This is the Human Horizons HiPhi 1

Human Horizons wants big things for its new car. The Chinese start-up says it wants to “change human mobility” with the HiPhi 1 – the first of a “new breed” of machine that “realises the true meaning of smart vehicles”. Hmmm.

The basics are thus: the HiPhi 1 is a six-seat “premium supercar-inspired electric SUV” that majors on tech. Specifically, the way it speaks and adapts to its users as well as the world around it. HH claims the HiPhi 1 has the “world’s first Human Oriented Architecture”, which uses AI to learn what its passengers want, then adapt any number of systems accordingly.

It’s also the first car equipped with a 5G-ready vehicle-to-X communication system, and is fitted with some 562 sensors of various sizes and types making it theoretically capable of L4 autonomous driving (though HH says it will offer L3 autonomous driving from launch, whenever that is...). Then you have the headlights, which use thousands of LEDs to project symbols onto the ground.

The interior is particularly outrageous – 50 inches of display spread over nine screens. Access can be granted by facial recognition – when the car sees you approach, one of the electrically-operated ‘NT’ doors opens-up automatically. The seats look rather good, too. 

Details of the powertrain itself remain scant – but we’re told it uses a ‘body on board’ architecture. That means, like most EVs, all the batteries will be contained in a kind of skateboard on which the body is placed. Keeps the weight – for no doubt there will be a lot of it – very low.

Would you like to see something like this come to the UK?