Last week, the sale of a modernized five-door, which has become safer, went on sale in China. However, Zeekr 001 customers did not appreciate the frequent updates: the whole thing is that in the incomplete eight months of 2024, the dealers had three different variants of the cars, and as the improvements were made, the prices did not increase! Frequent upgrades affect the residual value of Zeekr electric cars in China.
Zeekr 001 of the 2025 model year differs from the pre-restyling version (MY 2024) by an electronic “stuffing”. The old Mobileye chips remained only “in the base”, the rest of the electric cars were transferred to Nvidia Orin X processors with a computing power of 508 TOPS. The lidar has also been updated: now it “hits” at 200 meters, and the viewing angle has been increased to 120 degrees. The autopilot has become smarter and is able to recognize 1000 new traffic scenarios: the accuracy has increased, the artificial intelligence algorithm has become more developed.
Zeekr estimates that the updated 001 can handle 95% of road situations. Parking has become easier: the owner can indicate on the tablet the point where he needs to park, and the electric car will try to drive there without a driver. The function is available remotely, meaning that the Zeekr 001 can be squeezed into narrow “pockets” without having to open the door.
Among the less significant innovations are two additional body colors. And most importantly, all liftback configurations remained with the same price tags – from 36 to 46 thousand dollars.
Zeekr's CEO responded to the owners' criticism. The top manager admitted that “we may not have done everything right” and promised that Zeekr will announce updates in advance in the future. According to Chinese journaliststhe liftback 001 update was unscheduled: customers complained about the lack of advanced electronic assistants available on the cheaper Zeekr 007. A software update could not solve the problem, so the automaker decided to change the chip.