After the Spring Festival, a report pushed by Comau attracted everyone's attention.
Comau is a member of the Stellantis Group and is headquartered in Turin, Italy. Provide advanced industrial automation products and systems, the main products are familiar with industrial robots. For example, the battery production line of the Krypton factory is also provided by Comau.
Comau announced that it is working with California electric vehicle manufacturer Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) to collaborate on a full range of automotive body welding in the United States.
The Mullen plant is located in Tinica, Mississippi, WHERE Comau is building a body-in-white welding workshop for the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Facilities Center (AMEC) there. The overall expansion plan includes a 1.2 million square foot welding, painting and final assembly workshop.
It seems that the new car-making forces on the other side of the ocean are also following Tesla's example, in addition to the old Ford, General Motors and other car manufacturers, including Rivian, FF, Fisker have sharpened their knives. Now here comes another Mullen.
This time, Comau provided support for Mullen in terms of design process and equipment, and prepared for the production of one of Mullen's FOUR electric SUV. Five will be available in a variety of powertrain configurations and interior grades, with a slim design of "Strikingly Different".
Regarding Mullen, friends who have always been concerned about the new forces of car-making may have an impression.
Prospect K50
As early as the 2019 Pebble Beach Auto Show, Mulen announced cooperation with the new domestic car-making force At that time, The Future K50 electric sports car appeared at the Pebble Beach site. According to the plan of the year, the future K50 will have the opportunity to repackage and become a new car under the Mulen umbrella.
But then the future car itself also had problems, K50 has become a collectible, this matter is also Barbie Q.
But Mullen didn't give up building cars. At the Los Angeles Auto Show at the end of November 2021, Mullen unveiled its first pure electric car, the Mullen Five. The new car is designed in the form of a Crossover SUV and is scheduled to start production by the end of 2023 and be delivered to customers who order in the second quarter of 2024.
Positioned in a luxury electric SUV, the Mullen Five will be equipped with a 95kWh battery pack, providing an endurance of about 523 kilometers. The high-performance design of the front and rear dual motors accelerates by 3.2 seconds from 0-96 km/h and the top speed is limited to 250 km/h.
Mullen claims that The Five has fast charging technology that takes only 21 minutes to charge from 0% to 80%.
By the way, Mullen is a technology company with ai, Internet of Things and other technologies, and it is also developing solid-state polymer battery technology. In the future, new cars using solid-state batteries will have a maximum range of 1030 kilometers, and batteries between -40°C and 60°C will also maintain a stable characteristic.
To reduce the weight of the car, the Mullen Five features a slim "Strikingly Different" design that includes a very large number of carbon fiber components (the U.S. leads in carbon fiber technology) and carbon ceramic brake discs.
Mullen Five initially offered an L2.5-level driver assistance system with a voice-operated infotainment system. The Mullen Five, priced at $55,000, claimed to have secured 25,000 pre-orders at last year's Los Angeles Auto Show.
The interesting thing is that whether it's Tesla, which sells best in the U.S., or Future FF, Fisker, or Mullen Five, they're all designs that advertise high performance.
Our understanding is that on the one hand, the United States has a large land area, but travel is mainly driven by car, so the average mileage is very high. Long-distance driving is the short board of electric vehicles, and the market that just needs to be transported is not as convenient as fuel vehicles.
On the other hand, the OIL price in the United States is very low, the V8 large displacement is still selling, and the economic advantages of electric vehicles are not obvious.
Therefore, at this stage, the US electric vehicle market is not based on just need to travel, and there is a large market for high-performance and high-priced luxury models, which is somewhat similar to the positioning of domestic Weilai.