On the eve of this year's Guangzhou Auto Show, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, expressed his judgment on the future development direction of new energy vehicles. Li Xiang said: "China's own brands, car companies that are still insisting on multi-gear PHEVs, will switch to the technical route of range extender in the next one or two years. This judgment can be verified by 2025. 
Simple structure = backward?If the mainstream new energy vehicles on the market are classified from the perspective of technical structure in the most crude way, they can be divided into "pure electric" and "hybrid". This time, let's ignore who is better "pure electric" or "hybrid", and first understand the muddy water of "hybrid". From the perspective of structural classification, "hybrid" can be divided into series-series, series-parallel type, and power shunt type. 
The "tandem" type can be said to be the simplest structure of the "hybrid", and it can be said that this structure is a generator hung on the basis of a pure electric car. When high power output is required, such as rapid acceleration, the engine can also drive the generator to directly deliver energy to the drive motor, so that the battery and the generator can output energy to the drive motor together. At present, the models on the market that apply this series hybrid form include the Ideal One, the L series model and the Huawei Wenjie M5 and so on. 
Tandem) "series-parallel" type, this form can be understood as adding the structure of the engine-driven wheels on the basis of "series". The models on the market that use "parallel" include Honda's i-MMD model and BYD's DM-i model. 
The other is "power splitting", the most typical representative of which is Toyota's THS system. 
From the above structure, "extended range" is the simplest in terms of structure. So is "simple" and "backward" an equal?From the perspective of enterprises, look at "extended range".From the perspective of enterprises, there is no difficulty in "extending the range" from a technical point of view, especially for traditional car companies, the range extender can be completely self-developed. Although the thermal efficiency may not be as good as the special engine developed by traditional car companies, it at least solves the problem of "no" to "have", and although the thermal efficiency of the internal combustion engine is different, it is not as huge as imagined when it is reflected in the vehicle terminal. 
So the difference between the extended range and the parallel or hybrid connection on the market at the technical level is **??To put it simply, it is the level of energy utilization under various working conditions. For the current domestic road conditions, the efficiency of a car at 1-120 kilometers is very important. The range extender usually uses a single-speed gearbox, that is, a "reduction gear" is hung behind the drive motor. There is no gearbox to adjust the speed and load, and it can only be seen whether the high-efficiency area of the motor itself is wide enough. Whether it is i-MMD or multi-gear DHT that many domestic car companies are doing, they all hope to further improve the utilization rate of energy. However, no matter what form of "hybrid" is also "hybrid", although DHT and i-MMD shackle the drive form of ordinary cars, but this is only a small problem, after all, in the new energy era with "four-wheel drive" as the best, the problem is easily solved. 
It stands to reason that there should be a bomlist here to prove that the cost of the hybrid form of "range extension" and "engine can drive the wheels" is higher or lower, but unfortunately I haven't found the relevant information for the time being. But we can see from the market that Great Wall, BYD, and Chery are all producing DHT and DM-i models, which at least proves from the side that the cost is completely acceptable and not too high, especially BYD's Qin DM-i model, which directly achieved less than 100,000. 
The reason why the "pure new force" car companies use "extended range" is nothing more than "cost" and "personality". The range extender is externally procured, coupled with the fact that there is no complex mechanical structure, the early research and development cost is low, and the power system matching is not so complicated, and it is easier to convert to pure electric in the future. And "extended range" is also helpful for the establishment of "personality", and the lack of large-scale ink in the "oil-related part" also makes the integration of enterprises and "high-tech", "new energy" and "intelligence" more harmonious. After all, cutting with "fuel" and creating a personality is also one of the marketing methods of the new forces. 
In terms of actual effect, due to a series of reasons, there is a slight gap in efficiency compared with the hybrid form of "extended range" and "engine can drive wheels" on the market, but this gap is more obvious when feeding, if it is normal daily use, the gap at the consumer perception level may not be so big. You must know that even if many people drive hybrid models, they usually drive pure electric vehicles and the way they use real pure electric vehicles is no different, so in the hands of those owners who "have a tank of fuel a year", the perception of fuel consumption gap is minimal. 
From the consumer's point of view, "extended range".If we look at "range extension" from the perspective of consumers, instead of focusing on the "efficiency" of the power system, it is better to start with consumer psychology. On November 21, Xiaomi executives spoke at the 2020 Chinese Human Resources Management Annual Conference - Talent Development Forum of China's Leading Enterprises: "Xiaomi believes that in the future, those who have the silk will win the world, and young people will have the world. On November 25, Xiaomi Group responded, saying that Wang Mei himself was deeply remorseful for the harm caused by his imprudent wrong remarks to rice fans and users, and took the initiative to resign to be responsible for this, and the group has approved Wang Mei's resignation, and said that it will continue to strengthen internal management.
The wording of the word "Dick Silk" has hurt many netizens, but rationally speaking, everyone has the mentality of "Dick Silk" to a greater or lesser extent. According to the report of "Automobile Crowd Insight and Car Purchase Decision***", the proportion of car buyers increased to 34 from 2017 to 2022. From this report, it can also be understood that in the past, men were the main group of car buyers. Usually men are more "rational" when they consume, but this "rationality" is also based on their own cognitive level.
Looking through a lot of consumer reports, there are usually words such as "value for money" and "quality" mentioned in the report. And the meaning contained in the word "cost-effective" may be more experienced by the real first-line sales of 4S stores. The "rationality" of consumers buying cars is especially obvious in some potential car owners who are active in the WeChat car friend group and QQ car friend group, although they do not know much about the impact of the hard point layout of the suspension and the shape of the swing arm on the characteristics of KC, but they are very fond of the suspension swing arm material, the material of the subframe, and the thickness of the anti-roll bar. In fact, this is the mentality of ordinary consumers, they do not have a strong interest in cars, but are more concerned about their "spending money to buy a loss".
So back to the form of "extended range", due to its "simple structure" characteristics, it is often used by some people to manufacture**. Especially today, when "multi-gear DHT" is popular, the "simple" structure = low cost = car companies make more money, which has become the "original sin" in many people's mouths. Technically speaking, "extended range" has been very mature, but under the psychology of "spending money cannot be bought and suffering", "extended range" urgently needs to solve the "psychological problems of consumers". Go to the extended range route?"China's own brands, car companies that are still insisting on multi-gear PHEVs, will switch to the technical route of range extender in the next one or two years. This judgment can be verified by 2025. Although Li Xiang's statement caused a wave of controversy, will this prophecy come true?
In fact, whether it is a range extension or a plug-in hybrid, it is a type of hybrid system. Regardless of the power configuration, the goal is to achieve higher energy efficiency, and of course, to ensure a smooth driving experience of the model. More cost-effective than gasoline cars, more comfortable than gasoline cars, and no range anxiety, these three points are believed to be the parts that the vast majority of hybrid car buyers are more concerned about. For enterprises, it is necessary to manufacture and develop corresponding commodities around market demand, and provide solutions between cost and market demand.
Each car company has its own technical route, and the form of "plug-in hybrid" has also shifted from the simplest way to provide power in the early days, do energy **, and do engine speed matching, to today's power coupling. Nowadays, domestic mainstream car companies have their own mature plug-in hybrid systems, and each car company has also made different types of versions for different models.
From the earliest "pure electric heat" to today's "hybrid", car companies are gradually returning to rationality. So will the market turn to "extended range" in the future?This may depend on the direction of the research and development of "hybrid special engines" by various car companies, and the special engines used in current hybrid models are generally optimized to have higher thermal efficiency when different torques are output in the lower speed range.
In addition, there is a relatively sufficient power output in the high thermal efficiency range to meet the needs of the vehicle in a certain period of daily use, and the hybrid form of "the engine can drive the wheels" has a reason to exist. Manufacturers are always looking for lower costs, and if the two solutions have the same effect, manufacturers will naturally choose the lower cost channel. Obviously, the current hybrid solutions of various car companies still have certain advantages in energy utilization compared with range extension, and in order to win in the competition, they still have to work hard to develop them.
At present, the thermal efficiency of the motor used in the car is generally above 90, but the speed is generally below 20,000 rpm, counting the changes brought by a reduction gear and wheels. Taking into account the acceleration of 100 kilometers, it is still difficult to cover the use range of 1-120 kilometers in the efficient range. Some people might say that the Porsche Taycan's 2-speed gearbox is hung behind the motor, and the front can be extended with a range. To realize the gearbox function, the current multi-speed DHT scheme can already do it. Therefore, the core of the problem is still whether the technological progress of the motor can cover the hardware cost of solutions such as DHT, and Li Xiang's prediction will come true only when the cost is sufficient.