Why is BYD the best partner for Toyota's new energy market?

The development of new energy vehicles has led to strong alliances between car companies, making many impossibilities possible.

For example, the Great Wall and BMW to 50:50 ratio investment joint venture, *** with the research and development of new energy vehicles; another example, Geely and Mercedes-Benz to start cooperation, the two sides *** with the formation of the smart brand global joint venture, to promote the transformation and upgrading of the smart brand.

However, Toyota and BYD hand in hand, still stirred the whole automobile circle.

This is because the two sides of the cooperation, one side is a leader in new energy vehicles, once won the global new energy vehicle sales champion for four consecutive years; one side is a giant in the field of fuel vehicles, the world's largest automobile company by market value.

On November 7, 2019, Toyota and BYD signed a joint venture agreement on the establishment of a research and development company for pure electric vehicles, and the new company will be formally established in 2020 in China, with Toyota and BYD each contributing 50%.

Now, there's a new development in the partnership between the two.

It is understood that FAW Toyota is preparing to build a new energy vehicle factory with an annual capacity of 200,000 vehicles in Tianjin, and the new factory will cover the complete production process including batteries, etc., with an expected total investment of nearly 8.5 billion yuan.

With the current scale of FAW Toyota's production capacity, the plant, which has an annual capacity of 200,000 units, is likely to be prepared for the future production of Toyota and BYD **** with the development of pure electric vehicles.

From the signing of the cooperation agreement in November last year to the construction of the plant today, but only four months, which is enough to see the urgency of the cooperation and the sincerity of Toyota.

So why did Toyota choose BYD, and how did BYD consider it?

Toyota's ambitions

Toyota has a long history in the new energy field, but its focus has been on hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and pure electric models are not its strong suit.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are difficult to promote in a short period of time due to technical reasons and high costs, making the development of purely electric vehicles a top priority for Toyota under the double pressure of industry trends and double points.

Despite the cold domestic market for new energy vehicles and the first year-on-year decline in a decade, there is no doubt that China is still the world's largest new energy market and has great potential for development, which is the key to Toyota's new energy development.

According to Toyota's globalization strategy, it will launch 10 pure electric vehicles from 2020, including six global models based on the e-TNGA architecture, and in 2025 will complete sales of 5 million electric vehicles.

These sales targets are difficult to achieve without the support of China's new energy vehicle market, and it will be crucial for the company to gain a foothold in the domestic new energy vehicle market.

As we all know, due to policy support, new energy vehicles have become the wind port of development, not only the emergence of a large number of new car-making forces, the traditional car companies have also carried out bold reforms in an attempt to seek a breakthrough in the field of new energy.

At this time Toyota wants to enter the domestic new energy market, has missed the best time, want to complete the sales target, must accelerate the pace.

Toyota's chosen partner, BYD, has advanced technology and strong strength in the field of new energy vehicles, especially pure electric vehicles.

BYD began developing batteries in 2002, and has been immersed in the new energy field for 18 years. With its technological research and development and innovation strength, BYD has mastered new energy core technologies such as batteries, electric motors and electronic controls.

In the country, BYD is a deserved leader in new energy vehicles, with sales figures ranking first in the country for six consecutive years.

The cooperation with BYD is extremely crucial for Toyota to achieve leapfrog development in the field of new energy and accomplish the set goal of electrification development.

BYD's technology

The new plant will not only produce Toyota's e-TNGA architecture models in the future, but may also prepare for the future production of pure electric vehicles jointly developed by Toyota and BYD***.

According to the plan, BYD will work with Toyota *** to develop pure electric models of sedans and low-chassis SUVs and the required power batteries, and make full use of BYD's existing electric platform technology and electric parts supply, incorporating Toyota's quality and safety control standards requirements, and can use the Toyota brand.

It must be said that the platform mentioned in the plan is the BYD e-platform, which is the industry's first R&D and manufacturing platform open***ed for electric vehicles.

The BYD e-platform includes the "33111" five core functional modules, namely, the drive three-in-one system, the high-voltage three-in-one system, and high-performance power batteries, low-voltage control system integrated PCB boards, and the DiLink intelligent Internet service system.

One of the key ideas of the e-platform is integration, which integrates systems and components to greatly reduce volume and weight while improving efficiency.

For consumers, electric vehicles developed using e-platform technology offer greater safety, longer range, more reliable quality and better value for money.

For automakers, the e-platform is a complete solution that not only saves R&D time, but also eliminates the need for product validation and production cost control.

For Toyota, which desperately needs to find a breakthrough in the new energy field, BYD's e-platform will provide a shortcut that will allow Toyota to catch up with other domestic brands more quickly.

The e-platform not only saves Toyota a lot of research and development time, but also saves it the cost of developing new platforms. It's also significant for Toyota to fulfill its plan to put 10 all-electric models on the Chinese market by 2025.

Before signing the cooperation agreement with Toyota, BYD first became Toyota's power battery supplier, and its breakthrough in the power battery field should not be underestimated.

To address the lack of energy density of lithium iron phosphate batteries in passenger car applications, BYD has skillfully solved the problem through system-level innovations. The blade battery adopts a long cell program, which can greatly improve the efficiency of the electric cell grouping, and the volume energy density can be increased by up to 50%.

The new mid-size new energy sedan "Han EV" will be the first product equipped with blade batteries, with a maximum range of up to 600 kilometers.

The mass production of blade batteries will have a huge impact on the power battery industry, and Toyota's cooperation with BYD may also center around blade batteries.

It can be said that BYD has impressed Toyota with its core technology in the new energy field, which shows the world's first-class car companies recognize BYD's core technology such as batteries, and it will be very helpful for improving the popularity of its brand in the world.

Scale **** knowledge

The new energy market is cold, for many new energy car companies poured a pot of cold water, but the development of fuel cars tells us that the automotive industry from the development to maturity needs to go through a long process, car companies should maintain confidence and patience in the new energy market.

The current situation also makes more and more car companies realize that only the scale of the new energy market, industrialization, can better catalyze the development of the market, so that the car companies in which they are in a better position to survive.

Thus, the cooperation between the car companies, through the resources, technology **** enjoy, to achieve the purpose of cost reduction and efficiency, in order to look forward to the new energy market can be more rapid development.

And, in order to promote the progress of the pure electric vehicle industry, some of the giants in the field of new energy has been immersed in the new energy patented technology to stimulate the new energy market, and drive the development of related industries.

For example, Volkswagen has announced that it is opening up access to its MEB electric vehicle platform, allowing other manufacturers to use the platform technology; Toyota has also announced hydrogen fuel cell technology, as well as hybrid technology-related patents; BYD announced last year that it is opening up its e-platform technology to the entire industry, accelerating the popularity of electric vehicles and pushing the speed of the entire industry forward.

Standing in this point of view, Toyota and BYD are well aware of the importance of the scale of the new energy market, only the development of the industry as a whole, can continue to attract more companies to invest in the new energy market, so that the market more quickly mature.

In this way, Toyota can through BYD e-platform, battery, electric drive and other technologies, quickly in the new energy market, and BYD can from Toyota to get the world-class production management experience, as well as product safety and quality control standards, a win-win situation.

So Toyota and BYD join hands, is called a match made in heaven, when the new energy hybrid field of the dominant and pure electric field of the giant come together, no doubt can play out "1 +1 > 2" strength, become a beast of the new energy automobile market.

Now, with FAW Toyota investing 8.5 billion yuan to build a new energy plant in Tianjin, its cooperation with BYD is another step forward, which will play a driving role in raising the standard of new-energy technology, and establishing and improving China's new-energy auto industry cluster.

Of course, one bite doesn't make a fat man, whether it's Toyota's cooperation with BYD or China's new energy vehicle road, there's a long way to go.

This article comes from the authors of the Automobile House car family number, does not represent the views of the Automobile House position.