Hybrid has gradually become
The mainstream of the "new energy" market
There is a number that I think you should know.
In 2021, the sales volume of generalized hybrid in the domestic market, that is, plug-in hybrid + ordinary hybrid, has exceeded 1.2 million vehicles, an increase of more than 140% year-on-year.
In terms of volume and growth, although generalized hybrid cannot be compared with the pure electricity market. But combined with the background analysis of the market, you will find that the tide of hybridization is coming to you with a rapid and unconcealed trend -
The first background is that there are only 98 models on sale in the generalized hybrid, and many of them were only listed at the end of last year; in contrast, there are 295 models on sale in the pure electric market. Calculated, the average sales volume of generalized hybrid bicycles has exceeded 10,000 units, far exceeding the pure electric market.
The second background is that the sales structure of the pure electricity market is properly "dumbbell-shaped", that is, the sales volume of high-end and low-end accounts for a large proportion, but the mainstream market of 8-200,000, which should have a large user group, is only a minority. In contrast, in the hybrid market, the volume is 100,000-250,000 products. This seems to prove that in a relatively mainstream market, consumers prefer hybridization to pure electric.
Hot models such as Xena and Trumpchi second-generation GS8 were only listed in the fourth quarter of last year, and the production capacity climb has already been in 2022.
In 2022, the hybrid technology of various Chinese brands has emerged, more hybrid models have come one after another, and the tide of hybridization will come more fiercely, and it can even be said that in 2022, there are car companies without hybrids, which may "die" very badly.
Hybrid technology, a hundred flowers bloom
BYD's Super Hybrid DM-i, Great Wall's Lemon DHT, Chang'an's Blue Whale iDD, Trumpchi's GMC 2.0, SAIC's EDU, Geely's Thor Hybrid, Chery's Kunpeng DHT... In just one year, so many hybrid technologies have emerged in China, which is dazzling.
Although there are many names, the mainstream form is inseparable from these four categories: power shunt type, series type, parallel type and series parallel type.
The so-called power shunt type, that is, the power of the engine can be diverted to the drive system and the power generation system at the same time, and is not constrained by the working conditions. The most central thing about this form is a set of planetary gear mechanisms - which can play both a shunt and a stepless variable speed, so many people call it "ECVT".
Because this set of "ECVT" is a patent of Toyota, the power shunt type is basically "equal" with Toyota's THS. In the past year or two, Toyota's THS has begun to be licensed to the outside world, and other models have embarked on the road of power diversion, such as Trumpchi's second-generation GS8, which is quite blue out of blue and better than blue.
The tandem structure is much simpler, the drive relies on the electric motor, and the engine only generates electricity. Maybe the tandem type sounds a bit LOW, so more manufacturers are willing to call it an extender. This structure is very simple, but there are certain disadvantages: under medium-high-speed and low-power conditions, the engine is easy to exceed its efficient working area, and the efficiency is relatively low.
At present, there are not many manufacturers using this structure. In the first year or two, GM mainly promoted for a period of time, representing the Buick's VELITE 5 and Chevrolet's Volanda, but then gave up without insisting on a few years - mainly because the market did not accept it, and its price was relatively expensive.
Now still in use are Nissan, Ideal, Lantu, Xilis and Skyline, the representative technology is Nissan's e-POWER, the representative model is the ideal ONE, the former has many years of history overseas, the technology is relatively mature, and the latter is currently the best domestic sales of the extender model.
Although the sales of the ideal ONE are good, I always have a hunch: with the continuous growth of the hybrid market, consumers have more choices - the reason for the hot sales of the ideal ONE is not technology, but product positioning, and the series will eventually go to the end.
The ideal ONE has actually exposed the weakness of series hybridization: the fuel consumption of the power supply is as high as 8.8L/100km, compared with the second-generation Trumpchi GS8 of the same size as only 5.8L/100km. This gap is equivalent to the generation difference between the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 7.
The so-called parallel type, that is, fuel drive and electric drive are two relatively independent systems that exist in parallel. This structure is not complicated, just add an additional set of electric drive system on the basis of fuel vehicles, the disadvantage is that it is very dependent on external charging, once it is not charged, the electric drive system will become a burden, increase fuel consumption and increase the cost of use.
This structure was once the mainstream route of Chinese brand PHEV, because the research and development cost is not high, and it can also enter the new energy catalog, enjoy subsidies and preferential treatment for new energy vehicles, so it can be favored by some users who limit the purchase of licenses.
Unfortunately, because charging is inconvenient, many car owners just use them as oil trucks to withstand high fuel consumption in the state of rapid electricity. Slowly, in the eyes of many consumers, parallelism has degenerated into a product of the policy - just a green card.
At present, there are very few car companies that take this technical route, and as far as I know, what is still being pushed is probably only Changan and SAIC.
The WEY P8 is the most typical example of parallel, front-wheel fuel-driven and rear-wheel electric drive, both of which are not related to each other. Its market performance was also poor, and it eventually went to discontinuation.
The string parallel style to be introduced next is the mainstream of the mainstream of the Chinese brand hybrid system. In the above-mentioned Chinese brand hybrid system, except for SAIC and Changan, the others are all series and parallel.
The series parallel and power shunts are somewhat similar, and the engine can both charge and participate directly in the drive. The difference is that when the engine is involved in the drive, because it cannot be changed, the conditions for intervention are very harsh. Honda technical expert Renmu Xue once said in an interview: "(Honda's iMMD) in urban conditions, the proportion of engine intervention to provide power is 2-3%, and in high-speed conditions, it will be 5-6%. ”
The average person may have a question: "Why should the engine be involved in the drive, is it not more fuel-efficient to drive directly by the motor?" "In fact, under the condition of the electric, the most fuel-efficient state of the series parallel type is not the electric drive, but the engine directly drives the wheels -
In the state of rapid power, the motor must first rely on the engine to generate electricity. "Engine generator motor wheel", this energy transfer path, has two more links than the "engine wheel", even if the efficiency of these two links is as high as 99%, there is still energy loss.
Therefore, if you want to tandem parallel fuel saving, you have to skip these two links and let the engine in the efficient work area drive the wheels directly.
It's not an easy task!
1st gear, 2nd gear, 3rd gear... "gear" is endless
How can engines in efficient work areas drive vehicles more directly? This is the most important problem for car companies that take the parallel route to think about. At present, there are two solutions: one is to develop a hybrid engine with a wider range of high efficiency; the other is to increase the gear of the hybrid system, and change the driving force and driving speed of the vehicle under the condition that the engine speed and torque are unchanged.
The latter is the most important place to reflect the differentiation of each hybrid system.
At present, in addition to Honda's i-MMD and BYD's super hybrid DM-i, other car companies that take the parallel route have used hybrid special transmissions with multiple gears: Among them, Trumpchi and Great Wall use two-speed DHT, while Geely and Chery are three-speed DHT.
More gears allow them to reduce the conditions under which the engine is involved in driving – mainly in terms of speed. For example, the Great Wall's lemon DHT can let the engine intervene at 40km/h; the Geely Raytheon hybrid engine can intervene at 20km/h.
In the future, multi-stop DHT may become a development trend in the industry - it is said that Honda's next generation of i-MMD will also add one more gear. But there is a question we need to think about: For consumers, do we have to pursue DHT with too many gears?
Personally, I think it's completely unnecessary.
Yes, more gears of DHT can allow engines in the efficient range to intervene earlier, but is it necessary?
In normal driving, our time to stay below 20km/h is very short, the acceleration of 0-20km/h is only a blink of an eye, and 0-60km/h is only four or five seconds. Staying for a long time at 20km/below, either there are special circumstances or on very congested roads.
In the face of such road conditions, I hope that the engine will not start, purely driven by the electric motor: first, the engine does not start, there is no noise, alleviating the driver's traffic jam anxiety; second, this congested road condition will affect the engine heat dissipation, which is not conducive to the life of the oil.
In addition, the hybrid gearbox with more gears does not appear advanced, but will lose sight of one or the other, which is self-defeating.
It is not difficult to increase the gear position of the hybrid special gearbox, but it is just to add gear sets on the power transmission path of "engine wheels", and the difficulty is in the spatial layout. Because the interior of the hybrid special gearbox is very complex, there are both motors and electronic controls and multiple sets of gears, and the space is very cramped.
If it is through a refined design to stuff one or two sets of gears and gear shift mechanisms, it is still quite clever, but more car companies only achieve this goal by compressing the volume of the motor. The volume of the compression motor, in effect, is the compression of the power and torque of the motor.
As you can see, the Great Wall Lemon DHT with a two-stop structure, even in the Mocha DHT PHEV medium-sized SUV, only uses a 130kW \ 300Nm drive motor. In contrast, the Qin PLUS, which uses BYD super hybrid DM-i, an A-class car, is a 132kW\316Nm drive motor, and the top drive motor can reach 145kW\325Nm.
Of course, I am not saying that the Great Wall Lemon DHT is not as smart as BYD's super hybrid DM-i, "big motor strategy" is smarter than "multi-gear strategy". It is only said that automobile research and development is originally a "breakaway", and in the case of limited space and cost, there are gains and losses.
In fact, there is no good or bad technical route, just as the seven-speed wet dual clutch is not necessarily more advanced than Aisin's 6AT, and Aisin's 6AT is not necessarily better than the CVT stepless transmission. What matters is how to perfectly match the technology and products.
Just like the parallel type that was once scolded as "a dragon with electricity, a worm without electricity", Chang'an can also solve the problem of its poor electricity fuel consumption very well: according to official information, the UNI-K with P2 single motor parallel structure has a low fuel consumption of 5L/100km, which is lower than that of the same level of Tang DM-i.
However, at present, the hybridization of Chinese brands has just developed, and many brands have not yet launched products equipped with hybrid technology, so it is difficult to compare from the same dimension - as you can see from the above table, the various products using different technical routes are similar in performance, and it seems premature to rush to the conclusion of who is good and who is bad.
But one thing is for sure, the model with hybrid technology has a qualitative leap in fuel economy and acceleration ability compared with the fuel version, and the price has become more affordable.
Affordable price, performance leap... I think that's the secret to the outbreak of the hybrid market in the next year or two.
Text | Male
(This article is the author's personal opinion only and does not represent the position of DearAuto.) )
———— END ————
law
law
look at
ask
Mr. Li Guoyong of Guangdong Green Law Firm