What seems to be just a change in the drive assembly is actually doomed to change.

Text/"Autobot" Wu Yu

From traditional fuel vehicles to pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, it is not only a revolution in driving form, but also a new continent.

In the Tesla model? Y began to deliver half a year later, BMW? IX3 announces the pre-sale price. The scale level and driving form of the two are the same, but the logic, user population and communication language of making cars are completely different. ...

At the auto china, which opened in late September, both Audi, Ford, Nissan and other traditional car companies entered the electric vehicle market with quality and safety as their selling points, and it was also a "moat" for Lectra and Tucki to build the electric vehicle market under the banner of long battery life.

In this "new continent", start-up car companies are "aborigines", not only have their own language, but also establish new rules of the game; Traditional car companies become "intruders" and need to learn new languages to adapt to new rules so as not to get lost in the jungle.

Different values

The electric vehicle market is a strange "new continent" with another set of value system.

In a performance evaluation done by the British media, Tesla Model? 3 The speed when passing through a similar Autokhana track is much lower than that of Alfa Romeo Giulia, but the total time is only slightly lower than that of the latter-model? 3 rely entirely on the linear acceleration advantage of the motor to "smooth the gap".

Although the model? 3' s speed-up advantage is concentrated in the first 400 meters, but it is enough to meet the challenge of AutoKhana. Subsequent Mercedes -AMG? C63 and BMW? M3 also encountered a similar "dilemma", with a total score behind Model? 3, the traditional fuel vehicle market has no infinite scenery at all.

"Quick start" is the basic ability of electric vehicles, and long battery life and fast charging are the general "just needs" of electric vehicle users. Start-up car companies will focus on these two points and invest resources to gain the recognition of target users.

Traditional car companies have released pure electric vehicles since 20 19, but the logic of product development and calibration is still too conservative. Many pure electric products with comprehensive performance and quality advantages have a cruising range of only 400 km -500 km, and their speed-up performance has not been significantly improved (compared with fuel vehicles), so it is easy to be at a disadvantage in user-level screening.

An engineer working in a German car company said that the results of laboratory verification and real road test have proved that it is not difficult to achieve a higher cruising range even if the number of power batteries is not simply increased. However, based on the current corporate strategy, the setting and calibration of cruising range tend to be "conservative". Behind this, there are energy redundancy, reliability improvement of power batteries, and safety considerations of vehicles ... but it is rarely known to consumers.

In the second phase assembly workshop of BMW Brilliance Power Battery Center, the fifth-generation high-voltage power battery with Ni-Co-Mn formula has been produced in an orderly manner. The 18 /22 battery pack, which is slightly larger than the video tape, is integrated into a battery module, and six battery modules, together with the control unit and cooling unit, are packaged in an aluminum shell. It is a BMW locally produced in Shenyang and supplied to the global market. IX3 provides power.

To ensure a pure electric BMW? The safety of IX3 is not only coated with insulating paint and insulating film, but also monitored by an independent temperature sensor. When the vehicle is parked for a long time, the system will automatically level the voltage between batteries (to avoid heat imbalance caused by voltage difference). The battery pack shell made of 6 series aluminum (aluminum alloy containing magnesium and silicon, which is corrosion-resistant and oxidation-resistant) becomes a part of the vehicle chassis and undertakes the function of strengthening the body strength.

After opening the battery pack, it can be clearly seen that the aluminum frame of the battery pack is extremely thick, and engineers seem to have completely forgotten the principle of lightweight; The inside of the battery pack is not filled, and there is a buffer space of about 10 cm between the battery cell module and the battery pack frame ... It can be said that every design is based on the safety of the battery cell. Due to excessive safety design, the energy density of battery pack has been lower than the average level of ternary lithium battery.

Under the manufacturing system of BMW Brilliance, even if the energy density of battery pack is reduced, even if the power performance is not ahead of competing products, safety and quality will always be the first principle of manufacturing. This may be an obsession, contrary to the values of the "new world", but it is the bottom line that traditional car companies cannot subvert.

In contrast, start-up car companies do not require the perfection of products 100%, which is closer to the logic of software engineers: admit that bugs will always exist and solve problems when they encounter problems.

Has North American consumer media tested Tesla models? After evaluation, there are serious problems in the emergency braking performance and user control interface of the car. And Musk responded on social media: model? The braking performance of 3 has been generally proved to be excellent. If there are vehicle differences, it may just be a problem of firmware optimization, which can be solved by FOTA update.

In addition to upgrading FOTA firmware, Tesla is still trying to reduce the number of traditional buttons and knobs and replace them with huge capacitive touch screens. This conversion of control mode not only reduces the purchase amount of hardware and the error probability of assembly, but also lays the foundation for improving production efficiency and reducing the weight of control circuit.

Although 12.3 inch and 15.6 inch touch screens have gradually become the standard of vehicles, traditional car companies still prefer physical knobs and buttons. An engineer working for an American car company told autobots that it is a high-frequency operation to adjust the air conditioner, windows and skylights while driving: if you need to unlock the screen and return to the home page, you can find the control page of the air conditioner or skylight system, which means that the user's eyes are focused on the screen for a long time, instead of the road ahead, and the potential risks can be imagined.

Traditional car companies are trying to optimize pure electric products, and their product logic and promotion principles are still based on the manufacturing and sales experience of traditional fuel vehicles. In the "new world" of electric vehicles, the language and logic of start-up car companies are already iterating on their own-cutting off the pain points of products such as surgery and applying "Amway" technology such as TV shopping is undoubtedly the most ingenious psychological suggestion, which makes users feel superior.

Listening to Bach or Jay Chou, drinking coffee or aged Pu 'er, hiring hourly workers or using sweeping robots, driving Apple notebooks or Lenovo computers ... are all personal preferences in essence, but they are differentiated in form and even become advertising tools. In the automotive industry, technological empowerment at the application level is forming a new contempt chain.

Different authorization rings

Dissatisfied with the battery performance of notebook computers, two founders of Tesla, Martin eberhard and Mark Tapenning, began to develop lithium-ion batteries with high performance and long battery life. After seeing GM recall and destroy all EV 1 pure electric vehicles, they have found Tesla in the field of power batteries. Eberhard once said that Tesla's core technologies are batteries, software and special motors.

Perhaps beyond many people's cognition, Tesla's first product is not Model? S, but a pure electric Roadster based on Lotus Elise body and equipped with self-developed power battery. Although the price of this sports car is close to $6,543,800+,its speed is fierce (it accelerates from standstill to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds) and its battery life can reach 245 miles (about 394 kilometers) ... Even today, this performance is excellent.

After the appearance at Santa Monica airport, George Clooney (who won the 72nd Golden Globe Award for Lifetime Achievement) and Dennis? Heisbert (who plays the black president david palmer in the TV series "24 Hours"), Jeff? Skoll (Yi Bei's first president, film producer and billionaire) ... became the first user of Roadster.

In the eyes of traditional car companies, this pure electric convertible sports car has not even reached the lower quality limit of mass production of commercial cars, and it is incredible that elon musk, who has dug up the first bucket of gold in his life and the new Icon in Silicon Valley, has been brought into the celebrity circle in Los Angeles. But it is this "testing water" that allows several founders to have a glimpse of the secret of the electric vehicle market: cruising range+innovative label.

Today's Falcon 9 rocket, capsule spacecraft, Fitbit (a wearable health recorder) on the skull, and Tham? The rescue capsule built for Longdong rescue ... labeled Musk and Tesla as innovative technologies from different dimensions.

Objectively speaking, Tesla's sales performance relies more on brand empowerment outside the automotive field. In contrast, traditional car companies have entered the electric vehicle market, and their proud history, century-old culture and brand accumulation have almost been eliminated, so they must find new highs.

Jiaming Phoenix with a DLC double titanium solar panel and a titanium alloy strap? 6 flagship watch 9680 yuan, while Fauve brown and Barenia leather apples? Watch? The price of Hermes strap is 3999 yuan ... If Rolex launches a 10,000-yuan "Tiesan" watch, plus GPS chips or other healthy wearable devices, can it shake the market of "Jiaming" and "Songtuo" and get apples? Watch users' favor?

Users of traditional mechanical watches will care about tourbillon and energy storage, Geneva grinding and gooseneck fine adjustment, manual adjustment of Jura Valley small studio and traditional craftsmen; But users who buy electronic watches don't have these feelings and picky. What they need is to quickly complete satellite positioning, accurately record every touchdown and every stroke, and make the calculation of oxygen carrying capacity, pedal strength and even Swolf more accurate. ...

How similar is this to the choice of electric vehicle market?

In this new continent, the user population is completely different. Except for the buyers who passively choose electric vehicles because of the license plate restrictions, the "real" users in the electric vehicle market are a group of people who are willing to try new things and always remain curious about the world, and also a group of people who make rational and pragmatic choices.

They don't lack consumption power, but they will consider the added value of products from a new dimension. They are "dismissive" of historical inheritance and enthusiastically embrace innovative applications.

What seems to be just a change in the drive assembly is actually doomed to change. (Text/"Autobot" Wu Yu, part of the picture source network) Copyright statement This article is the exclusive original manuscript of Autobot, and the copyright belongs to Autobot.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.