Weltmeister
Weltmeister, or in short WM is an electric car brand located in Shanghai, operating under the wing of WM Motor Technology Co Ltd. It was founded in 2015 by Freeman Shen, a former Geely executive. Some of the investors include Baidu and Tencent. The first production car for Weltmeister was the EX5 that was launched in May 2018.
From the start, they have been dealing only with electric vehicles, but these were all SUVs. With their recent announcement of the first sedan model, Weltmeister M7, we decided to take a look at the vehicle and some of its specifications.
WM M7 – a new sedan with controversial looks
WM M7 is a mid-sized sedan, consisting of 4,930mm (194 in) in length and a wheelbase of 2,918mm (114.8 in). As a comparison, Nio’s flagship sedan ET7 has a length of 5,098mm, while Xpeng’s P7 is at 4,880mm. The M7 will be the first vehicle with three LiDar sensors on board. That’s not all: Weltmeister did not even try hiding them. They want people to look at these design feats as a feature, rather than a byproduct. What do you think?
These LiDARs can boost the environment-aware frame rate on urban roadways, allowing them to detect changes in nearby cars sooner. The frame rate of Weltmeister M7’s LiDARs may be automatically boosted from 10Hz to 20Hz on busy highways, providing for a quicker reaction.
Its vertical resolution is raised from 0.2° to 0.1° on high-speed straight stretches, allowing the perception software to boost vehicle identification distances from 120-150m to 180-200m and minor static obstacle detection distances from 85m to 160m. Combined, the three LiDARs reach a horizontal coverage of 330°.
WM M7 owns a total of 32 different sensors. These include 5 millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, 4 surround-view cameras along with 7 8-megapixel cameras, and 1 high precision positioning module.
The M7 packs four NVIDIA DRIV Orin-X chips with a combined computing power of 1,016 TOPS, the same as the NIO ET7. According to WM Motor, this high-spec hardware is ready for the eventual implementation of L5 autonomous driving.
The company estimates the range for this car of over 700 km (435 mi) per NEDC, but that is still early to say. It is expected to hit the markets between Q2 and Q3 of 2022, and no official price has been announced.
