Five years ago, independent brands were still deeply relying on top foreign car performance tuning teams to carry out all-round tuning and optimization for the whole vehicle. Nowadays, technology companies have become a new choice for independent brand vehicle tuning.
On the morning of January 8, the AVATR 11 Hongmeng Smart Enjoy upgrade was launched. The new car has upgraded the seats, chassis comfort, and the NCA. As a product of the cooperation between Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL, AVATR has a very strong ability to learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses in terms of mechanization, intelligence, and electrification, which also makes the AVATR brand always the focus of the spotlight.
At the press conference, AVATR explained the upgrades in a targeted manner, especially when introducing the iTrack intelligent chassis, AVATR specially invited Huawei engineers to analyze it, which has also become a great weapon after the upgrade of AVATR 11.
Huawei's iTrack intelligent chassis engineer said when introducing the chassis upgrade, when the car encounters bumps in driving, it will produce oblique force on the wheels, rather than a simple longitudinal force, so if you want to better offset the discomfort, you need to decompose the oblique force into lateral and longitudinal forces, which is why AVATR uses the iTrack intelligent chassis and CDC to match.
Before the advent of intelligent chassis, cars used differentials to distribute torque, from mechanical differentials to electronic differentials, and vehicle control became more precise and fast. In other words, the higher the degree of electrification, the more precise and rapid the control of the entire vehicle. Therefore, the chassis control of electric vehicles through electronic control is theoretically better in terms of performance.
The engineers of itrack intelligent chassis upgrade focused on the changes in the overall performance of AVATR 11 after the chassis upgrade, which can achieve microsecond road condition perception and millisecond torque fine-tuning, reducing the slip rate by 50%, reducing body jitter by 40%, and reducing lateral swing by 30%. In other words, after the upgrade, the ride comfort of AVATR 11 has been qualitatively improved.
In fact, to solve the problems of slip rate, body jitter, lateral swing and so on, is to solve the problem of vehicle handling stability. Specifically, ABS solves the problem of slip rate, TCS solves the problem of lateral swing, and the torque distribution of the motor is controlled electronically to improve the performance of these two performances, although it is exclusive to electric vehicles, but it will not be able to subvert the automotive chassis tuning industry.
In addition, to solve the problem of vehicle handling stability, the above is only one of the links, and in order to comprehensively improve the vehicle handling performance, it also needs to be considered from many aspects.
In terms of vehicle comfort, the rapid response of the motor can better suppress the asymmetry of wheel speed and body inertia, so that in the case of speed bumps, wheel slippage, etc., the wheels can quickly adjust the wheel speed and be consistent with the body. Therefore, in terms of driving comfort, electronic control does play a great contribution.
This shows that under the development of automotive intelligence, the integration of automobile manufacturers and technology companies can often produce unexpected effects, and it is also an important way for the automobile industry to achieve innovation breakthroughs.
The list goes on. After Volkswagen solved its own Cariad company, it turned around and "bought" Xpeng's car machine systemAfter Stellantis struggled in China, it set its sights on the three-third of an acre of land in LeapGeely and Changan have successively cooperated with NIO to swap batteries. I believe that in 2024, we will hear more similar collaborations happening.
Five years ago, audiences wouldn't have imagined that the automotive industry would have been disrupted by tech companies. Taking the newly listed AVATR 11 Hongmeng Zhixiang upgrade as an example, it is understandable that the main pictureless NCA is handed over to a technology giant like Huawei, but the comfort of the seat and chassis is also handed over to Huawei, which does not seem to be new now.
Looking back at 2021, when Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, answered a question about why he did not cooperate with Huawei, the "soul" issue mentioned seems to be playing out in Changan Automobile. At the whole new car press conference, when explaining the AVATR 11, the staff of Changan Automobile only mentioned the interior and exterior design, saying that it was the work of Changan's design team in Munich, Germany, and when explaining the core technology of the new car upgrade, it was replaced by Huawei's engineers.
As mentioned above, in the future, we will see more automakers cooperating with technology companies, and there is actually no question of selling their souls. It is undeniable that technology companies are gradually expanding their technological dominance in the field of new energy vehicles, and have a greater technical voice than before. However, this does not mean that traditional car companies will lose their dominant position in this energy transition battle, after all, how to build cars and the development trend of future technologies are still controlled by leading automakers.
So can automakers stand out in the era of electrification alone?Taking BYD as an example, it relies on strong self-research and vertical integration capabilities to almost achieve self-sufficiency, but what is interesting is that after Huawei announced its in-depth entry into automotive intelligent solutions, BYD's stock price is significantly higher, and there is no trend of soaring stock prices since 2022. What is certain is that Huawei's entry has changed the market's view of the situation in the automotive industry.
Or take BYD as an example, BYD's current strength is not its explosive sales growth, but a steady stream of technological innovation. Not to mention whether some technologies are really needed for driving, and whether some technologies can be safe and reliable, but at least in terms of innovation, BYD is constantly trying to explore new ways to play in the era of new energy vehicles.
In the era of electrification, the old road of fuel vehicles can provide manufacturers with a steady pace of car manufacturing, and the entry of technology companies can bring a steady stream of new ideas to car companies. Therefore, cooperation is a new innovation attempt for automakers in the era of electrification.