Introducing the Human Horizons HiPhi X: A Luxury SUV with Cutting-Edge Digital Technology
Chinese luxury EV start-up Human Horizons has unveiled its latest offering, the HiPhi X. This SUV is the company’s tilt at the BMW iX and Mercedes EQS SUV, and it is similarly differentiated to the HiPhi Z electric GT by the cutting-edge digital technology that Human Horizons believes will define the future of automotive mobility, combined with a genuinely luxurious ambience and level of passenger accommodation.
Design and Features
Sharing its platform and air-sprung-and-all-wheel-steered axles with the Z, the X is both longer and taller but not quite as bluff as a conventional large SUV. It’s like a stretched Jaguar I-Pace, offered as it is in both two- and three-row cabin formats. The X has some interesting practicality-boosting tricks. In the version with individual second-row seats rather than a three-seater bench, the outer second-row chairs can motor outboard of their conventional positions to make entry easier, then inboard again and backwards on their bases so as to make for more reclining space. Those seats are accessed through motorised, rear-hinged ‘suicide’ rear doors, which open especially wide to admit you. Above them is a half-gullwing-style roof panel that hinges upwards along the roof’s spine, so you can literally step in and stand up in the back row and then sit down, as if in a train carriage.
Fully networked digital touchscreens dominate the X’s interior: there’s a tablet-size one in the second row and two huge ones in the front – one landscape-orientated directly in front of the passenger, the other hung portrait-style as the more typical central infotainment display. A fully digital instrument screen completes the offering. These screens weren’t fully operational in our test car, which was in Chinese-market specification and so didn’t have a European data connection. But they should offer quite the digital overload once they do work. The usability of the central infotainment console is complex, integrating the majority of secondary systems and adjustment functions just as a Tesla’s does. Want to move a door mirror or remotely open a rear door? You will need the right touchscreen menu. Ditto to move the steering column or adjust the ventilation settings. It’s quite imposing until you get used to it, and it could probably be distracting until you grow used to which functions can be adjusted on the move and which need to be set before departure. The good news is that the front passenger’s TV-size display isn’t distracting from the driver’s seat (thanks to its directional pixels) and can be switched off when not in use.
Performance and Driving Experience
Like the Z, the X feels impressively isolated, comfortable and refined on the road, although not especially large, heavy or unwieldy. It’s lacking little in terms of up-to-date suspension and steering technology, so while it’s not an exciting drive, it manages and manipulates its mass cleverly and keeps its occupants comfortable while doing so. There’s a surfeit of performance here but fine drivability and contained body control too. There’s only as much lasting driver appeal as you might expect of a 2.6-tonne, high-rise EV, of course – as well as just a hint of excitability about our test car’s secondary ride on German back roads that might have been better dialled out by its adaptive air suspension. For the most part, however, the X hits its dynamic marks well.
Price and Availability
The HiPhi X is priced at £100,000 (tbc), and it is expected to be available soon. While it’s clearly not a car for anyone sceptical about the way that some brands seem intent on turning their latest cars into fully converged electronic mobility devices, it is a car for a certain sort of buyer with a taste for the very latest consumer electronics and a willingness to spend big on an alternative premium brand that only those ‘in the know’ will recognise.
Conclusion
The HiPhi X is a luxury SUV that offers cutting-edge digital technology and a genuinely luxurious ambience and level of passenger accommodation. It is impressively isolated, comfortable and refined on the road, and it manages and manipulates its mass cleverly while keeping its occupants comfortable. While it’s clearly not a car for everyone, it is a car for a certain sort of buyer with a taste for the very latest consumer electronics and a willingness to spend big on an alternative premium brand that only those ‘in the know’ will recognise.
