Infiniti's sports sedan Q50 went on sale in Shanghai on April 16th at a launch event precursed by a "Challenging F1 Champion Vettel" test drive. Boasting globally leading technologies and competitive prices, Q50 is expected to be a strong challenger to its peers in the luxury auto market.

At the ceremony, five stars in different fields drove the Q50 to challenge Sebastian Vettel, renowned German F1 racing driver.

Infiniti unveiled the prices of the Q50 models, with Q50 2.0T starting at 325,800 yuan, Q50 3.7L at 389,800 yuan, and Q50 Hybrid at 519,800 yuan. Such prices are competitive in China's entry-level luxury sports car segment, thus showed Infiniti's ambition to quickly get a foothold and stand out in the niche, according to the company.

The all-new Q50 is packed with world-leading and award-winning new technologies.

The luxury brand views China as the most important market, said Daniel Kirchert, the automaker's managing director in China.

"With the new technologies, Q50 is for young and bold consumers. It will bring unprecedented driving experience for the Chinese consumers," he said.

The Q50 is the realized production car of the Infiniti concept trilogy - Essence, Etheria and Emerge. It has been extensively tested and fine-tuned by the four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.

The Q50 features the Direct Adaptive Steering technology, which makes steering easy and smooth by calculating the wheels' turning angles and speeds in the electronic control unit in accordance with the driver's steering strength and road conditions. The technology was praised by the US Popular Science as "one of the biggest steps yet toward" the development of fully automatic vehicles when it won the magazine's Best of What's New award.

The Q50 also offers a range of new safety technologies including the Predictive Forward Collision Warning system - an alert system that can detect two vehicles in line ahead. Both DAS and PFCW scooped double wins as the Best New Innovation Technlogy and the Best New Safety Technology by the Automobile Jouralists Association of Canada.

For in-car entertainment, Q50 offers a class-leading dual touchscreen infotaiment system - Infiniti InTouchTM and enhanced Bose audio system.

By the end of this year, the locally made Q50 with a long wheelbase specially designed for China will be rolling out of Infiniti's Xiangyang plant in Hubei province. Industry insiders anticipate the price of the locally produced models will be about 100,000 yuan lower than the imported ones.

As a hit product of Infiniti's portfolio in China, the attractively priced Q50 shows Infiniti's ambition to stand out in the entry-level luxury sports sedan segment in China, according to Kirchert.

fuchao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/20/2014 page38)