Traditional car companies really don't care about new energy car companies (a) to eliminate range anxiety

On April 29, in China, Azera China settled in Hefei officially signed a 7 billion yuan investment. Just then, Ford in North America decided to suspend Lincoln's plans to develop a pure electric vehicle with Rivian after its first-quarter earnings call.

An epidemic has magnified the difference in survival between traditional and new-energy car companies. Just last November, shortly after Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck, GM also said it was resurrecting the Hummer with pure electric power, and Ford accelerated the electrification of its F-150.

GM Ford is losing the most profitable category in the North American market. Looking around the world, the Tesla Model 3 is also accelerating its cannibalization of the luxury market. Even in China, the young, high-end electric car Azalea ES8 was among the top 10 luxury large SUVs last year, on par with Mercedes-Benz BMW.

In 2020, will anyone still think pure electric cars are inferior to traditional fuel vehicles? As new energy vehicles accelerate their rise, how can traditional brands not be nervous? In this series, we will comprehensively analyze the current development situation of traditional and new energy vehicle companies in terms of range, automation, intelligence and business models.

First

Eliminating range anxiety

Are pure EVs inferior to traditional fuel vehicles?

As long as you don't equate it with old man joy, a pure EV at around $150,000 is a pretty sure bet to fuck up a fuel car in the same price range, and the latter eats up a lot of powertrain and tuning levels if it wants to pull the trigger.

But as long as it's held by the throat of "lack of range," a traditional fuel car will be able to stand head and shoulders above it. I don't need to tell you how many pure-electric car owners have lived their lives as paragraphs, and how many have been so angry at finding a charging station that they exploded in place.

So if you want to ask "why do traditional car companies care so much about the movements of new energy car companies", let's be more precise: traditional car companies are actually concerned about whether the range of pure electric cars will be unlocked.

When it comes to unlocking, there are two hurdles that EVs have faced and are facing.

The first hurdle was the '300km range', around 2013~2017. This hurdle is the line of sight for pure electric vehicles to enter the market and enjoy the market dividend, which encroaches on the market dividend of traditional fuel vehicles, but will not have a direct impact on the sales of traditional fuel vehicles.

The second hurdle is '600km range', around 2019-2022. This hurdle is the line of sight for pure electric vehicles to dispel the doubts of traditional car users and expand their market share, and traditional fuel vehicles will be in danger if they break through this hurdle.

The first hurdle "300km range"

About the first hurdle, I analyzed the origin of 300km range in detail in 2017. At this point in August 2017, the range of popular models can be seen to be struggling just above and below 300km.

There are a series of reasons such as policy inclination, driven by Tesla, and caused by technical limitations.

1. Policy tendency

From the "2016-2020 new energy passenger car models points standard", in addition to plug-in hybrid models, pure electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles to get a full score of 5 points need to reach 350km range, just slightly higher than 300km. At that time, the environment we all understand, new energy companies have no intention of engaging in a big battle with traditional enterprises, to be able to subsidize is enough to eat and drink.

2. Tesla driven

The target of "300km range" was put forward around 2013, which fits the development of Model S. In 2014, the lower version of Model S 60D had a range of 362km, and the earlier Model S (2012) had a maximum range of 258km. exclude the influence of Tesla, everyone is using 300km as a threshold to enter the first tier of EVs.

3. The number of batteries and the weight of the car, the energy density of the battery, the level of control of the battery system and other technical constraints.

Because there have been so many rapid policy changes in the past few years, it's important to brush up on our history.

In 2009, China introduced a 50% reduction in purchase tax concessions, directly bringing the car market blowout, which is more sensitive to the price of the independent brand is very profitable. 2018 January 1, 1.6L and the following displacement of traditional fuel vehicles purchase tax opened the full amount of the levy, so far, the door on the purchase tax incentives for small-displacement models closed.

And the new energy subsidies are piloted from 2009, expanding the policy year by year until 2016 into the high point, although the plan is to enter the regression since 2017, 2020 completely canceled. However, affected by the epidemic, at the end of March 2020, the State Council executive meeting identified three initiatives to promote automobile consumption:

1) new energy vehicle purchase subsidies and exemption from the purchase tax policy extended for 2 years;

2) the central government to take awards in lieu of subsidies to support the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei key areas to phase out the National III and the following emission standards of diesel trucks;

3) for used cars distribution enterprises selling used cars, from May 1 to the end of 2023 to reduce the sales of 0.5% of the value-added tax.

So it seems that the dividend has actually been unbroken, only transferred from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles. Although the traditional fuel car companies are very hurt, but consumers in addition to spit fuel cars are more expensive, as if the choice has not changed much.

But when it comes to the second hurdle, it's really affecting the willingness to consume, because the mileage anxiety problem is basically solved.

The second hurdle is the 600km range

On the question of how much range can be achieved to solve the problem of mileage anxiety, I've put together an algorithm for your reference.

"Anxiety-free mileage"

The average daily commuting mileage x the number of days between maximum charging intervals x 1.2

The reason why there is a coefficient of 1.2 is because the optimal charging capacity is in the range of 20% to 90%, and charging in this range reduces the impact on the power battery and effectively extends the battery's life. This will reduce the impact of charging on the power battery and effectively extend the service life of the power battery.

In addition to this, pure electric vehicle batteries can not accurately display the remaining power, which has been discussed on the know-how, and will not be expanded. So here I take 20% remaining charge to make sure I can drive the car properly to the charging post.

Then there's the average daily commute x the maximum number of days between charges, which I chose to be 50km per day (typical city life) and 7 days (once a week for commuters).

Based on this, the 'anxiety-free mileage' for an individual can be initially calculated.

"Anxiety-free mileage" = (50 x 7 x 1.2) km = 420km

But with the current average range of pure electric cars at around 400km, there's still a lot of mileage anxiety, so we'll have to go ahead and fix the formula.

First of all, there is a deviation between NEDC range and actual range. For pure electric range tests, NEDC differs from the more widely recognized EPA test results by about 10-15 percent, so we also need to add a 15 percent scale factor.

"The EPA testing process is separate for fuel and electricity, and the test standard is FTP75 (city cycle) and two supplementary cycles (SC03 high-temperature air-conditioning full-load operation cycle and US06 high-speed, high-acceleration work cycle), and the final result is calculated by different scaling from the actual results of the three conditions, which is therefore closer to the real-world use of the data."

So the updated formula is:

"Anxiety-free mileage"

"Average daily commuting mileage x the number of days between maximum charging intervals that can be accepted x 1.2 ÷ 0.85

On the same basis as the above calculation,

"Anxiety-free mileage"

=(50×7×1.2 ÷ 0.85)km≈494km

In addition, we have to consider the issue of late battery degradation, and a lot of mileage anxiety actually breaks out after a few years of using the car.

Late in 2019, Geotab, which is active in the global Internet of Things (IoT) and connected mobility space, published data from a research study on EV battery degradation. The company collected data on the usage of nearly 6,000 pure EVs around the world and concluded that pure EVs decay an average of 2.3% of their charge per year.

We've borrowed their data, and based on an 8-year lifespan, the 8-year decay rate is 18.4%. The reason why we use 8 years to account for this is because the industry is now promoting an 8-year or 150,000-kilometer warranty for power batteries. Now 20% attenuation warranty is a relatively hot point of view, the calculation of 18.4% is also closer to it.

So we have to revise the formula again:

"Anxiety-free mileage"

"Anxiety-free mileage"

="average daily commuting mileage x number of days between acceptable maximum charging intervals x 1.2 ÷ 0.85 ÷ 0.816

We can get,

"8 years of anxiety-free mileage"

=(50 x 7 x 1.2 ÷ 0.85 ÷ 0.816)km ≈606km

Of course, all of the above is based on the premise of an average daily commuting mileage of 50km and charging once a week, so you can make your own judgment based on your actual situation. However, as a commuter with a busy work schedule, I think this is a reasonable choice of data.

As for the fluctuating issues of dropping power fast in winter and turning on the cold air in summer, I won't go any further here because of bad accounting. You can consider adjusting the charging cycle to achieve range balance.

And it's not like we're making up 600km out of thin air here. If you're interested, you can check out Volkswagen's plans for pure EV development. In 2014, the e-Golf had a range of 190km on a single full charge, and VW has set out to expect the range to increase to 300km for the next generation (2015-2017.) After that, the company will further increase the energy density, putting the range on track to reach up to 600km by node 2020.

Now we stand at the node of 2020 to look back, VW's first stage of the goal has been achieved, the second stage of the goal has been several heavyweight models jumped, such as the Volkswagen I.D. Hatchback production version, SUV I.D. Lounge production version.

Besides Volkswagen, there have been a few models that have stepped into or are about to step into this node over the past while.

Production delivery evaluations are based on tabulated times, with deliveries based on no less than 100 units.

To clarify, the centralized breakout point for these models is in 2020, though the launch may be delayed because of the epidemic. Based on these needs, the models already on the market with around 600km are more competitive.

For example, the Azalea ES8.Azalea unveiled the new 2020 ES8 at the end of 2019.The new car offers three battery packs, 70 kWh, 84 kWh, and 100 kWh, with corresponding NEDC ranges of 415 km, 485 km, and 580 km, with the lowest version being enough to handle the vast majority of consumers' urban commuting, and the 580km version being the target The 580km version is the target of the first 'anxiety-free mileage' list.

In terms of the current layout, Azera is also one of the most leading companies in the country, with traditional car companies paying a lot of attention to it. nio power's multiple replenishment programs, battery expandability and other advantages make range no longer a shortcoming of the ES8 in competing with traditional luxury cars.

April 7, Azera announced delivery data, its delivery in March reached 1,533 units, an increase of 11.7% year-on-year, a jump of 116.8% from the previous year. In the first quarter, which was y affected by the epidemic and the market, Azalea's total deliveries reached 3,838 units, exceeding its previous expectation of delivering 3,400-3,600 units, and already posing a threat to traditional luxury car companies. After entering March, Azalea's offline stores gradually recovered, and the host factory's production capacity has also been increased, so I believe the subsequent performance will be improved.

Of course, we are talking from the perspective of "how much range will impact traditional car companies, and even eliminate mileage anxiety", and how to achieve high range is not written too much.

But considering the contradiction between performance and range, especially in the luxury car segment where performance is more important, the competitiveness of a group of companies represented by Azera is certainly something that everyone and traditional car companies want to know.

On how the new Azera ES8 achieves the range increase, there are two key reasons:

Balancing between performance and range, it adopts a front 160kW permanent magnet motor + rear 240kW induction motor, the total power is reduced by 80kW compared to the old model, and the 100km acceleration time is subsequently increased from 4.4 seconds to 4.9 seconds, but the range is increased by 60km.

A new 100kWh liquid-cooled, thermostatic battery pack has been added to further improve range performance;

It can be seen that the new Azera ES8 has sacrificed some of its performance, but considering that it still has the ability to accelerate in 4.9 seconds and a 100-0km/h braking score of 33.8 meters, it is still going to hang on to a bunch of luxury cars.

When we summarize the development thinking of Azera and a number of luxury brands, we can find that based on the luxury car market, everyone's basic thinking is to start with the high-end, and then make corresponding adjustments or additions according to market demand, but the premise is that the basic level of performance can not be lost.

Think about it, why Tesla can stir up the luxury car market, in addition to forced full of advanced assisted driving system, the most important thing is still the performance is placed there, range and up, so BBA is very panic, now Azalea can be considered to let the BBA is very panicked one of the brands.

Summarizing the above, traditional car companies are very concerned about the new energy car companies, the first stage is because the policy dividend is eaten, the second stage is a direct impact on sales. The current irreplaceable advantage seems to be only the range / replenishment method, and the development of pure electric vehicles to 600 kilometers, coupled with a wealth of replenishment programs, will cause a big blow to the sales of traditional fuel vehicles.

This article was first published in Zhihu

Figure | Source from the Internet

This article is sourced from the author of Automotive House Car Family, and does not represent the viewpoint position of Automotive House.