Whether the fuel car era or new energy era, 200,000 yuan class market is a must for business, but the players involved in the competition has gradually changed. In the fuel era, it was basically the Accord, Passat, Camry, Magotan, and Heavenly that were fighting, but in the new energy era, models like the ORA Lightning Cat and Changan DEEPAL SL03 entered the market one after another, giving everyone a richer choice. However, new choices mean new competition will begin, just like the ORA Lightning Cat and Changan DEEPAL SL03, who is better to choose between them?
With a price of 200,000 yuan as the standard, today we find two models, 189,800 yuan ORA Lightning Cat 2022 555km Luxury Edition, and 189,900 yuan Changan DEEPAL SL03 2022 515 pure electric version, they will be a deep comparison. In the end, the question of who is better will be solved.
Vehicle design is highly homogeneous at this time, ORA lightning cat and Changan DEEPAL SL03 still show the side of personality. From a static point of view, both vehicles use a closed front design, and the fully enclosed air grille also explains their pure tram identity. The difference is that the Lightning Cat is more retro in shape, with round headlights, concave and lattice lower envelope, giving a silly feeling. The Changan DEEPAL SL03 is sharper, with split headlights and a polygonal rectangular profile, still looking younger and quite futuristic.
The side of the Lightning Cat is a streamlined silhouette with smooth curves that bring a coupe-like look and feel, continuing the retro style of the front end. The Changan DEEPAL SL03, on the other hand, maintains a swooping state, with an upward trend in the body waistline and blacked-out double five-spoke wheels, which looks to have a strong sense of sportiness. In terms of dimensions, the length, width and height of the ORA Lightning Cat is 4871x1862x1500mm, with a wheelbase of 2870mm, while the length, width and height of the Changan DEEPAL SL03 is 4820x1890x1480mm, with a wheelbase of 2900mm, which is not a big difference.
In the rear area, the Lightning Cat continues to show its "cute" side, with oval profile tail lights and an inverted trapezoidal profile trunk door, further revealing its rounded and cute side. The rear of the Changan DEEPAL SL03 is a bit more aggressive, with the upward spoiler and the through-transmission taillights being highly recognizable, and the rear surround kit with a sporty style looks atmospheric enough. What is obvious is that the Lightning Cat and the Changan DEEPAL SL03 go to two different extremes in terms of design.
Next let's shift our attention to the interior of the car. The interior of the ORA Lightning Cat is a wrap-around layout with a T-shaped hollow center console design, and the car uses a lot of round elements and curved lines, including the steering wheel, dashboard, and center control buttons. The interior material is mainly soft leather, while the door pulls, steering wheel and center control area are embellished with silver metallic material, enhancing the sense of refinement of the entire interior.
The interior of Changan DEEPAL SL03, like most new energy vehicles, adopts a minimalist design concept, bringing a relatively strong sense of technology. The interior materials, even the top of the center console it are added to a large area of soft materials, feel good, and more attractive or double-spoke steering wheel, grip is relatively good, the shape is also very personalized.
Both cars are equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 car chip, and the UI design of the car networking system also favors simplicity and practicality. The two cars are not different in terms of features, basic navigation, multimedia, voice free wake up, continuous voice recognition functions they both have, on this basis, Changan DEEPAL SL03 performance is better, it also has facial recognition, gesture control function and AR realistic navigation function, technology atmosphere is stronger.
The rest of the configuration, lightning cat and Changan DEEPAL SL03 are equipped with mainstream L2 level driving assistance, so like active safety warning, active braking, parallel assistance, lane keeping assistance system, lane centering, road traffic sign recognition, full-speed adaptive cruise control, front and rear parking radar, 360 ° panoramic image function, they are also equipped, in addition to the wireless charging function of cell phones they both have Both of them are equipped with wireless charging function. The transparent chassis, active ambient lighting and front multi-layer acoustic glass are only equipped with the Lightning Cat; the fatigue driving tips, electric rear tailgate, electric rear tailgate position memory and augmented reality head-up display system are only available in the Changan DEEPAL SL03.
In terms of seating and configuration, both the ORA Lightning Cat and the Changan DEEPAL SL03 are equipped with sport-style seats wrapped in faux leather. In terms of function, the front seats of both cars are electrically adjustable and heated, while the rear seats have a central armrest and cupholders, and both cars support the proportional lowering of the rear seats. In addition, the main driver of Changan DEEPAL SL03 also has lumbar adjustment and memory function, and the front seats have more ventilation function. As for the ride space, because the size difference between the two cars is not large, the actual ride down is also more spacious, and will not make much difference.
In terms of performance, the Lightning Cat and the Changan DEEPAL SL03 have different drive forms, with the Lightning Cat being front-driven and equipped with a front-mounted permanent magnet/synchronous motor with a maximum power of 150kW and a maximum torque of 340N-m. No specific official data is given on the acceleration capability of this motor.
The Changan DEEPAL SL03 is rear-drive with a rear-mounted permanent magnet/synchronous motor. The maximum power of this motor is 190kW and the maximum torque is 320N-m. The output power is stronger than that of the Lightning Cat, while the output torque is slightly weaker than that of the Lightning Cat. Regarding the acceleration ability of this electric motor, Changan Shamrock Auto gives a 0-100km/h acceleration time of 5.9 seconds, which is still a pretty good performance.
After the actual driving, the two cars bring really different driving experience. Lightning cat drive and most of the electric car gap is not big, the start is relatively sensitive, can give the driver enough self-confidence; front double-layer sound insulation glass, very tough chassis tuning to bring the comfort is not bad. As a rear-wheel-drive car, the Changan SL03 is obviously more focused on driving fun, compared to the Lightning Cat it is more flexible and quicker to respond to speed, and is more friendly to those who have a desire to drive.
Regarding the vehicle range, the Lightning Cat uses a lithium iron phosphate battery with a capacity of 63.87kWh, which can bring it a pure electric range (CLTC) of 555km. When the vehicle left the factory, ORA equipped the Lightning Cat with 1 charging pile, and it takes 0.5 hours to charge from 30% to 80% of the battery with fast charging.
Changan DEEPAL SL03 uses a ternary lithium battery with a capacity of 58.1kWh, which can bring it a pure electric range (CLTC) of 515km, 40km less than the Lightning Cat. At the same time, Changan DEEPAL SL03 is not equipped with charging pile, but it has external discharge function, the maximum power of external discharge is 3.3kW, and it is slightly faster than Lightning Cat from 30% to 80% charge, 0.42 hours.
Comparison Summary.
Both ORA Lightning Cat and Changan DEEPAL SL03 are representative models in their respective brand families, but obviously the target users of both are slightly different. The ORA Lightning Cat is obviously more suitable for most users, and the retro design coupled with the relaxed driving experience allows more people to adapt to it; the Changan DEEPAL SL03, as a rear-wheel drive model, has some more driving fun on it, but this is not everyone's cup of tea. So the two contrast with each other, how to choose depends on your needs, if it were me I would choose the ORA Lightning Cat, in today's design homogeneity, its shape is really more attractive some.
