“This life must drive on Route 318” If you are observant, you must have a deep impression of the stickers on the windows of the cars on the road – its visibility is quite high – yes, this is the reason why many self-driving enthusiasts set their sights on it. Among all the national highways, this road has diverse landscapes and various cultural atmospheres, which is why driving on G318 has become a “pilgrimage.” Now, G318 has a new physical entity. The third model launched by Deep Blue brand will officially be named after G318, either to pay tribute or to conquer. It is heading towards Route 318 as a “new hard-core SUV with technology.” The tone is set high, but what is the actual strength of this car? Previously, we launched a poll on Weibo #TakeQuestionsToTestDrive#, the top three questions about Deep Blue G318 were “How is the overall appearance of the actual car,” “How is the intelligent configuration of the car system,” and “What are the highlights of the Super Range 2.0 system.” Before starting the article, let’s briefly answer these three questions. 1. The current square box is really a lot of Deep Blue G318’s overall design is aimed at the typical square box style, but with more futuristic tones. Its biggest visual feature is the cyber front face composed of a gridless face shield + C-shaped headlight group, as well as accessories like roof searchlights. But in terms of size, its volume is important. This car exceeds five meters in length and is close to two meters in height. I believe that standing in front of it, you can easily feel its presence. 2. The cockpit visual center is the 14.6-inch central control screen, powered by the mainstream Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip. The vehicle system is Deepal OS, featuring a full range of functions. It is equipped with basic intelligent applications, but with deeper platform support, it can efficiently coordinate multiple components of the vehicle. It has 5 terrain modes and 3 special scenarios, enabling intelligent, autonomous, and off-road capabilities. This is true intelligence for the vehicle. 3. Deep Blue believes that high-quality range-extending technology should be “efficient, enjoyable, and safe.” The range-extending power system consists of a highly efficient 1.5T engine and dual motors, providing a pure electric range of 190km and a comprehensive range exceeding 1000km. The generator’s efficiency is 96.6%, generating 3.63 kWh of electricity from 1L of fuel, with a fuel consumption of 6.7L per 100km. In terms of enjoyment, the vehicle aims to maintain the “enjoyable” experience of electric driving. The Deep Blue Original Super Electric Drive 2.0 has reduced volume and weight, achieving high power density. For safety, it is equipped with the Gold Shield Battery 2.0, ensuring absolute safety and reliability with a defect rate as low as one in a billion and a lifetime warranty for 600,000 km.
The overall design of the Deep Blue G318 is tough and futuristic, paying tribute to retro while maintaining a modern feel. The new car, positioned as “technology new hardcore”, features a strong silhouette and large areas of straight lines, showcasing a tough off-road style with a trendy twist. It is highly original, with no hint of paying homage to any classic off-road vehicle.
The style of the front face of the “Warship’s Might” is very strong, with straight lines and rounded rectangles creating a popular retro tough look this year. The overall outline is powerful. The cyber-metal grid face armor + C-shaped headlight group creates a futuristic sense unique to new energy vehicle models. In addition, the grille-shaped protective plate under the protruding bumper presents a grille design, with a large area of black contrasting sharply with the body, adding more wildness and mecha feel to the entire front of the car.
The design of the headlights cleverly combines the style of traditional off-road vehicles with the cyberpunk style of the electrical age. The large blank design of the headlights highlights a modern sense of proportion. The C-shaped daytime running lights also enhance this style, appearing very sharp. The interspersed three-bar symbol gives the daytime running lights a unique design sense. The lens adopts multi-faceted cutting, further enhancing the overall beauty of the headlights and maintaining good lighting effects.
The hidden door handle design on the side of the body helps reduce wind resistance. The hood has a 5 degree downward slope, while the waistline rises 2 degrees, creating a strong sense of power with sharp angles. The protruding wheel arches add a rugged style. The dimensions of the new car are 5010/1985/1960mm in length, width, and height respectively, with a wheelbase of 2880mm. The approach/departure angles are 27°/31°, the longitudinal tilt angle is 27.3°, and it has a ground clearance of up to 240mm. The battery pack has a ground clearance of 318mm, and the drag coefficient is 0.35Cd.
Positioned as a tough guy, optional accessories are of course fun, and Deep Blue also provides a variety of original expansion parts such as luggage racks, front lights, electric pedals, backpacks, spare tires, etc. It is worth mentioning that the roof luggage rack and roof spotlights are integrated design, with a static load of 300KG and a dynamic load of up to 80KG. In addition, the four-wheel drive model has towing qualifications, with a maximum towing capacity of up to 1600kg.
At the rear of the car, the design of the body behind the “Space Gate” is characterized by multiple muscular lines. The rear window glass and the black piece below form the main body. At the same time, the volumes on both sides extend and converge to form a lifting structure. The sturdy black bumper at the bottom is very recognizable, giving a stable and solid feeling. The license plate holder is located on the left side of the body of the vehicle.
The taillights and headlights echo each other in a C-shaped design. The rear door adopts a common off-road side-opening structure, with a spare tire mounted on the outside and five spiral propeller-style wheel hubs, resembling a submarine’s propeller, creating an outstanding visual effect.
The test drive car is equipped with 18-inch black silver two-tone wheels. The model we test drove this time is equipped with Pirelli’s PCC tires, with a size of 255/45R20. In addition, the CROSS CONTACT AX6 is also optional, and this tire’s characteristics are more in line with its attributes, ensuring good off-road performance while also maintaining decent road handling. The intelligent cockpit remains the same.
The interior design continues the tough and futuristic style of the entire vehicle. Glacier blue, holy lake green, and jungle black are three color options that highlight the positioning of the rugged SUV. Handles are designed in many places inside the car, while the center console follows an exquisite route. The interior features square contours with soft lines, giving off a stronger sense of new energy. Many physical buttons are retained inside the car. In terms of materials, the new car has added many silver decorations in the details, with a large area of soft materials applied.
The 12.3-inch full LCD instrument panel is embedded in the center console, not only avoiding glare but also enhancing the overall integrity of the center console. Its overall color, resolution, display effect, and screen saturation are quite good, supporting free switching of multiple theme modes. It also has a dedicated new energy power interface that can display information such as energy flow and pure electric endurance.
The three-spoke D-shaped steering wheel is luxurious, with a delicate leather-wrapped surface and a firm grip. Even the rear light and wiper control lever have a triangular design for a crisp feel. The multimedia buttons at the three o’clock position use a button + lever operation method, making it easy to control multimedia and driving functions.
The 14.6-inch central control screen adopts an embedded design, with smooth display and good responsiveness. With the support of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, the touch and drag response is flexible. The built-in system UI still follows the basic style of bottom tray plus left information tree, with commonly used shortcut keys. The UI interface is clean. The configuration continues to be full, supporting navigation, detailed vehicle personalization settings, advanced continuous voice recognition, car networking, OTA online upgrades, and more.
Safety configuration is naturally not neglected. On the hardware side, the front of the car is equipped with millimeter-wave radar, a camera integrated in the top inner side of the windshield, and parking radar and sensors all around. Its advanced driving assistance system is very conservative. It comes standard with IACC, with features like adaptive cruise control, intelligent lane departure, lane centering, and automatic speed limit, making it very mainstream in terms of driving assistance, without any additional advanced driving features.
Like other advanced off-road vehicles, the Deep Blue G318 can display real-time vehicle off-road information in the car’s system, and the panoramic imaging function with the camera is a very practical off-road configuration.
In front of the central armrest is a phone charging position with non-slip rubber material and a small air outlet for phone cooling. On the right side is a storage space with blinds. The gear lever has a sleek design similar to an aircraft lever, full of exquisite details.
In terms of air conditioning, detailed operations are all integrated into the central control screen, with commonly used physical buttons below, making blind operation while driving more user-friendly. The test drive car is equipped with dual-zone automatic air conditioning, with a CN95 vehicle standard air purification system, integrating the interface into the central control screen, and the air conditioning vents adopt a conventional design for easier operation. The hardcore also has ample space.
The driver’s seat is wide and thick, with the thickness and volume expected of this level of car, like a small sofa, the leather-covered surface feels very good, and the vertical stitching looks very high-end. It also has all the necessary functions, with electric adjustment, heating, ventilation, and electrically adjustable lumbar support for the front row.
The new car offers a large five-seat layout. The rear seats are consistent with the front seats, providing comfort and care for rear passengers. The seat cushion length is sufficient, with adjustable seat backs and independent headrests for all three seats. Like the front seats, there are armrests for passengers to grab when getting in and out of the car.
The storage space performance is satisfactory, with a total of 31 storage spaces designed throughout the vehicle. You don’t need to worry about its layout and interior volume. The test drive vehicle has many small places to put things.
On the rear door panel, there is a small detail. The charging ports are located on the rear door panel armrest, with the Type-C port on the left and the USB port on the right.
At the top is a panoramic sunroof that can be opened in the front half.
The tailgate opens on the left side, equipped with a suspension lift button to lower the body when placing heavy items. The trunk has a regular volume of 810L, our test drive car’s second-row seats can be folded down in a 4/6 ratio, expanding to 1747L when both rows are folded down, but the inclined angle between the folded backrest and the trunk floor needs to be noted when placing large items.
In terms of features, the trunk also has a 220V power outlet, which is very practical for users on outdoor long trips. For outdoor players camping with various power needs, it can provide high power output, supporting household appliances such as coffee machines, induction cookers, and projectors. Range extension can also be tough!
In terms of power, the Deep Blue G318 is equipped with a range-extender power system, using a 1.5T engine as the extender, offering single motor/dual motor versions. The single motor version has a maximum power of 110 kW; in the front and rear dual-motor four-wheel drive version, the front motor has a maximum power of 131 kW, the rear motor has a maximum power of 185 kW, and the total system power reaches 316 kW, with a WLTC pure electric range of 155 km.
The dual-motor four-wheel drive version we test drove has a powerful system, equivalent to a high-power 3.0T engine in a gasoline car. You don’t need to worry about power at all. Thanks to the super range-extending technology, the system supports pure electric, series, engine direct drive, idle power generation, energy recovery, and more modes. Don’t worry about fuel economy either, with an official feed-in fuel consumption of 7.4L/100km, equivalent to the fuel consumption of a small pure gasoline SUV.
It has economic, comfortable, sport, and custom modes, covering all power demand scenarios. This hybrid architecture focuses on saving energy, with a zero to sixty acceleration time of 6.3 seconds. It can provide assistance with full power and keep the engine noise minimal inside the car during acceleration.
In most cases, it operates as a pure electric vehicle, with all the performance and power response of a pure electric vehicle. After the engine starts to participate in power, you don’t have to worry about the connection of the power system. The intelligent SOC strategy will intelligently allocate oil and electric energy autonomously, switch between different working conditions seamlessly, and achieve excellent energy storage and application. So we just need to focus on driving, and leave the rest to the computer. There are three energy management strategies for urban, mountain, and highway driving.
The chassis features a double wishbone + multi-link independent suspension, with active Magic Carpet + CDC + air suspension as standard. Its chassis filtering characteristics are not like traditional off-road vehicles that sway, but rather have a certain ruggedness to them, described as “slightly soft neutral”. The tuning style gives it the common road feel of an SUV, with both suspension filtering and support capabilities being very satisfactory. Filtering the transient vibrations brought by different road surfaces, you sitting in the front row will not easily be able to distinguish what shape the tires just rolled over. Like there’s a cushion in between, the comfort is absolutely full, with no feeling of looseness at high speeds, and able to stand firmly in the first moment.
Although it focuses on light off-road driving, its off-road capabilities are strong. In addition to electric four-wheel drive, it also has a central infinite differential lock and a magnetic mechanical differential lock. It can intelligently activate with zero impact and zero delay. It also comes with five extra terrain modes and three special scenarios, including the popular pivot turn, steep slope descent, and off-road crawl. It truly achieves equality in off-road driving.
Although there is no ladder frame body, the high-strength hot forming process creates a high-strength seven-ring mesh body structure, with a body torsional stiffness of 45000Nm/deg for better toughness and comfort in vehicle dynamics. In terms of off-road performance, it takes the “foolproof” route, allowing users to choose based on road conditions without the need for manual adjustments. Handling medium to difficult off-road conditions is not a problem, but for more extreme conditions like climbing and sand dune crossing, you should think carefully. Editor’s summary: Nowadays, hardcore off-road vehicles are becoming more comfortable, with brute power carrying increasingly refined exteriors. The trend for comfortable SUVs generally leans towards a “light off-road” style under the tough exterior, blurring the boundaries between suitable occasions for classic models like Land Rover, Tank, and Fangebou. With stronger light off-road performance, more energy-efficient consumption, and a more refined appearance, the Deep Blue G318 accurately positions itself on this “fuzzy boundary,” offering a new niche market with the state of “off-road with extended range” through precise product points.