Amid all the hundreds of EVs and hybrids on display at the Guangzhou International Motor Show, one particular MPV caught my eye. With its space-age looks and imposing size, it looked like a prop from a sci-fi movie, and as I found out, this was actually the Li Auto Mega.

The Mega is the flagship vehicle of Li Auto, which was founded in 2019 by Li Xiang, who also created the website PCPop and Autohome.com.cn. Li Xiang initially planned for low-speed EVs targeted for ride-sharing and car-hailing services through a company he named Beijing Chehejia Information Technology, but it failed to gain traction.

In 2019, the holding company Chehejia Technologies was initially rebranded to Leading Ideal Inc., then shortened to Li Auto Inc. In Chinese, the brand is known as Lixiang. Li Auto’s first model was the Li One, a range-extended SUV, and deliveries began in 2020. That same year, Li Auto debuted on the NASDAQ, raising $1.1 billion in the first round of financing.

In the succeeding years, Li Auto came out with the L9, the L8, and the L7 SUVs. The Mega is its first battery-electric vehicle. In 2023, total sales for Li Auto were just 376,030. With the Mega, that number may not significantly increase due to its being targeted as a niche luxury family vehicle.

Measuring 5,350mm long, 1,965mm wide, and 3,791mm tall, it’s a seven-seater minivan (or is it “megavan”?) that’s around 10% larger than a Toyota Alphard. It has a dual-motor system rated at 400kW or 536hp with 542Nm of torque.

However, it also has an incredibly low drag coefficient of just 0.215, which not only helps it to quickly accelerate from zero to 100km/h in just 5.5 seconds (and have a 190km/h top speed), but it also maximizes energy consumption to hit up to 710km on a single charge in the CLTC test cycle.

Its battery is an Ideal-CATL Kirin 5C rated at 102.7kWh and 15.9kWh consumption. Using a Li Auto Ideal 5C Supercharger and an on-the-road temperature control function, the battery can be charged in 12 minutes with enough range for 500km at an ambient temperature of -12° to 40°C. With the Ideal 4C Supercharger, charging takes 15 minutes with enough juice for the same distance.

Of course, this presupposes the existence of Ideal Supercharging Stations, so Li Auto has 2,000 supercharging stations planned for installation this year, and more than 5,000 planned for 2025.

The Mega boasts having no cheap seats anywhere in the vehicle. The driver is a “magic carpet” seat with three levels of softness and hardness as well as being synced to the air suspension. The front-passenger “queen seat” comes with a leg rest, up to 100° of recline, heating and ventilation, and a 16-point massage function.

For the second row, the two captain’s chairs feature heating and ventilation, ottomans, a massager, and wide armrests while still providing a big enough aisle to access the third row.

The latter is 530mm long and, with a 613mm high seat back, is also heated. Multiple seating configurations are available to convert the Mega from a seven-person people hauler to a movie room, a reading room, or even a small bedroom.

Aside from obvious luxury details like Nappa leather, wireless charging, and strategically placed 220V power outlets, it also has a refrigerated box for the second row. There’s also a 17-inch OLED TV and it supports 3K projection, surround sound, and a world-first in-car Dolby Vision. Speaking of entertainment, the Mega sound system features 21 individual car speakers with a 2,160W amplifier and uses the 7.3.4 Atmos sound layout.

“Intelligent driving” is also a key selling point with the Mega, so it uses 128-line LIDAR (laser), six 800MP cameras, four 300MP cameras, and one 200MP camera to constantly scan the surroundings for navigation, parking, autonomous driving, and obstacle and traffic sign recognition.

Powering all this are two Nvidia Drive Orin-X processors with a total computing power of 508 Terra Operations Per Second (TOPS). If you’re not well-versed in computer-speak, that just means it’s very fast and likely won’t hang at an inopportune time.

The Mega chassis uses a front double wishbone and rear H-arm multilink suspension with dual chamber air springs and continuously variable damping shock absorbers, or what the company calls “Magic Carpet Air Suspension Max.”

As for crash safety, the Mega is rated G+, the highest level for frontal offset collisions in the C-IASI (China Insurance Automotive Safety Index), and is also claimed to exceed national safety requirements for rear-end collisions. Dual-stage distal airbags are also standard for all passengers.

With a retail price of 529,800 Chinese yuan, that’s only P4,296,916. With Li Auto only exporting to a few markets outside of China, including the Middle East, Central Asia, and Russia, the Mega is destined to be a niche player that won’t make Toyota/Lexus lose any sleep.

But we can imagine buyers would be lining up for the Mega here in the Philippines if it were available, along with a sizable supercharger network.