Cars, like mobile phones, are disruptive with the emergence of core solution providers.
In 2003, MediaTek launched a single-chip mobile phone solution, which integrates modules such as communication baseband, Bluetooth, and cameras, allowing countless small manufacturers in Shenzhen to assemble mobile phones for only a few hundred yuan. "Cottage machine" is popular, which is the precursor to the birth of well-known brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, VIVO, OPPP and so on.
In 2022, on January 11, Yoyo Technology released the "UP Super Chassis", which integrates the traditional body-in-white, suspension, braking, steering, battery, electric transmission system and other components, so that car manufacturers only need to do a good job in the shape, space and intelligence of the body, they can make a smart electric vehicle, and the international century-old manufacturer PK.
Even, Yo-Yo Technology can help you do the body - Yo-Tra Technology has also released a UP SPACE super cabin based on the UP super chassis, covering mainstream models such as cars, MPVs and SUVs. Car builders can let yo-yo foundries and create and operate their own brands.
The idea of running is not wishful thinking. On the other side of the ocean, its forerunner has attracted great attention, that is, Rivian. The start-up car company, which features a skateboard chassis, went public in November 2021, and its market value reached nearly $160 billion at one point, ranking third in the world among global auto companies, and although the stock price later fell, it still had a market value of more than $70 billion.
In terms of business model, Rivian is directly built for the private consumer market and the B-end market. In the private consumer market, it was the first to mass-produce the electric pickup truck (R1T) that Americans like, and also mass-produced and delivered the electric SUV R1S. In 2021, rivian produced 1,015 vehicles and delivered 920 vehicles. In the B-end market, Amazon holds nearly 20% of Rivian's shares and has reached an agreement with Rivian to buy 100,000 electric vans, a deal expected to close by the end of 2025.
Although There is a Rivian hit in front, Yo-Yo still has to tell a story that is not very understandable.
Li Peng, founder and CEO of Youpao Technology (below), summarized it as the new car 2.0. He believes that in the era of new car construction 1.0, car builders are committed to upgrading fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. In the 2.0 era, more cross-domain players can use the super chassis to lightly load the game, and the car will evolve to a smarter, more personalized, scene-driven mobile intelligent space.
If the car-making method of yo-yo is widely implemented, it will completely change the production mode of automobiles and subvert the existing pattern of car companies.
Subverting the traditional century-old big factory is the cross-border new car builder.
Yo-Yo, on the other hand, offers weapons.
1
The "traitor" of the traditional automotive industry
Li Peng, the founder of Yo-Pao, has more than 15 years of experience in the automotive industry.
He worked at Autoliv for 10 years. Autoliv is known for producing automotive occupant protection equipment such as airbags. He later joined the German parts giant Continental. In 2018, Li Peng joined Horizon as the general manager of the intelligent driving division. In 2019, he joined Great Wall as vice president and executive officer of the Digital Center, first responsible for Xiandou Intelligence, a vehicle networking company under Great Wall Motors, and later briefly responsible for the Salon of Great Wall's high-end intelligent car project.
In April 2021, Li Peng left Great Wall Motors to found Youpao Technology. Similar to him, 60% of the employees have more than 10 years of experience in the automotive industry, and 50% have experience in technology companies. The proportion of masters and doctors is 50%.
The team has a deep understanding of the traditional car development model and has become a challenger to this model. Li Peng concluded that fundamentally "the existing car-making model cannot keep up with the 'user-oriented' era of intelligent electric vehicle consumption."
Li Peng said that the traditional car-making model is a vehicle-integrated development, based on the body-in-white, even tesla and Wei Xiaoli, which are new car-making forces. This model has a large investment, a long cycle, and a slow iteration. To this end, car companies have to pile up materials, pile people and pile products.
But "the car that users really need is a more personalized, smarter and cheaper car." Li Peng said. The feeling of tearing between the traditional car-making model and the needs of users is getting bigger and bigger. ”
Therefore, unlike Tesla and Wei Xiaoli's new car 1.0 model, Yo-Pao proposed a new car 2.0 model: upper and lower split development.
The so-called split development means that the new car manufacturer can use the car body developed by Yo-Run, that is, the super chassis, plus the self-developed body, combined into a new model.
In the part of the car body provided by Yo-Run, the three electrics, suspension, braking, steering, intelligent driving system, and thermal management system have been integrated, that is to say, the vehicle can basically run up without a car body. New car manufacturers can focus on the design of the upper body, the space, the definition and implementation of the intelligent cockpit – that is, the more personalized and intelligent parts.
Yo-Pao calculates that this split development model will shorten the cycle of 6-12 cycles compared with the integrated development of the whole vehicle. Because, on the one hand, the super chassis releases the constraints of modeling for engineering development; on the other hand, the upper and lower vehicle combination only needs to verify the durability of the upper body, and the vehicle experiment is not limited by the season; the new model is put into production, and the tooling adjustment and process verification time can be greatly shortened.
At the same time, since the car body is standardized, on the basis of scale, the super chassis is expected to reduce costs.
2
How super is the Super Chassis?
Yo-Yo's super chassis was developed for smart electric vehicles.
On this super chassis, Youtube integrates four leading technologies: a full-wire chassis, a pluggable ring EEA (electrical and electronic architecture), a CTC battery system and a highly integrated thermal management system.
The full-line control chassis is necessary for high-level autonomous driving models, which can control the front and rear (acceleration and deceleration), left and right (steering), up and down (suspension) of the vehicle with electronic signals. Based on this, car companies can also develop some fun driving experiences, such as customizing driving styles, such as providing supercar modes.
The so-called pluggable ring network EEA refers to the EEA of Ethernet communication. With the evolution of fuel vehicles to intelligent electric vehicles, enterprises represented by Tesla will continue to push EEA to the direction of high integration, high communication, high redundancy, and upgradeability. This means that car companies also need huge software development capabilities, which makes it difficult for even giants like Volkswagen to control – the ID series has been postponed several times because of software problems.
The solution of Yo-Pao allows new car manufacturers to get rid of the electronic and electrical architecture, while ensuring that the vehicle has a software architecture that adapts to intelligent electric vehicles. This architecture of Yo-Ypao supports future L4+ level autonomous driving, with communication redundancy, brake redundancy, steering redundancy, computing power redundancy, perception redundancy and power supply redundancy.
Li Peng put forward a loud slogan here: "Let the whole vehicle become an always-on travel robot."
CTC battery system, is now Tesla, Ningde times and other enterprises are exploring, the battery cell is directly integrated into the chassis, so as to abandon the module, battery pack link, improve the utilization rate of the battery cell, of course, the challenge is the management of the battery cell, especially safety. At present, the most cutting-edge Tesla has demonstrated this technology in the Berlin factory, and after mass production in the Berlin factory, the industry may have the first CTC model.
CTC will lead to longer battery life and better space utilization. Li Peng introduced that the CTC system of Yo-Yo-Running can achieve a 10% increase in the endurance of the same length, an increase of 10% in the effective volume of the battery compartment, and a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
Judging from the figure of the PPT at the press conference, the CTC scheme of Yo-Yo-Run should be based on a square hard-shell battery, which is similar to a BYD blade battery, but the size is shorter.
The highly integrated thermal management system is to cope with the difficulties of electric vehicle winter heating. The solution is to combine the battery pack, the electric drive system and the heating of the cabin. Tesla and other car companies are doing this. Li Peng said that their plan can increase energy efficiency by 100% and reduce energy consumption for heating in winter by about 70%.
Based on these four technologies, Li Peng believes that they have created a "soft and hard integrated operating system", and it is "born for the freedom of car manufacturing", which can achieve "free performance definition", "freedom of development", "freedom of mileage" and "freedom of vehicle layout".
Specific to the performance of the vehicle, the Yo-Run Super Chassis supports two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive layout, more than 1000 kilometers of endurance, more than 1000 TOPS computing power and L4+ level automatic driving.
In terms of R&D rhythm, Yo-Trade currently has a demonstration product, and the mass production time of the super chassis is set for 2023. Models with super chassis, even later.
The chassis is the core technology of traditional car companies. If this technology is completely provided by a third party, it will be six gods and no masters in the thinking of traditional car companies.
However, Youpao believes that the generalization and standardization of the chassis is a better choice in the era of intelligent electric vehicles. Li Peng even said these words in a speech: "Today, the chassis is still regarded as a home-oriented OEMs, and it will be eliminated in the era of intelligent electric vehicles in the future." ”
3
The future of the super cabin
With the car body, what can the body do when getting on the car?
Yo-Yo designed its own 5 styles of upper body and exhibited 3 of them, allowing the outside world to more intuitively see what can be done based on the super chassis.
Yo-Yo gives renderings of 5 different styles of mounted bodies, including cars, MPVs, SUVs, pickups and vans.
These 5 kinds of car bodies are using a yo-yo UP super chassis, because there is no engine compartment, the suspension is integrated into the chassis, the steering wheel is controlled in-line, so the obstacles affecting the design of the cockpit space are greatly eliminated, and these 5 upper bodys have great space.
At the launch, Youpao exhibited three upper body, including the coupe UP SPACE 01, the Super MPV UP SPACE 02 and the Super SUV UP SPACE 03.
Super MPV UP SPACE 02 is open to some media visitors. This less than 4.5-meter car can be equipped with 3 rows of seats. Pillar B adopts the design of the two-seat door, and can also be selected in combinations of five seats, six seats, two or three rows of seats. The steering wheel is designed to be retractable, indicating that the car supports both autonomous driving and normal driving.
Under the solution of Yo-Yo-Pao, what can new car manufacturers do? How can the two sides cooperate? What else can I make money for?
Li Peng's own definition is that Yo-Pao is an intelligent soft and hard operating system, and new car-making forces can develop a variety of cars based on this system.
The advantage of the super chassis is to greatly reduce the cost of building a car, "you can make a car that can be built for 40 billion, either better than before, or it can be built with 4 billion." ”
"Our border is a brand that yo-yo does not do C-end. Therefore, C-end cars will still have their own partners, who will define and operate their own customers. Currently we have customers like Rivian and Ford, Rivian and Amazon customers. ”
At present, the car companies that Yo-Tro have announced are Kaiyi Automobile and Dongfeng Liuqi. However, Li Peng said that the cooperation with car companies is currently a package framework agreement, "the first stage of work has been carried out is joint development and OEM." ”
In addition, Li Peng also said, "We are negotiating a lot of intentional partners, which include both traditional car companies that everyone can imagine, as well as car companies with new forces, and technology companies." ”
However, the cooperation model advocated by Yo-Yo Pao poses a challenge to business model innovation for brand operators, because the possibility of making money by selling cars is already very small. This is obviously more suitable for new car builders who have crossed the border.
"Does WEILAI Make Money by Production?" Does Apple make money by production? Li Peng said, "What they should rely on to make money is exactly what the automotive industry should do in 5-10 years, and today's automotive industry that makes money by manufacturing should not have such a high multiple of PE value." ”
Li Peng also admitted that the biggest challenge brought about by the positioning of Yo-Yo is to "change the perception of the industry and change the existing value chain of the industry." ”
4
Criticism and response
Before the release of Yo-Yo, the concept of skateboard chassis has been circulated in the circle of engineers and investment and financing circles, and after the listing of Rivian, it has become a hot track.
For the skateboard chassis, as well as the concept of the super chassis of the yo-yo, many engineers have done analysis and put forward a lot of criticism.
One theory is that skateboard chassis is more suitable for hardcore off-road and commercial vehicles, which stems from the logic of non-carrying bodywork. Skateboard chassis combination mode, no need to load on the car body. Today's passenger cars are basically load-bearing bodies, and only some commercial vehicles and hard-core off-road vehicles use non-load-bearing bodies.
However, Li Peng believes that the super chassis of Yo-Yo-Pao has nothing to do with passenger cars and commercial vehicles, and the cars created are carried together with the upper and lower car bodies. The engineers of Yo-Run further explained that the upper body and chassis of the super chassis are connected together by hard connections, so the overall bending stiffness and torsional stiffness will be strong, which is less likely to deform than the load-bearing body.
Related to the NVH problem, the load-bearing body is directly connected to the wheels, and vibration and noise are transmitted to the cockpit. The super chassis is also cushioned by the suspension of the wheel hub and the suspension of the motor.
As for some engineers questioning, a standard sliding chassis is used in cars, MPVs, SUVs and even commercial vehicles at the same time, the driver's field of vision may be limited, the engineer of the yo-yo response said that the driver's upper vision, limited by the design of the cockpit, has nothing to do with the chassis; the driver's lower vision, in the era of traditional fuel vehicles, because the engine hatch is relatively high, there will be restrictions, but now in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the front cabin can be done very low, or even without the front cabin, so the field of vision is completely unrestricted. However, some engineers have questioned that the limitation of suspension height will also affect the field of vision, even if it is the same chassis, it may also need to be individually designed for the suspension of different upper body.
Some engineers also proposed that in the collision design of the load-bearing body, there are more than two collision force conduction paths, which can disperse the collision force and ensure the safety of the car body, but the skateboard chassis does not have this design. The engineers of Yo-Run said that at present, from the simulation results, there is no problem with collision safety. In terms of side touches, the side of the chassis has been targeted to ensure the safety of the battery pack.
There are also criticisms that the super chassis integrates most of the core components of a car, and the cost is basically concentrated here, which means huge development costs and experimental verification investment. Traditional car companies need more than a billion or even billions to develop a car, and the amount of money needed by the super chassis company will not be less.
At present, the strength of Yo-Yo-Pao is still small, especially the research and development project covers software and hardware, and integrates many core components, and also applies many industry-first technologies. Yo-Run has only 155 employees so far, raised three rounds of financing, and is valued at 1.5 billion. However, Li Peng said that a new round of financing news will be announced soon.
The company is not too big, but Li Peng is proud to think that Youpao is in the lead, and the barriers are not small. He said, "At present, in our field of vision, the companies that really do the 'skateboard chassis' under our definition standards are really not seen in China." He believes that based on the development logic of the body-in-white, it cannot be developed up and down separately, and it cannot support the ecology, then it is not a skateboard chassis.
He believes that many suppliers still do some related development on the basis of their core components, and cannot do the development of upper and lower splits.
It is not easy for traditional car companies to make super chassis. Li Peng believes that this is a change in the research and development model, "the challenge of traditional car factories to transform to do skateboard chassis will be great", including the cognitive challenges and organizational mechanisms of traditional car factories. "From the perspective of the technology itself, it is difficult for traditional car factories to support such a highly integrated product with the technology developed by the traditional car factory itself. It's actually a combination of the original Tier1 capabilities of some tech companies and the original depot stuff. So I think it can't be said that traditional car manufacturers can't do it (skateboard chassis), but the challenges it faces can't be underestimated. ”
Overall, Li Peng is full of confidence in the prospects of the super chassis. He believes that in 2024 and 2025, with the listing of Apple Cars, the skateboard chassis will change from the current entrepreneurial emerging technology to the mainstream technology of smart electric vehicles.