This is a topic that has been waiting for a while, the reason why it is not too late, the time is on the one hand, on the other hand, I also want to understand the electrification strategy of the three Japanese brands more thoroughly. When Akio Toyoda gave a heartfelt speech, when Honda China showed "e: WILL ROCK YOU" on the full page of its official website, and When Nissan released the "Nissan Ambition 2030", we can finally put the electrification strategy of Japanese brands together.
In fact, including me, many people think that Japanese brands are too conservative in their electrification strategies, and although Yusanjia has already reached the pinnacle of hybrid technology, they have not come up with a more contemporary new energy model layout market. Leaving aside the Volkswagen ID series, how the Ford Mach-E family is selling, at least the United States and Germany have seized the opportunity, and have also received good attention.
Previously, whether it was Toyota, Honda or Nissan, only some oil-to-electricity models entered the market, in order to integrate or to release the electrification signal, before Q4 this year, for the performance of Japanese pure electricity, I think it is even worse than the Korean brand.
Fortunately, the three Japanese manufacturers have released pure electric strategic brands at the tail end of 2021, and the entire new energy market has become more interesting. What is more interesting is that although they are all pure electric strategic brands in a broad sense, the three main technical selling points of Toyota, Honda and Nissan are slightly different. (In order to avoid being too broad, this article only shares the differences in the technology of Sandian)
Honda: Injecting the sport gene into electric vehicles?
Two months ago, I wrote an article ""Buy engine to deliver the car" of Honda how to support the brilliance of sharp hybrid in the next generation", which mainly talked about my ideas about how Honda maintains its advantage in the era of electrification, the same Japanese brand, Honda is more than Toyota, Nissan has one more "technical paranoia" label, whether Honda black admits it or not, this is the basic understanding of Honda by the market and mainstream consumers. Honda in the fuel era has left many legends, including the 2021 F1 World Championship, which has just won, and it is already Honda's sixth F1 championship.
But the problem is that when the engine is replaced by a motor and the gearbox no longer exists, how should Honda's decades of accumulation in automotive machinery be transformed into an advantage?
If you happen to see the launch of Honda's new pure electric brand e:N, I'm sure you'll agree that "e:N" is a great answer to the above question. In my opinion, the biggest selling point of e:N is not intelligence, nor is it security. It's the athletic genes that Honda injected into it.
In the past, in the impression of the vast majority of consumers, trams are not as good as oil cars, one is that the excessive weight of the "three electricity" system increases the burden of suspension, it is difficult to say that the control pleasure; the second is because of the lack of engine, gearbox matching sense of rhythm and rhythm.
The e:N Architecture efficient pure electric architecture solves these two problems very well. Honda has cooperated with CATL to create an ultra-high-density power battery, which can achieve lighter weight and smaller volume under the same capacity; followed by excellent electronic control technology, Honda from small cars to large cars, from cars to sports cars, from MPVs to SUVs, has enough technology accumulation to make every moment power output silky and direct. It should be known that the 3.5T hybrid power equipped by the NSX is the only hybrid powertrain that won the top ten of Ward in 2017, and it is also the only powertrain of Asian car companies on the list, and Honda's accumulation in electronic control technology has covered almost all models.
There is also a data, the ordinary electric vehicle electronic control system can cope with about 500 kinds of scenarios, and the electric vehicle under the e:N Architecture platform has more than 20,000 kinds of electronic control programs, which is about 40 times that of ordinary trams.
In addition, according to Honda's diagram of e:N Architecture W (four-wheel drive and rear-drive platform), the electronic control program of the rear motor is most likely to support electronic LSD, and the power output of the left and right half shafts can be controlled vectorly, which enhances the driving pleasure of the new car on the platform, while Toyota's E-FOUR can only control the ratio of front and rear output.
To sum up, Honda's e:N three-electric technology features the use of high-density batteries to achieve lighter mass, and the powerful electronic control technology makes the models of the e:N Architecture platform have more driving pleasure.
Toyota: bZ4X is just the beginning
Although the bZ pure electric brand was launched, Toyota did not disclose much information about the platform. To sum up, there are about two points: 1, BEV exclusive pure electric platform, 2, and subaru joint development. The former represents the global hybrid big brother in the real · The first answer sheet was handed over on the EV, which represented the car's good driving pleasure and ability to get out of trouble, because Subaru was involved in the development of the four-wheel drive system.
Putting aside Toyota's favorite talk about intelligence and safety, this bZ4X has two technical points that I think represent the technical direction of future bZ models, and also shows some of Toyota's thinking on the BEV technology route.
The first is the battery, although the Toyota bZ4X's three-electric information is very little revealed, but it is not completely absent.
Toyota did not make a super-large capacity battery pack for the bZ4X like the domestic new power manufacturers, and the capacity of 71.4kWh was not too much of an advantage in the domestic market. But Toyota specifically mentioned that the battery design is life-first, with an industry-leading capacity retention rate, and it is expected to still reach 90% of the initial range after 240,000 kilometers or 10 years of normal use.
We put the angle a little more open, for example, in 2022 lithium supplement technology may be further mature, Toyota may really be able to make the power battery to a certain extent after continuous technical iteration, from the perspective of life, will form a very large gap (compared to other brands), so that Toyota electric vehicles in the retention rate, replacement rate, user loyalty and other aspects of improvement.
Obviously, Toyota's pursuit of reliability has also brought to the era of electric vehicles. And, because of the importance of batteries to trams, Toyota's ultra-high capacity retention rate of battery packs may also lead to some different business models, which can be referred to here as the influence of blade batteries.
In fact, the new technology in various aspects has raised the upper limit of the potential of electric vehicles, which is one of the reasons why electrification can produce change.
For example, the second core feature of bZ4X, "One Motion Grip". If you remember the alien steering wheel on the Tesla, you must have a sense of déjà vu when you see the bZ4X. The difference is that Tesla's body is sprayed without skin, and everyone is expecting the bZ4X to open up.
The difference is brought about by steer-by-wire technology. The difference between specific steer-by-wire steering and mechanical steering is not too much to expand here, simply put, the steering wheel of the steering by wire control does not have a steering column, because the steering ratio is transmitted by electrical signals, so it can achieve any variable steering ratio of change range, change mode, change speed, just set a specific logic strategy for the system.
Toyota's One Motion Grip steering wheel relies on the oversized range steering ratio given by steer-by-wire to achieve a "One Motion" effect of only 150° full.
Different people look at this technology with different results, and perhaps most people think that the One Motion Grip wheel must bring more precise control and free-wheel driving experience, which is true, but this is only one aspect.
As mentioned earlier, the steer-by-wire cancels the physical structure of the steering column (the DAS-by-wire steering on the Q50 did not cancel the steering column because of safety considerations), which means that the steering wheel can be installed on the driver's side, it can also be installed on the co-pilot's side, and even in the future, there is no distinction between the front and co-pilots, when the higher-level auxiliary driver comes, the front and co-drivers can realize the control of the vehicle. The brain hole is a little bigger, the steering wheel can also be installed in the rear row, when the vehicle is going to reverse or turn around, just turn around and operate.
In other words, steer-by-wire technology must be a necessary way to achieve unmanned driving one day. When the future imagined by the car manufacturers becomes a reality, when you can really sleep and let the car drive itself, the steering wheel at this time needs to be weakened, and the method is electronic remote steering, even if there is a better solution in the future, it is also extended in this technology.
To sum up simply, toyota shows more of a prototype of a future electric vehicle on the bZ, and it may not necessarily stumble on the driving pleasure of electric vehicles. Including the solar panels on the skylight, many people see the charging efficiency of the weak chicken and start to spray, not knowing that it may be an important way to solve the anxiety of battery life in the future. At the same time, Toyota also continues to inherit the reputation of fuel vehicles to the new bZ, including reliability, retention rate and so on. On the bZ4X, I can only say that Toyota is worthy of being a Japanese brother.
Nissan: The main purpose is to solve the battery life anxiety
Finally, let's talk about the highlights of the electrification of technology Nissan. In fact, before the release of "Nissan Ambition 2030", Nissan's e-POWER has already made some name in the market, and the logic of this system is difficult to simply divide it into plug-in hybridization, extender hybridization and any of the traditional classifications, because different e-POWER of the working conditions can achieve a variety of energy delivery logic, but its fundamental core is to solve the battery life anxiety.
The latest "Nissan Ambition 2030" is also painstakingly solving the anxiety of battery life, according to its content, Nissan plans to invest 2 trillion yen (a total of 112.84 billion yuan) in the next 5 years to accelerate the promotion of electric drive product layout and technological innovation.
After the 2 trillion yen investment, Nissan Motor is preparing to launch 23 electric drive models (including e-POWER models) by 2030, while Nissan and Infiniti brands will account for more than 50% of electric drives, and for Nissan, the corresponding battery demand will be 130 GWh.
To translate simply, Nissan's current global volume is about 4-4.5 million units (4.029 million units in 2020), according to the current automotive market trend and the global sales trend of Nissan in the previous five years, assuming that Nissan's volume in 2030 will reach 5 million units, and the penetration rate will reach 50% as expected, that is, 2.5 million units. According to the battery demand of 130GWh, the carrying power of the bicycle is about 52kWh.
From the data point of view, the capacity of 65kWh seems to be very general, but don't forget that there are only 15 pure electric models in the 23 electric drive models, and there should be 8 new e-POWER products, and e-POWER does not require large batteries. Therefore, the pure electric model should be about 30% higher than 65kWh, and the average single-car battery pack capacity should be no problem in 80kWh to 90kWh.
The reason for this estimate is also because in this "vision", Nissan has put the ground time of solid-state batteries to the premise, Nissan will launch an electric model equipped with all-solid-state batteries by fiscal year 2028, and build a pilot plant in Yokohama, Japan in fiscal year 2024. All-solid-state batteries can reduce charging time to one-third of the original, and can also create larger density battery packs, allowing more battery capacity per unit volume.
To summarize simply, whether it is e-POWER or the information about batteries in "Nissan Ambition 2030", Nissan has done enough in long-endurance, and Nissan is also the only Japanese manufacturer that clearly plans the development path of all-solid-state battery technology. Of course, there are many other highlights about nissan's three concept cars launched in the "Vision", which will not be unfolded here.
Master observation
The technical direction of the Japanese Imperial Family in the era of pure electricity has basically surfaced, and although the energy methods are the same, the technical direction is very different. In fact, there was a fuel powder expression two years ago, and the arrival of the electric era will surely end the era of the internal combustion engine that is competing with hundreds of schools. Looking back, this is not the case. The excellence of the electronic control program can also make the output of the motor appear to be very different, and electrification and informatization can bring tens of millions of differences, put down the chain of contempt, and face the new era calmly, which is what our generation should do.