At the beginning of 2022, many car companies have used every means to attract the attention of consumers. However, in the face of the pre-sale and listing of many new cars, one model stood out and once again attracted the attention of the market and consumers.
From the appearance to the tasting, to the "Driving the Future" theme test drive held in Chongqing on January 5, it all touched the eyes of consumers and the media. In the mountain city of Chongqing, a city that combines "magic city" and "natural wonders", it has once again won a large number of fans and media with its outstanding performance. It is - Changan UNI-V.
As the third model after UNI-T and UNI-K, it is also the first sedan in Changan UNI's high-end sequence. UNI-V is built based on the Ark architecture of Changan's latest platform technology, which not only inherits the family's genes of high value and strong technology, but also has a new exclusive coupe chassis, special blue whale power, high stiffness and lightweight "Ark Cage" body structure, which meets all the needs of young consumers in the new era for a sports car. Obviously, while people are amazed by the power of UNI-V's products, the Ark architecture that provides important technical support for UNI-V has also begun to surface. It is precisely because of the empowerment brought about by technological progress that it paves the way for the mass production of the UNI-V concept.
The contradiction between the two sentences of "The World's Peace and Tranquility" and "I Want It All" can reflect the relationship between consumers and car companies at present. On the one hand, the user's higher pursuit of driving control, safety and energy saving, on the other hand, the car companies are suffering from factors such as process and cost that cannot fully meet the needs of consumers. The emergence of Toyota's TNGA architecture has allowed consumers to finally see the hope of "I want it all". But this rule lasted until the end of 2020, and with the advent of the Chang'an Ark architecture, the TNGA structure's rule has disappeared.
Similar to the TNGA architecture, the Ark architecture reconciles the contradictions of driving control, safety and energy saving. In fact, whether it is from the actual performance or from Changan UNI-V to win the "China Top Ten Body Design Award", it is all about the technological innovation and product potential displayed by the Ark structure. For example, TNGA's improvement in Corolla's driving control stemmed from a 20mm lower center of gravity and a 25mm lower height. In contrast, the Ark structure goes a step further, reducing the changan UNI-V's longer center of gravity by 30mm and shifting the center of gravity inward by 5mm, which greatly improves its handling, roll stability and ride comfort. In addition, the Ark architecture also optimizes the NVH performance, the body architecture design as far as possible to reduce the opening rate of the sound insulation pad, improve the material coverage, the front wall panel sound insulation performance increased by 2dB, so that the comfort of Changan UNI-V to be further improved.
Changan UNI-V's improvement in handling and comfort is not only due to the improvement of body counterweight, but also to the greatly improved rigidity of the vehicle. The Ark structure uses topology optimization technology to greatly enhance the stiffness of the car body, equipped with a new front McPherson, rear multi-link four-wheel independent suspension system, based on genetic algorithms to redesign the suspension hard points, giving UNI-V more excellent handling stability and driving texture.
However, only the improvement of the driving control level can undoubtedly not meet the needs of consumers for energy conservation, nor does it conform to the low-carbon world trend. How to make the vehicle meet the driving control while reducing fuel consumption, it is inevitable that there is a classic saying: the car is light one kilogram of horsepower plus half a horse! How to lose weight has become the top priority. The Ark structure has given Changan UNI-V a new beam structure design and extensive use of thermoformed high-strength steel, achieving a weight reduction of 20-45kg; thus bringing a new generation of products traditional power (the whole series is equipped with a new blue whale power) 100 km fuel consumption of up to 8%, PHEV new energy reduced by 15%, reaching the international first-class level. It is worth mentioning that in the body of Changan UNI-V, high-strength steel and above account for up to 70%, and the highest rigidity reaches 1500MPa. Among them, many parts such as B-pillar reinforcements use thermoforming, and many parts such as sill beams use ultra-high strength steel. These are all cockpit frames, which can significantly improve the deformation resistance of the cockpit in the event of a collision, protect the occupants as much as possible, and also increase the rigidity of the vehicle by 20%. At the same time, the upper body of Changan UNI-V has been reduced by 31kg, and with the optimization of the external covering sheet metal parts, the weight reduction of the whole vehicle has reached 6kg. This allows Changan UNI-V to achieve a light weight improvement and a reduction in fuel consumption of the vehicle while taking into account safety.
What level is this? Taking the mainstream models currently on the market as an example, there are not a few models that use high-strength steel and thermoformed steel, but the coverage ratio is mostly 60% or less, and the proportion of steel with a strength of more than 1300Mpa will not exceed 30%. This is largely related to the cost, assuming that ordinary steel 5000 yuan / ton, high strength steel may be 6000-8000 yuan / ton, ultra-high strength steel may be 10000 yuan / ton. It can be seen that the security of Changan UNI-V is not a stack of data, but a large cost, forged with real materials.
In fact, when the automotive industry moves from extensive car manufacturing to platform car manufacturing, the gap between them has become indistinct, and the competition between car companies has shifted from the past three major pieces to other dimensions. Changan Automobile's "design-oriented" has made a good demonstration and guidance for the rest of the enterprises. And from the perspective of the body hardware design of Changan UNI-V, the Changan Ark architecture undoubtedly shows its leading industry advantages. But some people may ask: Is it really worth spending so much effort in the field of fuel vehicles at the moment?
With the development trend of society, environmental protection requires people to change the development trend of vehicles, and vehicle intelligent systems, electrification, and new energy technology are slowly recognized as the future development trend by various automobile companies around the world. Nowadays, a variety of new energy vehicles have prevailed, that is, intelligent systems, electrified vehicles are the future development trend, why Changan Car in the whole process of product development Ark evolutionary structure, but also need to unremittingly update the traditional gasoline vehicle technology? There are three main reasons: First, from the perspective of the development status of new energy, pure electric models still have many deficiencies. The first is that China's territory is vast, and pure electric models are difficult to cope with China's complex car situation, such as in the cold northeast cities in winter, pure electric models are almost impossible to walk. Secondly, charging piles and other related supporting facilities need to be improved, and battery technology needs to be developed. At present, the number of domestic charging piles far exceeds the number of gas stations, but the voice of new energy car owners complaining about the difficulty of charging is heard from time to time, which shows that endurance anxiety is still widespread.
Second, you can't waste food because of choking. Electrification is the trend of the future, but today's consumers need a strong product to meet their own needs. In recent years, with the substantial increase in the ownership of electric vehicles, the basic construction rate of charging piles has gradually failed to keep up with the rapid development of the rhythm, the problem of battery charging difficulties has become increasingly prominent, customer anxiety can not be processed, and the application feeling is still not very good. In contrast, the Changan UNI-V given by the Ark architecture not only meets the mission of the low-carbon era, but also allows users to feel the benefits of energy conservation and emission reduction while avoiding endurance anxiety, which is the real consideration for users.
Third, the development of fuel vehicles may not be unable to feed back the development of new energy vehicles. Just like the development of mobile phones to intelligence, even if the communication mode changes (the emergence of chat tools such as WeChat), the most basic functions such as telephone communication and information will not be abolished, and consumers' fundamental pursuits of signal and quality will not change. The essence of the car is first of all the car, and then the other, and it will not completely degenerate into another kind of object because of its development to the new four modernizations.
Taking the Changan Ark architecture as an example, it has more advantages that platform-based vehicles cannot match: high quality and reliability, high generalization rate of parts, and more personalized design soil, none of which can be fed back into the field of new energy and prepare for the electrification transformation. It can be said that the structure has represented the technical level of a car, has become the iconic manufacturing strength of world-class car companies, and is also a necessary way for independent car companies to become an internationally competitive brand.
Changan Automobile's corporate values are to adhere to the principle of "customer-centric, providing the ultimate service and experience", which is invisibly in line with the current trend of "user co-creation". It is precisely because of this corporate belief that Changan Automobile regards every user as its own "partner", and there is an Ark architecture that we see today. If the legendary Noah's Ark is to carry the hope of mankind, then the Ark structure of Changan Automobile is undoubtedly a banner for the upward development of Chinese automobiles in essence. The background of winning the 2021 China Top Ten Body Awards without listing is precisely the best verification of the identity of Changan UNI-V flag bearer, and Changan Automobile, which has entered the era of architecture and car manufacturing, will continue to take off! (Image source network, invasion and deletion)