Here’s a Jiyue 01, seen in southern Beijing. The Jiyue 01 is a full-electric SUV with 544 hp. It looked racy, with a low front spoiler, huge wheels, and darkened lights and windows. The 01 is a rare car, as the Jiyue brand existed only for a few years.
About Jiyue
Jiyue (极越) was a Chinese EV brand with a short and complicated history. Originally, it was called Jidu (集度). This was a joint venture between tech company Baidu (55%) and Geely (45%), founded in 2021. Geely was responsible for the platform and production, Baidu for the cabin technology, and for the ADAS.
Jidu unveiled a car, the Jidu 01 SUV, pre-production started, and demo cars arrived at experience stores. A little later, Jidu unveiled the Jidu 07 sedan.
However, Baidu, as the largest shareholder, needed to apply for a car-manufacturing license from the Chinese government. The government, already afraid of over-capacity in the auto sector, didn’t grant that license. So, suddenly, Jidu had a car, but they couldn’t legally sell it.
To fix the issue, Geely and Baidu restructured their shareholding in 2023, giving Geely 65% and Baidu 35%. That move solved the manufacturing license problem, since Geely now held the majority stake and already had a license. However, regulators rejected the Jidu application, so the joint venture also needed a new brand name, which became Jiyue.
The ‘new’ Jiyue brand (re-) launched two cars: the Jiyue 01 sedan and the Jiyue 07 sedan. Sadly, by the time the company made all these changes, Chinese consumers had grown understandably wary of the brand, and sales never took off. Tensions between Geely and Baidu followed, and the partners eventually shut the brand down in late 2024. That’s a shame, because the 01 and 07 were great-looking cars with lots of tech on board.
The Jiyue 01
The Jiyue 01 hit the Chinese EV market in October 2023. It is a full-electric mid-size SUV with an aerodynamic design. It has a super slippery body with active aero, hidden door handles, and short front and rear overhangs. The car in the photos is painted in Morning Star White with a Cosmic Ring Black interior. It has 21-inch wheels with black alloys and purple brake calipers.
Baidu supplied the Apollo ADAS. At the time, Baidu aimed to become a major ADAS supplier, with Jidu/Jiyue serving as its showcase — much like Aito did for Huawei. That didn’t work out – Jiyue failed, and Baidu is only a minor player on the ADAS market today. Too bad for Baidu, because Apollo was an advanced L2 system. It used the Robovision sensor suite with 11 cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars, and five millimeter wave radars. Two Nvidia Orin X chips supplied 508 TOPS of computing power.
The interior
The interior was amazing, with loads of space and a gigantic sunroof. The centerpiece of the cabin is the gigantic 35.6-inch one-piece screen. It combines the instrument panel and the infotainment. There’s a HUD for the driver, too. The owner of this particular car added seat-back covers in the same color as the actual seats.
Yijue fitted a space-age yoke steering wheel. There aren’t any buttons or switches; everything goes via the screen. Note the white charging cable box, which stands atop the wireless charger. No wonder! The maximum wireless charging speed was only 15W, which was way too low even in 2023. So, the owner ignored it and connected a cable to the 60W USB port. Interestingly, there’s also a battery-powered fan. Perhaps the airco didn’t work too well..?
The rear windows are relatively small, so it’s a bit dark in the back, but there’s a shipload of legroom. The Jiyue 01 is furthermore equipped with an 18-speaker sound system and a 256-color ambient lighting system.
Specifications of the Jiyue 01
Lots of aero at the rear, with a spoiler above the window and another one on the boot lid. The drag coefficient is 0.249 Cd. Geely and Baidu based the Jiyue 01 on the SEA1 platform, which is widely used among the many brands of the Geely Group. The dimensions are: 4853/1990/1611, with a 3000 mm wheelbase.
Characters: 吉利汽车, Jílì Qìchē, Geely Auto.
Jiyue offered RWD and AWD versions of the 01. The car in the photos is the top-spec Jiyue 01 AWD Max Performance Edition. It has a dual-motor setup with an output of 400 kW (544 hp) and 686 Nm. The brand claimed a 200 km/h top speed and a 0-100 acceleration in 3.8 seconds.
The 100 kWh NMC battery came from CATL-Geely, which is a separate joint venture between battery-maker CATL and Geely Auto. The consumption was 15.7 kWh/100 km for a 700-kilometer CLTC range. The max charging power was 194 kW, which wasn’t very much for the segment, and 10-80% charging took 30 minutes.
Pricing
The AWD Max Performance Edition sold for 309.900 yuan, $43K calculated with the 2024 exchange rate. That was a lot of money, even for a car with so much power. The RWD version was much cheaper, only 219.900 yuan ($31K). That’s a large difference for Chinese standards.
The Jiyue 01 looked great inside and out, with a high-tech dashboard and advanced ADAS. Sadly, the company struggled with internal issues, the car suffered from technical flaws, and the price was high, so it’s no surprise it didn’t sell well. Happily for owners, regular Geely dealers still handle maintenance for Jiyue models, which means they can at least keep them on the road.