Text | Hula circle
No one doubts anymore that we are now ushering in a historic change in the automotive industry that is rare in a century. For practitioners, this is an opportunity and challenge that cannot be missed; for consumers, it gives us the right to vote with our wallets once. Whether to try new and radical new car companies, or to support the old-school and reliable traditional car companies, is in front of us all.
On the one hand, the attractive sense of science and technology, creativity and user thinking of the new car power, on the other hand, the mature system, humanized details and solid foundation of the old car companies are reassuring. Therefore, we have been looking forward to the early maturity of new car manufacturers, so that more consumers can enjoy technology and innovation without worries.
But in addition to such expectations, we seem to ignore the fact that the so-called traditional car companies can never stop and watch themselves be pulled away by new players on the new track. In fact, a "new car with a century-old accumulation" is being conceived in Ford's newly upgraded China product center...
Different from the land of China in the past
Aerial view of Nanjing Engineering R&D Center
China is becoming a hot land for global automotive technology innovation, and Ford Motor has been using the spirit of innovation as the brand soul for a hundred years. It is not difficult to explain why the two major Ford China R&D and test centers in Nanjing will be upgraded to Ford China Product Center today as part of the "Ford China 2.0" plan.
As early as 2007, Ford established an engineering research and development center in Nanjing. It is one of Ford Motor's eight global product development centers, with R&D and experimental facilities covering a full range of R&D and experimental facilities such as electrical and electronic laboratory, powertrain and electrification laboratory, materials laboratory, body-in-white precision matching laboratory, environmental laboratory and innovation space.
In 2017, Ford established a product testing center in Gaochun, Nanjing, covering an area of 988 acres, becoming one of Ford's seven major test sites in the world. It uses the same construction specifications and materials as Ford's North American, European and Australian test centers, has a number of test tracks including a 3-kilometer loop, and takes into account the actual road characteristics of China, adding 15 typical pavements such as manhole cover roads.
Aerial view of Nanjing Test Center
Previously, the main work of the China R&D center and the test center was limited to the localization of Ford's global products and the adaptation and tuning work; and after the two were merged and upgraded to the Ford China product center, the attributes were already comparable to Ford's north American, Ford Europe and other product centers. The Ford China Product Center now has more than 2,000 engineering and R&D personnel who can design and develop new models for Ford's global market, which can be described as based in China and looking forward to the world.
After all, today's China is not just the most important single market. As Ford Global CEO Jim Farley puts it, "China is no longer just the market for the largest car sales, but a place where we cultivate and learn from experience." Ford China is ahead of other markets in both electrification and digital customer experience, and the Chinese market is already leading the world in terms of retail, technology and experience. ”
Our consumers are no longer satisfied with the introduction of the original version of overseas models and the use of what they have, as in the past, but have and clarify the characteristics of their own needs. Any car company that cannot understand and meet the needs of Chinese consumers will lose this vast market and a rare opportunity to lead the global automotive revolution. Jim Farley once said, "China can help Ford to achieve dna transformation, let us achieve a strategic eastward move." ”
Ford China Product Center enables Ford to be close to the experience and needs of Chinese consumers in real time, so as to integrate the inspiration and thinking obtained from the Chinese market on the basis of Ford's century-old experience in car manufacturing, and create a new generation of models facing China and going global. The upgrading and establishment of the China Product Center is enough to show that Ford attaches great importance to the Chinese market and recognizes Ford's local R&D capabilities in China.
Ford re-established as "Ford"
Any large multinational car company will feel unprecedented pressure in today's Chinese market.
Chinese consumers' cognition of automotive products is becoming more and more mature, and people's preferences for their own needs are more clear and affirmative, and they will no longer unconditionally accept those products that have not been considered and designed for themselves. For the veteran joint venture car companies, the past thinking of the Chinese market as just a nugget is impossible to continue.
As China's new car manufacturers join the battle, traditional independent brands have been innovating, and more and more excellent competitors are familiar with local consumer demand. With more abundant and diverse choices, consumers also hope that car companies can think of what they think. Overseas car companies are no longer feasible to build cars behind closed doors in China, and any practice of underestimating the preferences of local consumers will be taught by the market.
On the one hand, consumers are becoming more and more determined and confident in their own needs, and on the other hand, the rise of China's local automotive technology innovation. Established giants like Ford suddenly find themselves needing the experience of the Chinese market and the power of Chinese innovators to continue to burn and become more exuberant. In this context, the "Ford China 2.0" plan can be said to be inevitable and the best result.
The rich and diverse localization needs of Chinese consumers and the new technologies and ideas cultivated by market competition are valuable assets for joint venture car companies from overseas. Letting this resource, this ability, be used for oneself, and even feed back to other markets around the world in the future, is a rare opportunity given by the Chinese market. China is helping Ford to re-raise the banner of innovation and make Ford automotive back to the "century-old Ford" that leads the global automotive development.
When the century-old brand enters the "no man's land"
The Ford EVOS, the first strategic model under the Ford China 2.0, was developed by the Ford China Product Center, which is entirely driven by the Chinese consumer experience. The China Product Center is also responsible for the adaptation of the domestic version of the world's first smart pure electric SUV, Mustang Mach-E. In the near future, more new models will be born here for China and even the global market.
The EVOS is for the first time that Ford has built a new model entirely driven by the Chinese consumer experience. In order to maintain the unique DNA of Ford brand products, as far as possible to meet the needs of Chinese users and local usage habits, Ford China Product Center based on a large number of long-term research results, breaking through engineering and design obstacles, so that EVOS has a series of cutting-edge technologies used for the first time, becoming an innovative intelligent model with Ford's century-old accumulation.
For Ford, for Ford China, this is a bold and deliberate attempt to enter the "no man's land".
Big screen smart
The car has entered the era of intelligent interconnection, and the most eye-catching thing on EVOS is the huge 1.1-meter-long screen in the car. According to the core team of the intelligent cockpit of The Ford China Product Center, EVOS was initially planned for a 15-inch vertical large screen, which was already adopted by domestic models at that time, but it was not yet a trend of molding. So Ford China organized a customer survey, and the result was that everyone preferred horizontal screens to vertical screens.
With directions, the next step is the layout. The classic way of horizontal screen layout is naturally a triptych screen that is not rare today. However, after discussion, the Ford China Product Center came up with a different idea.
Combined with the team's observation of the development of the Chinese market in recent years, as well as feedback from customers and market departments, everyone believes that although the triple screen was completely acceptable at the time, if you look at it from a longer-term perspective, perhaps soon Chinese consumers will not be satisfied with the splicing of the three screens. The idea of integrating the three screens appeared in the conclusions of The Ford China Product Center.
Ford China hopes to combine the central screen with the co-pilot screen, plus the driver's LCD instrument screen, changing the three screens into dual screens. This significantly improves the look and feel of the screen when lit up, but it also means that the center and co-pilot need a huge screen that measures up to 27 inches. There were no cases to refer to at that time, and even today it is very rare, and the Ford China project team that proposed the dual-screen plan has no bottom in mind.
But after tangling again and again, the team finally got a unanimous consensus: to face the difficulties. EVOS is originally a new work of the Ford brand, but also the first time for Ford China Product Center to lead the development of the whole vehicle, even if there are difficulties, even if it may fail, the team must treat the project with the highest sincerity, so that the final work can be handed over to the user with the highest sincerity.
With no precedent, no peers, and no experience to refer to, a legendary car brand with a century-old history has voluntarily entered the "no man's land". If the program fails, much of the previous work will be wasted and the development progress of the project will be delayed.
Fortunately, this road that had never been seen before was finally cleared by the Ford China team. After continuous running-in, repeated research, and repeated screening, the Ford China team finally got the most suitable 27-inch central control co-driver integrated large-screen solution for EVOS.
Replacing physical buttons with an all-in-one large screen requires touch screen taps to meet the requirements of high durability and stability, and also faces problems such as screen reflections. To this end, the EVOS team selected a special film for the instrument screen from only two manufacturers in the world, narrowing the light angle to reduce reflection. In order to pass the vehicle standard, the whole large screen was tested for 500 hours of continuous operation at -30 °C, 85% continuous trouble-free 1000 hours of 70 °C humidity, and 7 days of continuous exposure to high temperature at 90 °C.
The strict but basic requirements have been met, and this huge screen cannot affect the safety of the occupants and prevent evos from successfully passing the vehicle crash test. Especially for the large screen extending to the front of the co-driver, the EVOS team has made a clever design for the airbags behind the screen, so that the moment the airbags detonate and unfold, the screen is wrapped, which avoids the interference of the two and prevents the possible splash of the screen glass. To this end, the EVOS team communicated with airbag and screen glass suppliers many times, determined the customized parameter requirements and tested them, and finally took more than a year to successfully realize the large-screen solution.
Unprecedented hardware is available, and how to make the most of it has become a problem.
The high-definition full screen with a span of 1.1 meters has neither peers to learn from, nor north American architecture as a reference guide. After all, EVOS is a member of the Ford brand family, and the project team needs to develop an independent interactive interface that adapts to the unique layout of EVOS, but it cannot be completely separated from the Ford global architecture in North America. This requires not only the hard strength of the Chinese team's research and development, but also in-depth communication and collaboration with the North American side.
Flexible use of large screens
Engineers designed three modes for different driving scenarios. When the driver travels alone, the single-player mode concentrates the operation area on the left side of the 27-inch large screen; when accompanied by a co-driver, the joint driving fun mode and the split-screen mode allow the co-driver to cooperate to control the large-screen car interface, or the two people use the left and right parts separately. These three interaction modes of EVOS are the first in the industry at Ford's China Product Center, allowing users to get flexible and appropriate use of the big screen.
However, such an innovative design also greatly increases the workload of the team. The split-screen, full-screen, and cross-screen applications on the 27-inch large screen have increased several times compared with the single, independent central control screen. "Although it seems that only the overall size of the screen is enlarged, but more modes, interfaces, and scenes need to be matched and connected with each other, the arrangement and combination are extremely complex, and the workload naturally soars, for example, when designing 10 scenes, when the development lands, it may become 100 scenes, and at first no one expected to be so complicated, so many scene combinations; There are times when team members feel very confused and really can't do it..." Forrest Wu, senior manager of vehicle-engine systems applications in China, recalls.
He revealed that in order to catch up with the progress, the team members once voluntarily gave up weekends and holidays. The car and machine software team uses the fast-paced Internet working mode to deal with the new problems that continue to arise in the research and development process, and sets up a special team of 3-5 people for the difficulties to quickly discuss and solve the problems. The project team completed up to 500-600 full test validations per day, and although it was more than ten times harder to improve the fluency than smartphones, it eventually became a reality on EVOS. He was relieved that the validated standards had not been compromised in the slightest because of the soaring complexity of the development, and all the features had been fully validated.
Ford EVOS is capable of achieving 6.6 seconds of acceleration time from 100 km/h
When it comes to adapting to the needs of the Chinese market, the balance of comfort and handling has always been an unavoidable issue, and the Ford China team was no exception when it came to developing EVOS. Sport and comfort are naturally a pair of contradictions, and Ford China's engineers are well aware that "consumers are 'greedy'", and in the development process they must also be "more 'greedy', not willing to compromise control, but not willing to sacrifice comfort." ”
So since fish and bear paws can't have both, how to find the best balance between the two has become the key to the problem. Although evos is led by the Ford China team and optimized for Chinese consumers, it is still a Ford in the final analysis, and the driving pleasure that the Ford brand has insisted on for a hundred years cannot be absent.
After extensive simulation, real-car testing, and comparative selection at Ford's China Product Center, the EVOS adopted a long and short arm independent rear suspension that improves handling. This puts the EVOS chassis in a relatively smooth position, thus combining excellent handling with ideal comfort. With the help of the test center's localized simulated pavement, engineers also tuned the shock absorbers for the road conditions in China, making evos more suitable for the roads here.
In addition to the chassis, Chinese consumers' preference for comfort has also led the development team to focus on seat design. The EVOS seat comfort R&D project is constantly evolving, running in, and updating for 2 to 3 years.
Ford North America has long accumulated a lot of experience and data on seats, and has a relatively perfect comfort detection system, so it has formed Ford's own understanding of car seat comfort and formed a unique seat comfort DNA. However, in China, due to different regions, races and habits, Ford China needs to optimize and adjust the seating standards formulated by Ford North America.
The Ford China project team collected a large number of user needs, user feedback and user suggestions from all over the world according to the physical characteristics of the Chinese people. It is based on this unique first-hand information that the team has formulated what angle and posture the passengers' torso, legs, feet and other body parts should be. With advanced seat test robots, engineers can perform quantitative analysis of seat softness.
With an experienced R&D team and advanced R&D equipment, the shape, material and details of each seat of EVOS have been adjusted countless times by the project team. In particular, the key seat filler has been tested and adjusted more than ten times for performance indicators such as softness and hardness of the foam material and hysteresis loss. The foam version was updated 8 times throughout the development process until the ride was unanimously approved by the team.
When designing the seat shape, the seat modeling team and the comfort team repeatedly discussed, because even a few millimeters of difference will be perceived by the passenger's body, the length of the seat cushion, the shape of the headrest have been adjusted countless times, blindly tested, and re-optimized. In the opinion of Rose Tong, a Ford engineer in charge of seat comfort, "We don't want to just produce comfortable seats for Chinese customers, but to customize comfortable seats for them." ”
In the survey, Ford China found that the demand for cars by Chinese consumers has long been no longer as simple as a simple means of transportation, but has increased a large emotional demand. They are more looking forward to the connection and interaction between people and cars, not only limited to the interactive interface of the car machine system, but also extended to all aspects inside and outside the car. For Chinese consumers in the new era, the car is not only cold steel, but also should be a communication partner with temperature.
EVOS's sense of ceremony
So the project team moved their minds to make EVOS the first smart car with temperature, which is also a first practice without reference.
From the first glance outside, the Ford China team designed the industry's first scale-type inductive dynamic grille, which contains 87 movable scales. When the owner walks towards the EOVS from a distance, the 3D scaly grille, split headlights and hidden door handles are linked, making the vehicle look like a gradually awakening mechanical life, allowing the owner to enjoy a fully pleasant sense of dynamic ritual.
Behind this interactive experience is that the Ford China team overcame many difficulties. Behind each scale needs strong support, and it cannot be easily deformed by pressure while suspending the form. The swing of the scale armor needs to be controlled by adding a motor behind the back, and the connecting rod behind the scale armor can no longer be opened and closed when it is seen. Half of the 87 scales can be moved, but the starting angle is different, which requires Ford China engineers to do meticulous design.
This is already the case outside the car, and of course there is no lack of interaction in the car. Using the hardware base in the EVOS car, the Ford China team combined their own personal experience and needs to design the "Freedom Secret" function. 4K hd images with a 27-inch large screen, soothing music played with B&O speakers, combined with the ambience lights in the car, allow the occupants of the car to have a "third space" away from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, and can enjoy the rare tranquility at any time. The 27-inch large screen and so on are not only cold and cold numbers, but also the "hard power" that can "warm up".
Forget the term "traditional car companies"
EVOS is the first work led by the Ford China Product Center team under the "Ford China 2.0" program, not only based in China, but also may go to other markets around the world. After making full use of the information, resources and experience obtained in the Chinese market, Ford EVOS has a level of intelligence comparable to that of the latest electric vehicles as a fuel vehicle. This not only cracks the one-sided view that fuel vehicles cannot be intelligent, but also confirms that the so-called "traditional car companies" are fully capable of getting rid of the word "traditional".
The underlying architecture actually illustrates this point, ford EVOS is ahead of a large number of pure electric vehicles on the market, taking the lead in adopting the FNV intelligent interconnection network-wide architecture. As a domain-centralized architecture, FNV ranks among the most integrated E&E architectures in production to date. The highly integrated information interaction processing mode allows the vehicle to more easily call more core modules during OTA, such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, power system, etc., and truly exerts the potential and value of OTA".
At present, even if it is an electric vehicle, most models on the market still use distributed electronic and electrical architecture. The more integrated domain centralized architecture is still in the minority, and basically only appears in the latest generation of pure electric models. "Traditional car company" Ford has adopted such a leading electronic and electrical architecture for fuel vehicle EVOS, and has also used 100 Gigabit Ethernet broadband as the information transmission path in the car, and has also prepared hardware for 5G vehicles. It can be seen that Ford, a "traditional car company", has long been not "traditional".
epilogue
We are standing at the intersection of the new era of automobiles and the old era, with people's thinking inertia, car companies seem to be simply and rudely classified into the new and old categories. But the actual situation is not so clear, whether young or long, car companies are learning from each other and absorbing each other.
Emerging new car manufacturers are also trying to recruit senior members of established car companies. The traditional car companies that have become heavy in the old have also begun a bold transformation in a new direction. The "Ford China 2.0" strategy is the best example, leveraging China's booming wave of automotive innovation, Ford China is creating a new category: standing on the basis of Ford's century-old car manufacturing heritage, integrating innovative ideas from the East.
EVOS is a microcosm, and the integration and upgrade of Ford's China product center marks a sharp increase in Ford's emphasis on the Chinese market. Ford China can have more free and dominant development power, and under the general trend of China leading the world's intelligent and electrified automobiles, this will naturally bring a series of new products that are "more Ford, more Chinese". EVOS is a beginning, and it's only the beginning.
Since then, there should be no longer a distinction between new and old car companies, who said that a century-old store can not become the helmsman of the new era.