Dong Che Hui
2026-11-11 17:47
Driving on the road, you will most likely be stared at by a Changan Nuo Ma.
This sleek little car has a downward-pressing eyebrow above the round headlights, and its "fighting face" has become the most recognizable waxy corn on the road.
However, looking at the A00-class mini electric vehicle market, Waxy Corn should really be impatient.
As the price war in the domestic auto market continues to squeeze downwards, the entire A00-class mini electric vehicle market is experiencing significant contraction. According to data from the Passenger Car Association, domestic sales of passenger cars priced below 50,000 yuan in the first half of this year were approximately 130,000, a year-on-year decline of 55%, and the market share also shrunk from 2.8% to 1.4%.
When the living space of pure electric mobility scooters is being squeezed and narrowed, Nuocorn’s direct rivals have invariably chosen the same path - capacity expansion.
Wuling Hongguang MINIEV launched a four-door version, and FAW's Pentium Pony also launched a five-door version at the end of October, and both have seen sales rebound recently. On the other hand, Nuoyu, which has always maintained a three-door and four-seater layout, saw its retail sales in October fall by about 46% month-on-month to 5,224 units.
Finally, the waxy corn couldn’t sit still anymore.
On November 11, Waxy Corn PLUS was officially launched. A total of 4 configurations have been launched for the new car, with a limited-time equity price of 49,900 to 56,900 yuan. Specifically:
All models are equipped with a front-mounted single motor with a maximum power of 35kW, and all models are equipped with DC fast charging function as standard. It takes about 35 minutes to charge the battery from 30% to 80%.
It is worth mentioning that the waxy corn, which was still branded Changan New Energy when it was launched in 2022, has been officially incorporated into Changan Qiyuan’s product lineup this year.
Rear seat
As the name suggests, the Waxy Corn PLUS is a Wavy Maize with two extra rear doors.
The new car is still highly recognizable and is not much different from the previous two-door version. However, the air intake grille at the bottom of the front face has been changed to a blackened one-piece structure. The original hidden door handles on the two-door version have been changed back to traditional pull-out mechanical door handles on the PLUS version.
In order to fit in the four-door and four-seater layout, the body length, width and height of the Nuoyu PLUS have reached 3515/1715/1545mm, and the wheelbase has reached 2200mm. Compared with the two-door version, the length of the new car has increased by 222mm, and the wheelbase has been lengthened by 220mm.
The extra length of the car is almost entirely converted into the wheelbase, which means that the elongated part is actually left to the rear passenger compartment.
The rear row can also be used as an extension of the trunk. The regular trunk volume of the Nuoyan PLUS is 160L. After the rear seats are folded down, it can be further expanded to 1100L, which is enough to cope with daily supermarket purchases.
Sitting in the car, the cockpit uses a steering wheel and seats in the same color combination. Except for the entry-level version, which has fabric seats, the other versions have been upgraded to leather fabric seats. High-end models also have a front center armrest box.
In addition, the new car is equipped with an electronic gear shift, and the traditional knob shift mechanism that originally occupied the center channel of the front row has been cancelled.
In terms of intelligence, Nuoyu PLUS is equipped with a 7-inch LCD instrument and a 10.25-inch floating central control screen. The car UI interface has been redesigned to support mainstream mobile phone interconnection such as HiCar, Carlink, and Yilian. Car owners can also remotely control car doors, windows, air conditioning and charging through mobile apps.
In terms of safety configuration, Nuoyu PLUS adopts a high-strength steel energy-absorbing body, and comes standard with dual airbags for the main and passenger passengers and an ESP body stabilization system.
Limited by the price of about 50,000 yuan, the Nuoyu PLUS is not equipped with high-end features such as AEB active braking.
The grown-up cars
Waxy Corn stretched itself into "PLUS", which was essentially driven by changes in the entire mini car market.
On the poker table of A00-class cars, Waxy Corn’s opponents have already begun “expansion.”
After the old overlord Wuling Hongguang MINIEV launched the fifth-generation four-door version, the length of the car has been extended to 3268mm, the wheelbase has reached 2190mm, and the replacement price has been reduced to 42,800 yuan. In October this year, retail sales directly reached 24,518 units.
Following closely behind, the Pentium Pony launched a five-door version at the end of October. The wheelbase was extended to 2215mm. The entire series is equipped with CATL batteries as standard. The limited-time rights price starts from only 39,900 yuan. The sales volume of the car series also climbed rapidly to 17,887 units in October.
Rivals added doors and fast charging while keeping the price at around 40,000 yuan, so Changan Qiyuan responded by bringing the Waxy Corn PLUS.
In addition to the competition between A00-class models, models in this class also have to withstand the pressure of higher-end models.
Under the competition of price war, the starting price of A0-class small cars, which was originally one level higher, is constantly lowering.
The starting price of Geely Xingyuan has reached 64,800 yuan, and it has achieved retail sales of more than 50,000 units in October this year. The second-generation BYD Seagull, which was just replaced in October, has a starting price of 62,900 yuan after replacement subsidies.
These "big cars" that are nearly 4 meters long, truly capable of five-seater family use, and have more complete chassis and safety features are priced in the 60,000 yuan range. Compared with the A00-class high-end models, which are only a few thousand to 10,000 yuan more expensive, most consumers will tend to choose a more complete car.
These mini cars, which were originally marketed as "small", have been pushed into a corner.
It has to be said that in the Chinese automobile market, "bigness" is still a very lethal selling point. Even for these small vehicles, which are mainly compact and convenient for traveling in narrow alleys, when consumers shell out 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, they still hope that they can be equipped with two more doors and accommodate two more people.
But in a sense, when every mini car is busy lengthening its wheelbase, adding four doors, and moving closer to a standard family car, this collective "growing up" has also caused these small cars to lose their original purest dexterity and specialness.
However, looking at the new two-seater smart #2, which was just released a few days ago, and the NIO Firefly, which relies on its special edition design and exquisiteness to stand in the 120,000 to 130,000 yuan range, they seem to point to another possibility.
When the tool attributes of shopping for groceries are pushed to the limit by price wars, jumping out of the size reduction and using high-end and personalization to provide emotional value may be another way for small cars to maintain their uniqueness.
Chen Shichen
car editor
Master, drive slower. I get carsick.
A total of 125 articles have been published
This article comes from the column
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