subsidies), ranging between 200,000 – 300,000 yuan (approx. 787,000 – 1,181,000 crowns). However, production will not begin until next year at the earliest, as the 50-employee automaker is currently looking for an investor to complete prototypes and start pre-series production.
Source: Youxia
