In recent years, everyone's awareness of collision safety has been greatly improved, and the use rate of high-strength steel in automobiles has become a hot spot.
It warns car companies: "We must conscientiously and strictly do a good job in publicizing the materials used in the body." ”
You see, the controversy over the Lynk & Co 01 body-in-white material that broke out a few years ago has not yet given a satisfactory answer to consumers. According to the results of a third-party platform announcement, there are still users who have raised objections recently.
Lynk & Co 01 body-in-white material controversy
Let's take a quick look back at the events.
On December 1, 2020, the new Lynk & Co 01 held a press conference, officially announcing that Lynk & Co 01 has reached a comprehensive high-strength steel plate utilization rate of 73.2% and implements global unified standards. During the guest speech at the product launch, the schematic diagram of the body material of Lynk & Co 01 is as follows.
However, recently some car owners found on the official website of Lynk & Co that the distribution of body materials was replaced by the following style.
According to the official explanation, it is because the new Lynk & Co 01 uses a variety of schematic methods such as "five-color logo white body structure schematic" and "six-color logo body steel structure schematic" (which is consistent with the first Lynk & Co 01) in different online and offline scenes.
But that still doesn't explain why the following areas are color-badged differently.
The author agrees with the official statement that the color of different steels is not specified in the national standard. And as an automotive engineer, the author can also add that indeed the steel color marking is quite "arbitrary".
Steel color mark management regulations are usually used for internal agreements, such as the following figure is Baosteel's marking requirements for galvanized TSt02 and TSECC steel plates. However, after a long automotive industry chain, the agreements of various companies are different (or even no agreements), and these two colors are obviously completely different from the intensity meaning represented by the red and blue on the Lynk & Co 01.
But in a car, the colors of different materials are mixed together, and it is certainly not supposed to be. In my opinion, the earliest version of the representation of the side wall of Lynk & Co is miscolored.
The two brothers of Lynk & Co 01 and Lynk & Co 02 have an inseparable relationship, for comparison, the following figure is the body strength distribution of Lynk & Co 02 at the 2019 China Body Conference. So the updated picture, the author believes is the closest to the real situation.
It should be stated that because the analysis is only obtained through comparison and network data, the author can only say that it is "close", and the specific situation remains to be examined.
Don't just focus on the side walls, the floor is actually updated
It is interesting to note that in fact, in addition to the updating of the side wall material logo, the body floor material has also been updated. From the picture on the right, the rear floor (rear seat floor area) is the ultra-high strength steel used, which is stronger than the material shown in the old picture on the left.
The following figure is the body strength distribution of the Lynk & Co 01 from the search on the Internet. If this picture is true, we can also see from another perspective that its middle channel is also ultra-high-strength steel. Similarly, the old picture on the left is not expressed.
As a comparison, it is necessary to look at the brother models of the Lynk & Co 01, which are closely related. As can be seen, the floor strength distribution of Lynk & Co 02 also has this feature.
The depths of the Lynk & Co 01 and Volvo XC40 are deep, with the latter having similar features on the floor. However, it is a "1+1" comprehensive version of the new and old diagrams of Lynk & Co 01, which not only strengthens the side walls, but also strengthens the floor.
In short, this time the Oolong mappers should be responsible. In the new figure, the middle passage and the rear floor (rear seat floor area) are the use of ultra-high strength steel, which is stronger than the previous figure and does not show it.
As for whether the new map reduces the strength of the whole vehicle, I am more inclined to think that the new version of the safety benefit is greater. This safety-hardened design similar to the "dragonfly structure" has a classic case in the industry. For example, Polestar 1 designed a dragonfly-shaped reinforced structure that increased the bending stiffness of the vehicle by 60%, and this T-shaped structure used as a transmission channel for forces, and also improved the defense of front and side collisions.
Polestar 1 is a reinforced rear floor that connects the middle aisle and the sill beams on the left and right sides.
Of course, the discussion about Lynk & Co 01 is only a compromise, and a full range of reinforcement like XC40 is definitely the best choice. For example, bmw's 7 series carbon core carbon fiber reinforced body is also the same as the XC40, taking the route of both inside and outside. Not to mention that the Polestar 1's upper body part is almost entirely made of carbon fiber, including the body sidewall, doors, front wing panels, front cabin cover and rear trunk cover.
Body strength varies between domestic and foreign use
In the above discussion, in addition to the question of material identification, another pain point is whether there is discrimination at home and abroad. Unfortunately, there is no way to go. Therefore, this article will not further analyze Lynk & Co 01, and if there is updated information in the future, it will be followed up and supplemented.
The following discussion is only for the general situation of the industry.
From the perspective of the author's industry work experience alone, there are differences in the use of materials.
In general, the reasons that affect the difference in the use of materials are concentrated in the following three points:
Difficulty of car crash tests in the country;
The profitability goals of the business in the country;
The country's car corrosion protection rating requirements.
The first two points are well understood. Crash tests are difficult and naturally require more powerful body materials. Profit target determines the cost of expenditure, according to the general consensus of the industry, the cost of body-in-white materials accounts for about 20% to 30% of the cost of vehicle materials, and the price of high-strength steel is more expensive, so it will naturally affect the use of body materials.
Regarding the third point, I think everyone usually does not know much. For the body-in-white, the differences at home and abroad are mainly the use of galvanized steel sheets. For example, galvanized steel plate is divided into single-sided galvanized steel plate and double-sided galvanized steel plate, the latter of which has higher corrosion grade requirements, but the natural price is also more expensive.
Why there are still anti-corrosion grade requirements, because the car is exposed all year round, corrosion is the most common and the most prone to problems.
Objectively speaking, European countries are greatly affected by corrosive geographical environmental factors, and the United Kingdom, France and other countries have particularly strict requirements for corrosion resistance of vehicles. But this is not an excuse, like Australia has also put forward high requirements, at least domestic coastal cities should follow these requirements.
The following figure shows the corrosion protection improvements made by a company for Australian models, but the domestic delay has not been achieved.
As can be seen from the figure, the Australian version of the improvement cost 150 yuan. 150 yuan per car may not seem like much, but it sells 100,000 units, but it is 15 million.
How to resolve these issues. The author believes that points 1 and 3 can only rely on industry promotion, such as higher safety standards proposed by third-party security agencies, and corresponding industry standards issued by the state or provincial and municipal governments. At the same time, we consumers should not spoil these enterprises and safeguard their rights, so that enterprises can pay more attention to user needs.
For example, anti-corrosion domestic and foreign markets do not have mandatory regulatory requirements for the time being, like the policies issued by the Australian and New Zealand regional governments are also for vehicle annual inspection, not for the main engine factory, but the main engine factory timely followed up the user's complaints.
Asteron summary
Looking back at the above, the author prefers that the proportion of high-strength steel in the body of Lynk & Co 01 is credible. It is only in the unified identification, characterizing the distribution of body materials and water, enterprises should be more meticulous. We all know that the standard of vehicle regulation products is more stringent, if the company is tight inside and loose on the outside, it will not pay sweat in vain.
The author also calls on all industry partners, we continue to work hard, raise the industry standard, do not give others a loophole. After the supervision of consumers, it is believed that the domestic automobile market will eventually be in line with the world, and even become a leader.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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