21st Century Business Herald reporter Peng Suping reported from Shanghai
"The tide is coming, and my generation should bow down and enter." At the end of 2020, Li Peng, the digital executive of Great Wall Motors, issued a battle book to the new car-making forces. Soon after, he announced that he was fully responsible for the high-end brand project of Great Wall Motors, code-named SL, which later became "Sharon Zhixing".
In January 2022, Li Peng appeared in the public eye again, but this time he changed his identity: the founder and CEO of Youpao Technology.
According to public information, Yo-Run Technology was established in April 2021 as a new intelligent electric vehicle company focusing on the "super chassis". On January 11, 2022, Yo-Run Technology publicly released two major product lines: UP Super Chassis and UP SPACE Super Cabin.
From the appearance of the product and the concept of trying to convey, Li Peng and his Yo-Run Technology should do a big thing to subvert the automotive industry: redefine the car-building model - transform the traditional "vehicle-integrated development" into "upper and lower split development", Yo-Run Technology is responsible for the chassis below, and when necessary, it can also design the upper cabin.
The core technology of the "super chassis" of Yo-Run Technology is actually the "skateboard chassis" that has attracted much attention in the industry recently.
This chassis can be highly integrated with the core capabilities of intelligent electric vehicles, without the need for a body to achieve drive, with this chassis as the basis, in theory, different types of models can be quickly developed. Some automotive industry media have made a good analogy: making a car is like selling noodles, the skateboard chassis is equivalent to noodles, soups, bowls, which are relatively standardized things, and the body is toppings, plus different toppings, noodle shops can easily make different beef noodles, sauerkraut noodles and rib noodles.
The pioneering concept of "skateboard chassis" is becoming popular in the industry. In November 2021, Rivian, an electric pickup truck startup known as the "Tesla Killer", was listed on the NASDAQ, rising for several consecutive days, bringing the concept of "skateboard chassis" into the public eye; at the 2021 annual media communication meeting of the China Electric Vehicle 100 People's Association held at the end of the year, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor of Tsinghua University and doctoral supervisor, listed "skateboard chassis" and "1000 km endurance" as the two major trends of future vehicle technology...
Will the skateboard chassis stand on the cusp?
"Split" development brings freedom to build cars?
At the press conference on January 11, Li Peng introduced that the YO-Trot UP super chassis has four major technologies of "full-line control chassis, pluggable ring network electronic and electrical architecture, CTC battery system and highly integrated thermal management system", which can achieve an endurance of more than 1,000 kilometers, a computing power of more than 1,000 TOPS, and meet the "first-class basic disk" capabilities such as future L4 and above automatic driving needs.
The development of models on this "basic disk" will not only efficiently release the space in the car, but also reduce the entry threshold of intelligent electric vehicles, shorten the development and manufacturing cycle of vehicles and reduce costs. Li Peng said that the application of UP super chassis development models, the development cycle can be shortened by 6-12 months compared with the traditional vehicle integrated with the same platform expansion model, which can help car manufacturers develop more different models of upper bodies in a shorter period of time.
The three "UP SPACE super cabins" based on the up super chassis capabilities unveiled on the spot vividly demonstrated the various model forms that can be achieved based on the UP super chassis, and cars, MPVs, SUVs, pickup trucks and vans can be quickly developed from this "super chassis".
The concept of Yo-Yo Technology is to support all scene owners to launch a rich product matrix in a short period of time - such as yoga cars, coffee cars and other different types of products. Not only that, the partners of Yo-Pao Technology can also be extended to commercial real estate users, self-driving companies with AI scene owners, multinational OEMs that catch up with the trend of electric vehicles, and so on.
Although the UP SPACE super cabin is also one of the product lines of Youpao Technology, Li Peng stressed that Yupao does not do "to C (for consumers)" brand, "The most important reason why China's intelligent electric vehicles are leading is that consumers are willing to try new technologies this year, which will bring more new brands and new scenes to China, and we will serve them." ”
The same layout of the skateboard chassis, not to C" brand is a significant difference between Yo-Run Technology and Rivian and other enterprises characteristics. "In Today's China, one more car brand, especially one more car brand created by me, may not have as much impact on the industry as providing the infrastructure for more brands to come out." Li Peng explained the reason for not doing the "to C" brand.
On the other hand, Li Peng also said that Yo-Run has also done some unusual work in intelligence. "So far, I have not seen overseas car companies have our concept of a set of 'soft and hard operating systems', which can allow the development of upper-level intelligence to become more appted."
In the automotive industry, in order to save costs, platform development has become the choice of many car companies, from Toyota's TNGA architecture to Volkswagen's MEB platform, the core essence of platforming is that in a relatively complete system, by replacing part of the design and components, quickly develop different models.
Logically, the principle of the skateboard chassis is similar to that of the platform. According to the introduction of Yo-Pao Technology, with the above-mentioned "soft and hard integrated operating system", up super chassis can help all scenes to achieve car-making freedom, and the biggest difference between this system and the current pure electric platform is that it can achieve "separation and decoupling development of upper and lower vehicles".
The manufacturing concept of "upper and lower split" and the overall structural characteristics will make people in the industry suddenly think of the "non-load-bearing body" of the automotive industry. In this structure, the frame carries the entire body, the engine, suspension and body are installed on the frame, theoretically the frame can be "naked" without installing the body, and the body is just to give passengers and drivers a comfortable environment, as well as aesthetics.
"Non-loader bodies" are not new in the automotive industry, in fact, early cars were all such structures, and now only trucks, some off-road vehicles and SUVs take this form. The reason behind the gradual edge is that although the "non-load-bearing body" has high stiffness and less vibration, it has heavy quality, high center of gravity and high cost.
However, Li Peng stressed that the Yo-Run UP super chassis is not a "non-load-bearing body". "Although it is split up and down at the time of development, it can become a 'co-bearer' through hard connections." Yo-yo Technology said that through technical means, the chassis and the upper body can be realized in the driving and even collision link, and the body and chassis are subjected to the same force.
In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the design of the "non-loader body" is also different, which can largely avoid the shortcomings of the high center of gravity of the past "non-loader body", "thanks to the small volume of the highly integrated motor and the electronic control system, so that they can be placed in the chassis beam, not as high as the engine, plus the larger battery pack is also integrated into the center of the chassis, further lowering the center of gravity of the skateboard chassis." ”
Will the automotive industry take its own life?
Entering the era of intelligent electric vehicles, car-making players are mostly facing car-making pain points such as "software development iteration, new speed of products, and optimization of cost structure".
Since more than 50% of the bill of materials (BOM) cost of intelligent electric vehicles is concentrated in the power chassis, therefore, traditional car companies in the process of electric intelligent transformation is greatly challenged, some local car companies try to split the electrification business independently, and this practice undoubtedly increases the complexity of multi-supplier collaboration, resulting in long development, adaptation and iteration cycles and high costs; for new car manufacturers, new cars need to invest a lot of research and development costs, resulting in very large pressure on vehicle manufacturing costs. The new speed of the product cannot keep up with the needs of the users of the times.
Yo-Pao Technology pointed out that the second half of the tide of new car manufacturing has begun, and the era of new car manufacturing 1.0 is moving towards the era of new car 2.0. In the past 1.0 era, the "new car-making forces" represented by Tesla are committed to "evolving" fuel vehicles into intelligent electric vehicles; and in the car-making 2.0 era, user needs are more personalized and iterative, high-level intelligent auxiliary driving technology is becoming more mature, the demand for scene cars will enter the explosive period, more new car players are entering the game, and intelligent electric vehicles are evolving towards the intelligent "third mobile space".
When the new car 2.0 era really arrives, the skateboard chassis may become the core technology of car manufacturers. Not long ago, Ouyang Minggao pointed out that the skateboard chassis is one of the two major trends in future vehicle technology, which will bring a revolution to automobile design and manufacturing. Coincidentally, Zhao Fuquan, honorary president of the World Federation of Automotive Engineers (FISITA), also pointed out that in the future of automobile manufacturing, hardware will become more and more standardized, even homogeneous, and software will bring product personalization. This presents an excellent opportunity for businesses with software capabilities, data processing capabilities, and communication computing capabilities.
Youpao Technology believes that when the ecology of the automobile industry is about to change, through the release of "UP Super Chassis" and "UP SPACE Super Cabin", it can create a new modular car-making platform for car-making enterprises, empower the automobile industry to achieve transformation, and promote the transformation of the car-making model and the automobile industry chain.
Based on the forward-looking concept and relatively mature technology (it is said that the Yo-UP super chassis will be mass-produced in 2023), Yo-Run Technology has won the favor of many capitals in the industry. Previously, Boyuan Capital, a subsidiary of Bosch China, led the pre-A+ round of financing for Yo-Run Technology, which was valued at 1.5 billion yuan after the investment, and the two sides also reached a strategic agreement to jointly carry out a series of technical cooperation in the field of integrated skateboard chassis. Earlier, Yo-Run Technology also signed strategic cooperation with Jingxi Heavy Industry and Horizon, and will carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of intelligent vehicle-related fields and edge artificial intelligence chips in the future.
However, it is not easy to move the skateboard chassis from concept to mass production. Li Peng admitted that in the past 9 months, the more difficult thing he has faced is how to change the industry's cognition and promote the industry's self-transformation.
"There are still many experts in the industry, we must firmly press such a new thing as the skateboard chassis in the traditional concept of non-carrier body, how to make everyone jump out and accept that this is a different thing?" Taking a step further, our future challenge is that even if the technology is clearly explained and many engineers understand, he is also faced with a difficult choice, if he really accepts this model, he actually has to revolutionize his own 'life'. Li Peng said.
There is no shortage of doubts about the skateboard chassis and the patterns it brings. The main question is that for the automotive industry, the chassis is a major matter related to safety and performance, and the technology about the chassis in the past is firmly in the hands of the car companies themselves, can a team without experience in mass production of the whole vehicle really build a chassis? Are car companies really willing to give up this piece of "cake" that is still quite large?
"We're thinking about the right thing." Li Peng said, "Sooner or later, one day there will be brave people who will stand up and say that this thing is right, it can change my business model, it can make my cost structure different from before, and I can make a car that can be built with 40 billion yuan, either better than before, or it can be built with 4 billion, because the value pursued by users is in another place - I believe that there are such brave and wise people who stand up." ”
In terms of the industry's outlook, Li Peng expects that the skateboard chassis now belongs to an entrepreneurial period of emerging technology, probably in 2024, 2025, with the listing of Apple Cars, becoming the mainstream technology of the entire smart electric vehicle, and there will be different windows before and after that, allowing different players to participate in different ways.
According to media reports, the latest developments in Apple Cars show that the inner cabin of its driverless car launched in 2025 will be similar to Canoo's Lifestyle model. Canoo is another Silicon Valley startup focusing on skateboard chassis research and development, after Apple had planned to acquire Canoo in 2020, and after the acquisition failed, Apple poached its co-founder Ulrich Kranz - the industry speculated that Apple is very likely to use skateboard chassis technology.