Getting to success differently
First of all, I am not too clear if ROX wants to or should be called a car company. Or a vehicle company.
They do make vehicles, rather nice ones. Their first product was launched just last year in November after a couple years of development. It’s a large electric SUV with what is called a range extender system. This means that there is a motor that is used when needed only to charge the battery, and is not in any way propelling the car. It is also a plug-in, and basically we were rolling around provincial China in full EV mode most of the time. The massaging heated seats in the captain’s chairs in the second row made things all the better.
But look carefully. This is a vehicle that came to market pretty quickly all things considered. From a company with no automotive history. You wouldn’t know it though from how it feels or drives or anything. It is like there were no growing pains.
The background of the people behind ROX is primarily tech. They actually made, among other things, robot vacuum cleaners. They built tech companies. So while they had no serious long-term expertise in things that move people around, they apparently know a lot about how to bring things to market properly.
They basically got together and decided what to do, engineers and software designers and the finance people used to dealing with all this. Project managers types. From there they decided what they wanted to do, which was to focus rather specifically on what they felt was underserved, large electric SUVs that are fun to do stuff with. I didn’t know this, but the fishing and camping community is pretty large.
So, large electric SUV that needed generator (for range) and plug-in access (because primarily electric) and also outdoorsy abilities. They chose the attributes they wanted, range and power delivery and weight and so on, then they chose the motor and battery packages. They talked to the software engineers about tuning everything just right. They also chose what they wanted for chassis and body, and how they wanted things to look and feel. They also chose a plant that would produce this. So the whole project was built more around how to put together computer systems than what you normally expect of cars. But because they had access to all the right systems and infrastructure and people it all seems to work.
The fact that they produced, rather quickly, a run of vehicles that are of a pretty high level of worksmanship and operation was quite surprising. They said they sold 200 units in the first few months, from zero. For someone used to car brands with serious history this begs the question, do you get people to trust you?
But then look at our world. We are far more used to new brands and new technologies and new ideas than ever. Indeed increasingly people are out hunting for them. They are willing to take chances, try new things.
The new vehicle from ROX Motors, the 01, is pretty out of the box in terms of how they created it and what and who it is meant for. But it really isn’t meant for everyone anyway.
What was most surprising to me was really how systems that are so different from what we are used to can produce products that are up to standards we look for so quickly as to be indistinguishable. How systems and products and directions like this will fare remains to be seen. But the shortening of time lines is astounding. And the products, well, see for yourselves.
