Some time ago we briefly analyzed sachine Audi's first pure electric vehicle Audi Q5 e-tron from the details, from the messages on some platforms, the market basically holds a wait-and-see attitude towards this car, and some views believe that at present, Mercedes-Benz EQC and BMW ix3 are exchanging volume through price reductions, and it is difficult for Audi Q5 e-tron to catch up.
We don't quite agree with that.
If SAIC Audi wants to rely on this car to confront the new power leader such as Weilai, it is indeed very difficult, but Audi Q5 e-tron and Mercedes-Benz EQC and BMW ix3 such opponents, the competitive advantage of product strength is still obvious, and even can not be said to be a competition at a level, because the two opponents are only "oil to electricity" transitional products, Audi Q5 e-tron is a "serious electric vehicle" born from the pure electric vehicle platform. The natural advantages of this platform gene are not the same.
Why? Because the so-called "oil to electricity", that is, on the platform architecture of the fuel vehicle, to free up a space for the power battery, and then replace the drive system with a motor.
In this way, it seems that it is not difficult to build an electric vehicle, but considering that electric vehicles and fuel vehicles have large differences in the structure of the power system, the volume requirements of various components, and NVH control, etc., there is not much room for electric vehicles in the "oil to electricity" category to optimize the electric attributes, and often cannot maximize all the advantages of electric vehicles.
In the traditional mainstream luxury brands, the electric vehicles that everyone can buy at present are basically products from "oil to electricity", so in the electric vehicle market of traditional mainstream luxury brands, Audi Q5 e-tron cannot be said to have no opportunities with its own platform advantages.
This time, we will use the Audi Q5 e-tron model to see what it means for an electric vehicle based on pure electric platform development.
Q5 What platform does the e-tron come from?
To say that SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron research and development platform, friends who have always paid attention to electric vehicle technology should not be unfamiliar with the three letters of "MEB", because there are currently several models from the MEB platform in the Chinese market, and sales are steadily increasing. The SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron is the first model launched by the Audi brand in the Chinese market from the MEB pure electric platform.
In September 2018, the Volkswagen Group officially unveiled the MEB modular electric drive platform at the transparent plant in Dresden, marking the Volkswagen Group's entry into a more in-depth exploration of electrified mobility. The location of this launch is significant, as the Dresden Transparency Factory was previously the exclusive production site of the Volkswagen brand's pearl-like model Phaeton, which is enough to show how important the MEB platform is for Volkswagen's next stage of development.
Looking at all the automobile manufacturers in the world, the most experienced for the platform research and development and production of automobiles is probably the Volkswagen Group, which has PQ and PL platforms in the early years, and later has a modular MQB, MLB platform, it can be said that the platform, modular platform allows automobile manufacturers to become more efficient and flexible in research and development, production and other aspects, and improve the utilization of resources. Today, they are also in the same vein in the field of electric vehicles, and plan to achieve the first phase of more than 10 million vehicles for the entire Volkswagen Group on the MEB platform.
Of course, from the current product layout, the number of Volkswagen brand models under the MEB platform is the majority, which seems to give people a feeling that the MEB platform belongs to the Volkswagen brand, so the SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron, which is also from the MEB platform, as a luxury brand product, will inevitably cause some consumers to question.
We think there is no need to over-amplify this point, after all, in the past era of fuel vehicles, Audi brands and Volkswagen brands also have many cases of shared platform technology, and even ultra-luxury brands such as Bentley and Lamborghini also have products that share platforms and technologies with Audi and Volkswagen. This is due to the greater flexibility and scalability of platform-based R&D and production.
It is foreseeable that in addition to the Q5 e-tron that is the first to take the lead, there will be other MEB platform models with the Audi LOGO hanging in the near future.
Pure electric platform = longer-term vision?
At present, in the market of luxury brand electric vehicles, there are not many models from the pure electric platform like SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron, in addition to the price point is much higher than the Q5 e-tron, and the luxury brand electric vehicles with similar prices to the Q5 e-tron are basically based on the "magic reform" of fuel vehicles.
It's just that different brands of models also have different strengths in the matter of "magic reform", such as some details on mercedes-Benz EQC will inadvertently expose the traces of "oil to electricity", find out the structure diagram of EQC, and find that the entire electric drive system is "trapped" in a steel pipe cage, wasting space and increasing weight. The e-tron, which is out of the same door as the Q5 e-tron division, can be said to be the most sincere car, but there are still some drawbacks of "oil to electricity".
▲EQC electric drive system structure diagram
For example, in terms of the efficiency of the three-electric system, under the premise of similar power performance, the comprehensive power consumption of Q5 e-tron from the MEB pure electric platform will be 12% to 14% lower than that of the opponent of "oil to electricity", and the power consumption saved means that there will be a longer cruising range performance. This difference stems from the fact that pure electric platform models can optimize the layout of parts and the overall structure of the body according to the needs of the electric drive system, eliminating unnecessary weight, while also being more friendly to thermal management and avoiding excessive energy loss and waste.
In addition, the pure electric platform prepared for electric vehicles will also be targeted in terms of body structure safety, due to the obvious differences between the front and rear counterweights of electric vehicles, the height of the center of gravity and the fuel vehicle, so compared with the "oil to electricity" model, the electric vehicle developed based on the pure electric platform will have inherent advantages in terms of safety.
It is true that the electric vehicle from the fuel vehicle platform "magic reform" is not unacceptable, it has two sides, the advantage is that manufacturers can use a relatively small amount of research and development investment, in a relatively short period of time to bring electric vehicles to the market, the disadvantage is that such products have some imperfections at the experience level, and are not friendly to long-term product planning.
The pure electric platform developed from scratch requires manufacturers to make greater R& D investment in the early stage, which also includes the construction of production bases. The ANTING MEB plant, which was home to savoy's Audi Q5 e-tron, was built at a cost of 14 billion euros and is the Volkswagen Group's first new plant in the world specifically for the production of MEB platform models. In addition to the attributes of digital production technology, intelligent facilities, and high automation rate, another highlight of the MEB factory is the battery workshop.
The battery workshop is mainly responsible for the manufacture of all-aluminum battery housings and the assembly of battery packs, and the main purpose of this workshop is to ensure the consistency and safety of production. At the same time, the aluminum housing has higher requirements for welding accuracy, so some more advanced equipment can be seen in the MEB factory. This also reflects the more responsible attitude of consumers as a traditional big-name car company.
What are the advantages of implementing at the experience level?
As a consumer, of course, more concerned is how buying such a model developed from the pure electric platform is different from other "oil to electricity" in terms of actual experience.
In fact, at the level of static experience, there is already a big difference, just now we said that the pure electric platform model can optimize the layout of the parts and the overall structure of the body according to the needs of the electric drive system, because the space required by the electric drive system is small, the front and rear axles can be further leaned towards both ends of the body, the wheelbase is longer, so more space can be left to the carriage.
This is reflected in the Q5 e-tron, which, as a medium-sized SUV, has a ride space performance that is almost comparable to that of the higher Q7. It is often said that electric vehicles have the performance of dimensionality reduction blow compared to fuel vehicles in experience, and a more complete electric vehicle from a pure electric platform will also show the effect of dimensionality reduction in spatial performance.
At the dynamic level, the advantage is also easy to perceive, under the premise of similar body length, longer wheelbase can bring better driving stability. But you don't have to worry that the longer wheelbase will reduce the flexibility of the body in the narrow streets, because the MEB platform can give a larger front wheel steering angle, in fact, the Q5 e-tron can achieve a smaller turning radius than similar models. This is all the advantages brought by the pure electric platform developed from scratch, in contrast, the "oil to electricity" model, even if the electric drive system occupies less space, those models originally leave space for the drive system of the fuel vehicle, which causes a waste of space.
An electrical and electronic architecture that is both virtual and real
In the 2020s, it has to be mentioned that the experience of intelligence is that the long-term MEB platform is also fully prepared for this, and the so-called full preparation is a set of domain-controlled underlying electronic and electrical architecture.
When it comes to electrical and electronic architecture, everyone may feel a bit vague, because it cannot be seen or touched, but for today's cars, it is extremely important, and all kinds of electronic equipment on the car must be arranged and operated based on this set of architectures. To put it bluntly, electrical and electronic architectures are like air, both virtual and real.
At present, the most mainstream electronic and electrical architecture in automotive products is the distributed architecture, including the MQB platform of the Volkswagen Group. As the name suggests, various electronic systems are managed, they are communicated through the CAN bus, when the number of electronic systems to a certain extent, there will be a problem of limited computing power.
The domain-controlled architecture used in the MEB platform is to integrate some sensors and processors to open up some different electronic systems, so that the utilization rate of computing resources and hardware wiring harness resources of the entire electronic and electrical architecture can be effectively improved. In this dimension, the three-area domain-controlled electrical and electronic architecture adopted by the MEB platform is in line with Tesla.
However, compared with Tesla's simple and crude division into central computing modules, left body control modules, and right body control modules, Volkswagen Group's MEB seems to be more German-style and rigorous in the division of domain control, and the three domains are to support in-car application services, including body control, electric system, high-voltage drive system, comfort system, lamp system including ICAS1, ICAS2 that supports advanced intelligent driving systems, and support entertainment systems, including navigation systems, instrument systems, head-up displays, ICAS3 for smart cockpit class. Among them, the intelligent driving part is separated into a separate domain, which is the point that we appreciate the most.
On top of such an electrical and electronic architecture, SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron has a wide imagination in the intelligent experience, such as in the aspect of intelligent driving, the audi Pro pilot system is standard, which is an L2+ level driver assistance system. Like AR-HUD, remote vehicle control, and V2X intelligent traffic interaction technology, it is even more from every detail to change the user's experience. We also said in the previous article that Q5 e-tron is the same as A7L, SAIC Audi is very product input, how high and how high the various configurations are, the sincerity is quite sufficient, this should also be the pressure to turn pressure into product force, no matter how savoy Audi faces market competition pressure is still very large, after all, Audi's product line has basically fallen on the SIDE of FAW Audi.
Write at the end
After reading the article, I believe that everyone has a basic judgment, a native electric vehicle developed based on a pure electric platform, from research and development to production, and then to user experience, are very different from those relatively primary "oil to electricity". It is undeniable that at present, major manufacturers are also developing pure electric platforms to manufacture native electric vehicles, but binggui shen speed, in this window of transformation to electrification, whose native electric vehicles land first, who has seized the opportunity.
In the field of traditional luxury brands, SAIC Audi Q5 e-tron is currently the one in the forefront of the same level of models, as for whether the market can buy or not, it is up to your wallet to decide.