Zeekr 001 – 2,012 units sold in first production month!

Zeekr, the new premium electric vehicle start-up brand under Geely, has announced that it sold 2,012 units of the 001 in its full month of production. This might not seem like much of an achievement, but remember, the 001 was only unveiled earlier in April, and all allocations for China were snapped up by mid-June.

Production of the fully electric luxury shooting brake takes place at the Zeekr Intelligent Factory in Ningbo (China), which Geely claims is among the most advanced vehicle manufacturing facilities in the world. Zeekr is in the midst of ramping up production to meet the unprecedented local demand.

The automaker has plans to expand operations globally, but that will only take place in 2023. It is currently focused on fulfilling demand from the China market, and that includes installing thousands of charging points across 211 cities, as well as dedicated Zeekr charging stations to serve nine major cities.

Zeekr CEO Andy An-Conghui said: “We revealed Zeekr to the world in April this year and in just eight months, we have developed the 001, started production at our state-of-the-art Intelligent Factory in Ningbo and delivered over 2,000 of our luxury shooting brake coupes. This was an extremely ambitious challenge for Zeekr and I am truly proud of this start-up’s progress in such record time.”

The car itself is quite a massive one, measuring nearly 5 metres in length. It’s Zeekr’s flagship model and sits on Geely’s new Sustainable Electric Architecture (SEA), specifically the larger SEA1 derivative meant for D- to F-segment vehicles.

Buyers can choose from two powertrain configurations, both utilising the same 200 kW electric motor developing 272 PS and 384 Nm of torque. The rear-wheel-drive single-motor version gets from zero to 100 km/h in 6.9 seconds, while the dual-motor all-wheel-drive model uses its 400 kW (544 PS) and 768 Nm to dispatch the century sprint in just 3.8 seconds. Zeekr claims the AWD car maxes out at over 200 km/h, and would brake from 100 km/h to standstill in 34.5 metres.

Two battery options are available – 86 and 100 kWh. The former is only available on the AWD model and delivers a range of 526 km on the NEDC cycle. The larger pack, on the other hand, provides a range of 606 km with AWD and an impressive 712 km in RWD form.

In terms of charging, the 001 only accepts up to 7 kW of AC power for home charging, although it also supports DC fast charging at a rate of up to 360 kW thanks to a 400-volt electrical architecture. At the maximum rate, a charge time of five minutes offers approximately 120 km of range.