In 2021, China's new energy vehicle market has developed by leaps and bounds, with annual sales of more than 3.5 million vehicles and a market penetration rate increasing to 13.4%, fully demonstrating the transformation from policy-driven to market-driven.
Among China's own brand car companies, which company has a faster new energy transformation today? On January 23, Great Wall Motor announced its 2021 annual performance report, which made everyone shine.
In terms of revenue, Great Wall Motor's total operating income in 2021 was 136.317 billion yuan, an increase of 31.95% year-on-year, and its net profit was 6.781 billion yuan, an increase of 26.45% year-on-year.
Behind the excellent revenue data, it is naturally inseparable from the climbing product sales: in 2021, Great Wall Motor sold a total of 1.28 million new cars, an increase of 15.2% year-on-year, exceeding one million sales for six consecutive years.
What is more noteworthy is that The cumulative sales of new energy models of Great Wall Motor in 2021 have reached 137,000 units, accounting for 10.7% of the overall sales volume, which is close to the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the overall market.
In 2021, Great Wall Motors has already handed over an excellent report card.
It is naturally no accident that such achievements can be achieved. Great Wall Motor's way of playing is to lay out the three energy routes of hybrid, pure electricity and hydrogen energy in advance and carry out accurate research and development.
Lemon Hybrid DHT Technology: Building the Foundation
According to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, plug-in hybrid models and pure electric vehicles have grown rapidly at the same time, with a cumulative year-on-year growth of more than 100%.
In the past, the outside world widely questioned that the hybrid technology route was only a "transition route" for the transformation of fuel vehicles to electric vehicles. Judging from the good sales data, hybrid models are the most realistic and feasible technical solutions for consumers in the short term.
Great Wall Motor has launched the research and development of lemon hybrid DHT technology since 2018, and is one of the first Chinese car companies to start related hybrid technology research.
In December 2020, Great Wall Motors' Lemon Hybrid DHT was officially announced, which is a core technology route in the Great Wall Hybrid Technology Route. In 2021, it will start mass production on Weipai Mocha, Macchiato, Latte, Haval H6s, Red Rabbit and other models.
The core value of this hybrid system is that it covers almost all travel scenarios such as low-speed travel, long-term parking, high-speed / urban ring roads on urban roads, etc., which can bring users lower fuel consumption, stronger power and more comfortable travel life.
Its forward-looking and advanced technology is also reflected in the "1-2-3", that is, a hybrid system, two power architectures, and three sets of powertrains. Among them, a hybrid system refers to the "lemon hybrid DHT" using a dual-motor hybrid topology, with pure electricity, mixing, series, energy recovery and other working modes, through the control system intelligent switching, can achieve full speed domain, full scene in the perfect balance of high efficiency and high performance. The two power architectures are based on this, facing different consumer needs, deriving two power architectures of HEV/PHEV.
For a long time, in the field of hybrid, Toyota THS and Honda i-MMD can be called two representative technologies, but they have different characteristics. The Great Wall Motor Lemon Hybrid DHT can be said to be eclectic and achieve further optimization in terms of technical gold content.
At the end of 2021, Great Wall Motors released the upgraded lemon hybrid DHT long-endurance PHEV architecture. It has been equipped with an applied 45kWh large-capacity battery, which can achieve a maximum range of 204 kilometers for pure electric, creating a record for plug-in hybrid models in the industry.
In this way, even plug-in hybrid models only need to be charged once a week to meet the needs of daily commuting. In the future, the 58.96KWh super-capacity battery pack will also be put into production and application, and the model will continue to grow on the basis of the current 204km electric endurance, which can be competent for 99.5% of daily use scenarios and help consumers easily get rid of electric driving anxiety.
The domestic hybrid car market has always been dominated by joint venture brands, and although independent car companies have sporadically launched hybrid models, most of the so-called autonomous hybrid technologies are only upgrades to the original engines, which are regarded as a supplement to the full embrace of electrification.
Great Wall Motor Lemon Hybrid DHT is different, it is completely independently designed, developed by Great Wall Motors, and has completely independent intellectual property rights, with a total of 199 patents, including 80 core patents.
Electrification: Robust layout
In the field of pure electricity, the layout of Great Wall Motors has covered the entire industrial chain, not only staying on the "production of electric vehicles", but also deeply participating in the main links of the upstream and downstream of the entire electrification.
In the field of raw materials upstream of new energy vehicle power batteries, Great Wall Motors participated in the Australian lithium mine with 146 million yuan as early as 2017 to ensure the stability of its own supply chain of electrification transformation.
In the middle of the industrial chain, Great Wall's Honeycomb Energy has grown into an important battery supplier in China. In 2021, Hive Energy has ranked among the top ten installed capacity of domestic power battery companies.
While the installed capacity of batteries is growing, Honeycomb Energy has also independently developed advanced technologies such as cobalt-free laminated cells, L-type long batteries, and LCTP module-free technology.
Participating in lithium ore and laying out battery production are the guarantees for Great Wall Motors' own electrification transformation from the perspective of supply chain control.
In the face of consumers, the Great Wall is still user-centric, and adopts technology research and development and innovation for the problems of electric vehicles that consumers are most concerned about. In the field of battery safety, which is the most concerned by users, Great Wall Motors has given a new solution - Dayu battery technology.
Dayu Battery Technology takes the research and development idea of "changing blockage into thinning", applies 8 new technologies such as heat source isolation and directional detonation, and can achieve no fire and no explosion in the case of thermal runaway triggering in any position in the battery pack, and solves the safety problem of NCM811 high-nickel battery cells that plague the industry.
This technology is the first to build the Mecha Dragon under the Great Wall Motor Salon brand, which also marks the completion of dayu battery technology from technology to landing application. In 2022, Dayu Battery Technology plans to fully apply Towall's new energy series models and face the next generation of new electric vehicle platforms.
In addition to battery technology, Great Wall Motors also continues to innovate in electric drives. Great Wall currently has 35kW-220kW series products, covering A00-D class models, its latest 220kW high-power T-type bridge, the highest efficiency of 95%, power density of 2.4kW/kg, to achieve the industry's outstanding level.
Seize the hydrogen energy outlet: layout the future
For a long time, the ultimate eco-friendly automotive energy source was hydrogen energy – relying on hydroxide reactions to generate electricity, but only emitting pure water, achieving absolute zero emissions. However, due to the difficulty and high cost of hydrogen energy technology research and development, only a few multinational auto giants such as Toyota have previously conducted research and development in this field.
In 2021, Great Wall Motors held a hydrogen energy global strategy conference, showing the technical achievements of many years and the strategic direction in hydrogen energy. We found out that the original Great Wall Motors focused on the future and had been laying out hydrogen energy for many years.
In 2016, Great Wall Motors set up an XEV project team to deeply cultivate hydrogen energy research and development, and today, Great Wall Motors has built an international-level integrated supply chain ecology of "hydrogen production- storage - hydrogen transportation - hydrogenation - application", and released the first vehicle-level "hydrogen power system" full-scenario solution - hydrogen lemon technology.
This technology has realized the full autonomy of the six core technologies and product intellectual property rights of "stack and core components, fuel cell engines and components, four-type hydrogen storage cylinders, high-pressure hydrogen storage valves, hydrogen safety assessment, and liquid hydrogen process", and the localization rate of core components is 100%.
In the second half of 2021, the hydrogen energy products under the Great Wall landed intensively and exploded:
The first batch of 100 49-ton hydrogen energy heavy truck projects of the Great Wall have been put into operation, and the new high-performance membrane electrodes that are completely self-developed have been mass-produced; the latest technologies such as the "Beyond - Shenzhou 200" high-power fuel cell engine, the hydrogen fuel cell detection technology "NORD (NODS) Cloud Doctor", and the "Iogenku" 70MPa multi-functional integrated pressure reducing valve group have been released one by one.
As the world's largest hydrogen producer, the mainland's abundant resources have laid a material foundation for the development of hydrogen energy industry. At the same time, the state has also put forward clear support for hydrogen energy vehicles from the policy level.
In this context, according to relevant forecasts, hydrogen fuel cells will enter a rapid cost reduction channel. In the new hydrogen energy outlet, Great Wall Motors has seized the opportunity.
Write at the end
Cobalt-free battery, Dayu battery technology, lemon hybrid DHT, hydrogen lemon technology...
In 2021, Great Wall Motors' electric, hybrid, hydrogen energy and other core technologies have made major breakthroughs, among them, Dayu battery technology has been installed on the first model of The Salon Mecha Dragon, lemon hybrid DHT technology has been applied to Weipai Mocha, Macchiato, Latte and other series of models, hydrogen energy products have also begun trial operation.
In 2021, under the support of category innovation and technological breakthroughs, Great Wall Motors achieved annual sales of 1.28 million units, which was very fruitful. With more core technology breakthroughs and new products landing, perhaps, this is just the beginning.