Introduction | before the SSP
Recently, I saw the video of the well-known respondent Teacher Yi ran spitting out the volkswagen ID.4 on Weibo, which was quite touching.
He was one of the first Volkswagen ID.4 owners in China, a blockbuster model based on the Volkswagen MEB platform. The chassis was smooth, the steering was flexible, there was plenty of space, and all the mechanical qualities were excellent, and he gave a high score of 90 points. This also shows that the public, who have entered the era of electrification, still have the ability to adjust.
However, the electrical and intelligent part of this car directly failed. The black screen of the central control, the error of assisted driving, the weakness of remote control, and the vacancy of OTA let Yi ran conclude that the soul of ID.4 is still a gas car, good driving, good electricity, and good mental retardation.
Isn't ID.4 from Volkswagen's latest MEB platform? How can this be the case at tens of billions of euros?
1 In the electric era, "Platform 3.0" can't keep up with the times?
We know that the most famous platform 1.0 era is Volkswagen, and Santana on the PQ25 platform is still playing its residual heat. Its innovation is to unify models of similar sizes into a chassis architecture, maximize the sharing of parts, accelerate the development of new cars, reduce procurement costs, improve production efficiency, and swept the world for a while.
But Platform 1.0 has a limitation, which limits the diversification of models with wheelbase as the core. For example, the new Santana, the chassis comes from PQ25, and the body electrical architecture uses PQ34 technology. This patchwork resulted in a modest vehicle product and eventually discontinuation.
So MQB appeared, which can be called the platform 2.0 era. In addition to the distance of Dash-to-Axle, it cannot be changed, and the entire chassis and body structure can be arbitrarily combined, and even from A0 to C class, mainstream brand to luxury brand leap. So other brands have followed suit, such as Toyota's TNGA, Volvo's SPA and so on.
But the problem arises again, at this time the chassis of the platform is still separated from the powertrain, such as Volvo's SPA architecture and Drive-E powertrain are relatively independent. The latter can not only be used for S90 and S60 on the SPA, but also for Lynk & Co 01 and Hoshikoshi L on the CMA, not that there is a problem with Drive-E, but that the SPA and CMA are not compatible. That is, the platformization of the chassis still cannot keep up with the expansion of the power.
So MEB appeared, which is the platform 3.0 era, and it is also a platform specially created by Volkswagen for the era of electric vehicles. At this time, there is no need for bulky engines, bumpy transmissions, and rugged fuel tank designs, the first two are replaced by N-in-one electric drive systems, which integrate motors, reducers, inverters, controllers, etc. to occupy less space. The latter is directly replaced by a flat battery pack, and there is no longer a raised rear platform, and the vehicle space is greatly liberated. The compatibility of the models can also be achieved from A to D, and the original intention of the platform concept has been maximized.
In other words, the significance of platform 3.0 is that the powertrain and chassis architecture of the car are integrated, which greatly liberates the car space and makes a great contribution to the rapid replacement of models, reducing costs and increasing production capacity.
However, there is news that Volkswagen may abandon the launch of the meb platform that has recently spent tens of billions of dollars, and will only use the new SSP pure electric platform (Scalable System Platform) after 2035. Why is the once lively MEB platform suddenly out of flavor?
Or back to Yi Ran's personal experience.
Once, when Yi ran returned to Shanghai from Huangshan, this ID.4 suddenly went black! And it is a physical black screen that will not be restored with the restart of the parking. So the entire journey button failure, the air conditioning is ineffective, the auxiliary driving is zero, and what is more terrible is that it is impossible to know how much mileage is left! He had a clever move, opened the mobile phone App, used the mobile phone to check the battery life, and was able to charge in time without breaking down on the high speed.
Also, there is a serious problem with the L2 assisted driving of ID.4, on a rainy night on the Yan'an Elevated Highway, this ID.4 vehicle suddenly swung left and right, and the problem can be reproduced, indicating that this is a serious bug, and the middle almost scratched with the right side of the car, and finally directly pressed the line and rushed out of the lane. This made him very frightened and confused: if rain and night will make the L2 ineffective, how fragile should the intelligence of this car be?
Then the OTA ability is touching, he bought a car for half a year without an OTA; the remote control key can not remotely open the air conditioner, open and close the window, intelligent is not as good as the Volkswagen fuel car. Finally, he strongly urged Volkswagen executives to improve the problem.
Do you think Volkswagen executives don't know about the MEB problem? That's why there's a rush to launch the SSP platform.
In order to avoid doubt, Ralph Brandstadt, CEO of Volkswagen Brand, explained: "Today's SSP platform is not a platform rebuilt after denying MEB, but in the advantages of the MEB platform and the PPE platform, the two are merged and optimized, so that the emergence of a new platform can be understood as the second form of the MEB platform." ”
Translated into the vernacular: our MEB does need to be improved in intelligence, and we have to give it a new set of electronic and electrical architectures to keep up with the times and avoid consumers like Yiyuan Teacher from complaining again.
So, is there a better platform strategy?
2 GM's Aotene, leading the platform 4.0?
Yes, there can be. For example, GM's recently released pure electric vehicle platform Ultium Aotene platform, which integrates GM's 26 years of electrification experience and forward-looking technology, is known as the cornerstone of GM's full electrification.
The biggest feature of the Aoteneng platform is that it has both the versatility of the platform 1.0 era and the malleability of the platform 2.0 era, and can produce models from the A0-D class, including the medium and large luxury SUV LYRIQ, and even the full-size electric pickup Hummer EV.
In addition, it also has compatibility in the 3.0 era, the electric drive system is highly integrated in 8-in-1, and the battery pack is compatible with the world's mainstream supplier batteries and integrated under its own flexible module. How flexible? Can be 8 modules, can be 10 modules, can also be 12 modules, the form can be one layer, can be two layers, can also be made into a T type for vertical take-off and landing aircraft VTOL.
Of course, the biggest ability of Aoteneng is that it has what other 3.0 platforms lack the most: intelligence.
The Aoteneng platform adopts a new VIP intelligent electronic architecture. The official description is: with vehicle-level OTA updates, high-speed network data transmission capabilities, support for aviation-grade network security, and unlimited sustainable expansion potential.
For example, its internal communication speed can reach 1.28GB/s, and its data processing capacity is 4.5TB per hour, which is equivalent to building an information highway in the car.
Based on the above underlying technology, the Aotene platform can realize the mass production version of V2X (Vehicle to Everything) technology, such as information sharing between vehicles and vehicles (V2V), vehicles and road infrastructure (V2I), and can be integrated with Super Cruise super assisted driving technology.
Under the Aoteneng platform, high-level autonomous driving can be achieved through three channels. The first is to perceive the surrounding environment through cameras, millimeter wave radar, and lidar, and make subjective + microscopic judgments; secondly, through the blessing of centimeter-level high-precision maps, objective + macro judgments are made with the "Eye of God"; the third is V2X, which can make real-time + interactive judgments with the improvement of infrastructure and the increase of vehicles entering the network.
Originating from the intelligence of the fuel era, OTT can be successful in the era of electrification.
This intelligence also extends to its power battery design, which uses the industry's first wireless battery management system (wBMS). It's not just about reducing the harness by 90% and increasing the energy density. With fewer hard-wired connections and connectors, the battery's system is also more secure and has a lower failure rate.
The monitoring of the battery by the intelligent system is no longer a general battery temperature increase or direct thermal runaway, but can be accurate to each cell, and even monitor the attenuation of a single cell, and adjust the response strategy in time.
The key is that with the blessing of VIP intelligent electronic architecture, the wireless battery management system can also support remote iterative updates. Ultium Aotene batteries also have an active discharge function in distress, which is actively discharged within 5 seconds after a violent collision, which greatly improves safety redundancy.
It can be said that the Aoteneng platform is a model for the high integration of electrification and intelligence, and it is also an attempt to resemble the new forces in the current traditional camp. Whether it is the internal communication capabilities of the system, or the advancement of intelligent driving, or the overall safety design, it has left enough margins and growth can be expected.
Car gathering summary
Intelligence is one of the biggest highlights of the Aoteneng platform, which makes it a forerunner in the platform 4.0 era. From this point on, traditional car companies will start a new round of platform iteration.
Another feature is safety, providing all-dimensional thinking from the infrastructure, trying to greatly reduce the probability of "spontaneous combustion" of the maximum pain point of electric vehicles. If you are interested, we will share it in the next issue.
Finally, look forward to the specific changes in the era of platform 4.0.