During the test drive of the MEGA in Sanya, I also had conversations with other colleagues: I believe that the most ideal starting price for the Ideal MEGA should be below 500,000 yuan, even if it's just a touch at 499,800 yuan.

The 400,000 and 500,000 mark is, after all, a threshold. It is a threshold for the car, a threshold in the hearts of consumers, and a threshold for the Ideal brand.

I can understand Ideal's ambitions for the MEGA, as the first transitional product for the Ideal brand to move from range-extender to a dual route of pure electric and range-extender, the MEGA cannot afford to lose at the starting line, whether it's the price or the product power.

Let's talk about product power first, which is Ideal's strongest suit. Product definition, in layman's terms, is nothing more than capturing the core pain points of consumers' scenarios and helping them solve these pain points.

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The two major issues of pure electric vehicle charging and energy consumption seem to be quite well addressed by the MEGA under limited conditions. The factory director's own Weibo posts and the multiple "highway high-speed rail" hot topics in the early stages can confirm this point.

Once everyone's appetite is whetted, if things go according to the script, the rest is nothing more than a seamless chain of pre-sale, launch, explosive orders, and continuous spontaneous dissemination by the MEGA owner community, creating a remarkable achievement of a MPV with a landing price over 600,000 yuan, yet still able to sell 5,000 units a month, even making the GL8 call it big brother.

However, MEGA's defense is not perfect. Remember the limited conditions mentioned earlier? For example, the 5C charging that the official has promoted many times, which is the so-called 10-minute 500-kilometer charging, has a few small prerequisites:

1. No other cars divert the charging power, that is, among one 5C pile and three 2C piles, those three 2C piles must not be occupied, otherwise the charging power cannot reach 5C.

2. To achieve a charging power of 500kW, the vehicle's SOC should be below 8% to achieve 5C supercharging between 10-25%, after which the power will be reduced. Of course, to be fair, even after the power is reduced, MEGA's charging speed is still one of the fastest among pure electric MPVs.

3. What about the charging speed at third-party charging piles? The underlying issue also includes whether the pace of Ideal's own charging pile deployment meets the travel needs of MEGA owners. For example, if I spend 600,000 yuan on MEGA, but after picking up the car, I find that the radius of my daily travel can't find a 5C pile, I ask myself if I would be unhappy.MEGA, another MPV, boasts the world's lowest drag coefficient, which has led to a 100% head-turning body design. During the initial media communication sessions, MEGA's product experts repeatedly explained the considerable optimization adjustments made in terms of safety and space dimensions to achieve this shape.

Based on the actual test drive experience, I couldn't quite match the official claim of 15.9kWh/100km energy consumption, but an 18kWh/100km consumption at high speeds is quite impressive for a dual-motor MPV. However, to be fair, I personally found it less impressive than the lack of rear-wheel steering.

Lastly, as a tech enthusiast, I was somewhat disappointed to learn that MEGA's Magic Carpet Suspension 3.0, despite upgrading from the 2.0 single-chamber air suspension to a dual-chamber one, still operates on a semi-active suspension logic, rather than a fully active suspension that can preemptively detect road conditions and make adjustments.

From the Ideal ONE, to the L series, and now to MEGA, it has been several years, and NIO has introduced a 4D chassis and dual-chamber air suspension as standard for electric vehicles priced around 300,000, but the Magic Carpet remains Ideal's exclusive feature, not universally recognized as such.

Of course, the above is merely a perspective from a car reviewer's standpoint. From a consumer's point of view, it might be a different dimension. As we discovered in our recent store visit, there are many curious onlookers, but few actual buyers.

Ideal has told a perfect product story for MEGA, but for a 600,000 yuan vehicle, perhaps what is needed are some stories beyond the product itself.

If it were me, I might say that a certain wood grain trim in the car comes from a hundred-year-old tree in the Amazon forest, carefully selected by craftsmen for consistent wood grain and assembled over 100 days, with a daily output of 10 pieces; or a story similar to Lexus LS's Luminocity Cut Glass or the origami-like folding fabric.

Let's imagine, if you become a MEGA owner, when friends ask you about your car, you can't just tell them about the low energy consumption, fast charging, comfortable seats, or how many bottles of Moutai can fit in the trunk, right?

Yes, it seems that MEGA lacks some bragging rights beyond its appearance. The car is too practical, so practical that any feature mentioned is very down-to-earth. But if you look for something to boast about, there doesn't seem to be much.

If someone nearby chimes in about another MPV with zero-gravity seats, rear-wheel steering, and impressive intelligent driving, one might wonder if MEGA owners feel a bit frustrated.A friend who works in sales at Volvo, we had dinner and chatted a few days ago, teasing him: "Your EM90 must be quite hard to sell, right?" "On the contrary, people who buy it basically don't hesitate at all, saving a lot of persuasive effort," he said: "Don't look at the EM90 from the perspective of a car reviewer, it is a business card of financial strength. It's the same principle as the Alphard, but isn't the EM90 several times better than the Alphard?"