In the late 2000’s China started to get serious about electric cars. Many Chinese automakers launched concept cars and small-series EVs for demonstration projects. One of these car makers was Brilliance Automotive. In 2009 they unveiled an attractive electric concept car, followed by a follow-up concept in 2011.
Names
The concept cars didn’t have a real name. They were simply called 中华EV概念车 (Zhōnghuá EV Gàiniàn Chē), literally Brilliance EV Concept Car. I will keep it even more simple and refer to both as ‘Brilliance EV’.
The passenger car brand Brilliance was founded in 2001. There is always some confusion about names. The Chinese brand name is 中华 (Zhōnghuá). The owner of the Zhonghua brand is a company called 华晨 (Huáchén), which literally means Brilliance. In China, this is the name of the company, but elsewhere in the world Brilliance is used as the brand name.
The 2009 Brilliance EV
The Brilliance EV debuted on the 13th Shanghai Auto Show in April 2009. The theme of the show was “Technology·Art·New Realm” with a focus on “new energy construction, energy conservation and emission reduction intensify, high-efficiency and energy-saving pure electric technology”, so many automakers brought EV concepts to Shanghai.
Media images
Before the unveiling, Brilliance released a pack of images to the media. The EV Concept was a streamlined hatchback with a bulbous nose and a very short rear overhang. It was quite pretty and didn’t look at all like any of the brand’s contemporary production cars.
The Brilliance EV had interesting doors; they moved outwards first, and then forward at the front and rearward at the rear. It had camera mirrors and clean surfaces. The entire front only had a few lines, small lights, even smaller fog lights, and a modest Brilliance logo in the center.
The dashboard was spectacular, with a fighter-jet steering wheel with flappy pedals and a large screen for a dashboard. The dash showed range, speed, the weather, and it had GPS.
The 2009 Brilliance EV had four seats. There seems to be enough space in the back, but Brilliance called it a 2+2. The front seats could move towards the doors for easy entrance and exit of the driver and passenger.
The image of the situation under the hood showed a motor cover with a cool EV logo and a traditional auxiliary automotive battery.
On the show
The Brilliance EV was the centerpiece of Brilliance’s booth on the Shanghai Auto Show, standing proudly in a rotating platform protected by a low glass fence. It was painted in a light shade of blue with a white-black interior. The 17-inch tires were fitted with sporty shiny-silver alloy wheels. The Concept was built on a dedicated EV platform.
Brilliance said the EV Concept was powered by a single permanent magnet motor with an output of 64 hp (47 kW) and 120 Nm. The motor was located at the front, but it was a rear-wheel drive car. An unusual setup for an electric car, then and now. Top speed was 130 km/h.
The lithium-ion battery was fitted under the floor. Range was 150 kilometer with an average speed of 40 km/h. That’s only for driving in town. Brilliance did not specify a combined city/highway range. Charging took 8 hours at home or half an hour on a fast charger for 0-70% battery. The EV Concept was a compact car: 3917/1802/1426, with a 2500 wheelbase and a 1320 kg curb weight.
There is no B-pillar. The cabin had a flat floor with thick black carpets. The rear seats stood higher than the front seats, and they were located very far in the back. Just look at the headrest of the rear seat, it is further back than the third-side window. The side doors were extremely wide and locked into two not-very pretty bars in the car’s sill.
Design of the dashboard was inspired by “aviation design”. Brilliance said that the imagery from the digital mirrors would be displayed on the instrument panel as well. The display on the show car is static not-working, but I don’t see any rear-view sub-screen. Most modern cars with digital mirrors use separate screens.
The center stack was a cool touch pad. It controlled the air conditioning and the audio-video system, which had FM/AM radio and a DVD player. There was no screen in the front, so only the folks in the rear could watch a movie.
The DVD infotainment screens for the passengers in the rear. Interestingly, these passengers could control the action by using the buttons or with a remote control. I hope they planned to use a different frequency for each!
Brilliance claimed the EV was designed in accordance with the E-NCAP 5-star crash standard. To get there, the body had a “high-rigidity energy-absorbing structure”, a reinforcing beam running middle of the body, side impact protection bars in the front and rear doors, and front and passenger seat airbags + side airbags + side curtain airbags. The safety suite was called SMS, and that stood for Small Maximum Safe.
The rear with a large totally square window.
Brilliance said production would start in 2011 “the earliest”. That didn’t happen. Instead, the company came up with a follow-up concept car:
The 2011 Brilliance EV
The next Brilliance EV debuted exactly two years later on the 2011 Shanghai Auto Show.
Media images
As always, Brilliance released images to the media before the show started. The new EV Concept had a more conventional hatchback design with a traditional hood. The grille displayed a cool ‘wire’ image.
Brilliance went wild on the sides, with a blue bar that ended halfway over the passenger door. The front doors had a display with Brilliance Auto lettering. It had camera mirrors again and aero wheels with six blue ‘spokes’.
Brilliance released an image of the interior as well, but the interior of the actual concept looked different, so I discuss it there.
On the show
The EV concept was still the centerpiece of the booth in 2011, but slightly less so. It stood alongside the new production cars, on a simple platform that tilted a bit to the left, that didn’t rotate, and wasn’t even fenced-off. But it came complete with a home-charging pile. The car was painted in the same blue as the 2009 concept car. It looked near-production ready, really.
Girls with latex gloves were a trend on auto shows for a while in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s.
The front was dominated by the light bar which extended over the whole width of the car. It had twin LED-headlights on each side of the ‘wire’ display grille. The bumper had a basic design with a black bar in the middle and round fog lights on the sides. The Brilliance logo was bigger than on the 2009 car.
The door setup was more conventional too. The front doors opened normally to the side, and a little but upwards. The rear doors were rear-hinged suicide doors, opening to the side and up.
The 2011 concept used the same electric powertrain as the 2009 concept: 64 hp (47 kW) and 120 Nm. Motor up front, rear-wheel drive. Top speed was a bit lower: 120 km/h, perhaps caused by the less aerodynamic design. Range, however, was up by a lot to 250 kilometers. That could only be with a new battery, but Brilliance didn’t announce any battery specifications.
The 2011 EV Concept had roof rails, guarding small panoramic sunroofs.
Design of dashboard got an update as well, and it looked more production-ready too. The steering wheel design was toned down a bit, with a huge Brilliance logo in the middle. As you can see, the wheel’s design differs quite a lot compared to the media image.
The instrument panel was still digital but with a normal shape. The layout is again different compared to the media image. Perhaps the media image was of an earlier design drawing, and nobody noticed.
The center piece was the stacked screen in the center stack. The top screen was a normal infotainment screen, and the larger screen at the bottom displayed thumbnails, which, in 2011, was still a novel idea.
The interior had some other interesting features. Brilliance claimed the interior was “recyclable and environmentally friendly”, that it had “intelligent thermal insulation safety glass”, and something called a “one-button operating system”. That’s likely the button under the screen, but how it worked exactly wasn’t disclosed on the show.
The center tunnel and armrest with the same wire display as on the grille.
The charging pile had the same design as the interior center stack.
The rear lights were hidden in the black area, on each side of the blue bar. The rear window was small, and the overall design of the rear was very clean. Brilliance came up with an interesting solution for the charging port: two exhaust-pipe like holes in the bumper. The left one was the charging port, the right one was a fake. Better not mix ‘m up by mistake.
The charging cable had a hard iron plug at the end. It went straight in.
Lights on!
In 2011, Brilliance didn’t say anything about production. And indeed, the EV Concept never reached the production stage. The design of both concept would never really come back in any actual production car. And Brilliance would never build an electric car on a dedicated EV platform. They did make a whole lot of different EVs, but those were based on gasoline platforms. So the two concepts were sadly a bit of a waste.
Too bad, because some of the ideas were interesting enough and the 2011 car especially looked quite ready. One may wonder how Brilliance would have fared had they dared to mass produce a dedicated EV that early on.
More on Brilliance’s early EV production efforts in a later story, and more Chinese concept cars soon.
Sources: Sina, Baike, Sohu, PCauto, Sohu, Baike, Autohome, Autohome, Sohu, 163, Cheshi, Sohu, Autoheb.