(Yicai) Aug. 15 -- Great Wall Motor has equipped its new off-road sport utility vehicle with its third-generation advanced driver assistance system, the Chinese carmaker's first such auto with the tech amid growing customer demands.

The Tank 500's ADAS allows full-scenario navigation-on-autopilot and other driver assistance functions, the Baoding-based firm announced on Aug. 11. The car also has fridges, color televisions, and a big sofa and is priced from CNY360,000 to CNY388,800 (USD50,135 to USD54,150), with pre-orders launched on the same day, it added.

Great Wall thought there was no need for off-road vehicles to have ADAS at first, but then realized that the products' main focus is improving customers' driving experience, Gu Yukun, executive deputy general manager of the Tank brand, told Yicai.

Users demand ADAS, fridges, color TVs, big sofas, and others, universally believing that "these are must-haves, although they may not use them," Gu noted. Great Wall added such features to the Tank 500 to boost the brand's market expansion and lift sales, Gu added.

Even though developing ADAS for off-road vehicles is much harder than for standard autos, Great Wall still chose to do so to meet customers' needs, even postponing the development of some models to guarantee it meets guidelines and quality, said Jiang Haipeng, deputy GM of the company's technology center.

Great Wall's Tank brand accounts for almost half of the Chinese off-road vehicles market, with three of its cars ranking among the top five best-selling models in the first half of this year, according to auto industry data provider Beijing Yiche Information Technology.

The Tank 300 Series ranked first with sales reaching 40,000 units. However, overall sales of the marque dropped 10.7 percent to 104,000 units in the six months ended June 30 from a year ago due to the fierce competition in the domestic car market.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev