Military fans know that nuclear-powered submarines are the exclusive equipment of a few powerful countries after all, and the more "popular" in the navies of various countries is still conventionally powered submarines. Due to the different power sources, conventional power submarines are often unable to start the internal combustion engine for energy when diving underwater, and the power battery and the electric drive module have become indispensable and important components. However, the battery pack is the most afraid of water short circuit, the submarine can still ensure that the battery pack works safely and normally in the deep sea, and its protective performance can be imagined.
Like conventional submarines, new energy vehicles are also a kind of machinery that cannot operate without the power battery pack. Although the battery pack mounted on it, the working environment is far from catching up with the submarine, but with the popularity of new energy vehicles, especially the market blowout flagship of a variety of good and uneven products have appeared, so that because of the battery failure caused by spontaneous combustion, explosion and other accidents have become more and more frequent, to a large extent, to dissuade some users who are interested in the advantages of new energy vehicles.
Of course, the pursuit of safety is the first instinct of human beings, so is it possible to transplant the submarine's protective performance of the battery to the car? In this regard, Volvo XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge said that this is really possible.
Knives and guns do not penetrate, creating the legendary "road tank"
To talk about protection, first of all, the battery itself must be strong enough, always can not be like the "tofu block" on the touch of the shelf, and in this regard, for Volvo, which has been proud in the field of structural strength for many years, it must be "sprinkled water" - XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge's battery pack as a whole adopts a "grid format" structure, the image point is to separate the original whole battery pack into a small space, and then divide the battery cells into modules of corresponding size to fill these small spaces.
Speaking of which, some people wonder: Isn't that stupid? Isn't there less battery cells that can fit into the same volume of the battery pack? What if the energy density has come down? Regardless of the reasonable spacing, in fact, the energy density will not be affected too much, even if it does have an impact, the cost is completely worth it. The first is that the battery cells are rounded into zeros and placed in a single area, which can minimize the possibility of local failures causing the battery pack to get out of control as a whole. More importantly, the internal reinforcement beams that divide this area are crisscrossed, which greatly enhances the strength of the battery pack itself.
Such a strong battery pack, in Volvo's view, is not enough, so that it has "moved its hands and feet" on the frame - the front collapse zone of the XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge is added to the lower anti-collision beam, and when the frontal collision, the battery pack located at the bottom of the car can be better protected, and the probability of extrusion deformation is lower. For the same reason, the body side has also been reinforced with a sill member reinforced aluminum bar, so that the protection is not limited to the front, but 360° fully optimized.
· Dripping water is the real "land submarine"
If the analogy is taken with submarines, in addition to structural strength, waterproof performance is the top priority. It just so happens that the structural strength of the outstanding performance is only the most basic essential quality for XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge, and it is its waterproof performance that is really optimized with care.
To be waterproof, tightness is an important factor that cannot be avoided, and the XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge have achieved the same way as most other manufacturers in terms of battery pack sealing by gluing the gap between the upper and lower trays of the battery. The difference is that Volvo will also apply waterproof and dustproof sealing treatment at the connection socket of the high and low voltage circuit inside the battery pack, and the internal copper row also has the corresponding wear resistance and insulating sleeve protection, even the weakest link is not taken lightly, and the final result is that the motor and inverter can not enter the water and do not enter the dust under the flushing of high pressure (8Mpa) and high temperature water (80 degrees).
Speaking of this, some people may say that there are now a small number of electric vehicles that also claim to be able to achieve the highest level of waterproof performance of IP68, but we must be clear that many times this is only for the battery pack itself, in contrast, Volvo has previously done a water soaking experiment, XC40 BEV can do 4 minutes after soaking smoothly start and drive out of the pool, in addition to continuous soaking for 12 hours The battery pack does not enter the water, which means that the various indicators of waterproof performance, for XC40 BEV and C40 In terms of Recharge, we are talking about the whole vehicle category, which can really bring enough security to customers living in areas with frequent waterlogging, basically without worrying about the vehicle becoming a life-threatening time bomb after blisters.
Of course, even with such excellent safety performance, even Volvo can not guarantee that the battery pack will never have any problems. Once the battery has a thermal runaway failure, the excessive sealing of the battery pack may not be released because the internal pressure cannot be released, bringing additional safety hazards. Volvo naturally will not be negligent in this regard, XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge equipped with battery packs equipped with balance valves, in the internal and external pressure imbalance can be relieved, to eliminate greater hidden dangers.
Safety is not limited to the battery
Even if the battery safety indicators of the XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge are very outstanding, I think this is actually not the product highlight of these two new cars, because Volvo has always been concerned about providing all-round protection for the occupants, but in the XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge, these two pure electric products, battery safety must also be included. In fact, in other aspects that are not related to batteries, the safety performance of these two cars is also remarkable.
Taking the most basic body structure strength as an example, Volvo can be said to be one of the few car companies that are not afraid of these third-party institutions, including IIHS, to do any test with their own products, for no other reason than Volvo's internal product standards, which are far better than almost all the most stringent standards proposed by these institutions. The signature "cage body" not only relies on years of experience in mechanical structure design to achieve near perfection, but also takes XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge, and its A+B+C columns and sill strings and a series of key positions have been strengthened with boron steel to build an indestructible "fortress".
With the increasing development of technology, Volvo is keeping up with the times, directly evolving the understanding of safety from a simple "protection" to the height of "treating the disease", that is to say, what they are currently pursuing is to avoid accidents as much as possible. Relying on the City Safety Urban Intelligent Safety System's extensive coverage of all the risks that may be encountered in daily driving and high-quality intervention, it is really not a dream to achieve this goal.
For example, the emergency steering assist function contained in the City Safety function package, its operating principle is to encounter risks such as "ghost probe" and the impact is about to occur, such as detecting that the driver intends to avoid impact by turning the steering wheel, it will brake one or more wheels, and actively increase the steering speed, angle, etc., assist the vehicle to change the emergency line, complete the avoidance action, and try to avoid the secondary accident after the vehicle loses control after avoidance. Its most powerful place is that it does not cross the driver to make a line change decision, and maximizes the combination of the driver's advantages over the computer in the risk avoidance decision judgment, as well as the computer's quality compared to the human advantage when performing the risk avoidance action, and the effect shown in the actual driving also proves the rationality of this calibration idea, and it is no wonder that this function will push Volvo's active safety all the way to the "net red" throne.
Write at the end:
For traditional car companies, from the fuel era to the electric age of the process, in fact, does not mean that everything must be torn down and restarted, sometimes years of accumulated experience and brand core values, no matter in what era, can still become the core competitiveness of the brand and its products, Volvo's safety is a good example, XC40 BEV and C40 Recharge These two new products also show how the word safety will be inherited under the wave of electrification.
It is understood that more new pure electric products from the Volvo brand will meet with us, in 2022 we are more likely to see the L4 level automatic driving system developed by Volvo officially on the road (initially limited to California, the United States can be used), it can be seen that adhering to tradition really does not mean being conservative, we expect more and more traditional car companies to be like Volvo, in the era of great changes, to find the most suitable development direction for themselves.