Text | Joey
You can't deny that the wave of electrification has arrived and will sweep the entire automotive industry at an ever-faster rate.
After all, the automobile is an industrial product, the iteration of technology, the orientation of the policy will undoubtedly affect the development direction of automobile technology; after all, everyone has the obligation to contribute to the cause of environmental protection of the earth, and everyone hopes to avoid the fierce license competition in large cities and obtain a good car under the premise of enjoying the preferential policies for new energy vehicles.
However, automobiles have never been pure industrial products, they help humans to complete the function of long-distance movement, but also have the task of spiritual and cultural inheritance. Especially those brands whose audience is not too broad, but have more value on the spiritual level. Yes, I'm talking about SUVs, buggies and pickups that carry the mission of faith and explore the world.
At cess at the beginning of this year, a large wave of products that once carried faith began to be electrified. For example, the Ford Raptor F150, which is a classic in the pickup industry, has an electric version of the model, because it is too strong and too difficult to sell the Humvee that has disappeared for many years has also returned with an EV posture, and even Chevrolet, which has a transcendent status in the United States, has also launched the Silverado EV. There is no doubt that the trend is indeed unstoppable.
The off-road giant of global dimension two
Electrification targets have been clarified
But none of this is the subject I want to explore. Today I want to talk about two brands that make it their mission to conquer the world and only two brands in the world that only manufacture off-road vehicles and SUVs - Land Rover and Jeep. Yes, their journey to electrification has also begun.
Back early last year, Land Rover launched an electrification program called Reimagine. According to this plan, Land Rover will launch six new pure electric vehicles in the next 5 years with 2021 as the benchmark, and only electric powertrains (including light hybrid systems) will be available after 2026.
After 2030, Land Rover will create a fully electric product matrix of 60% pure electricity, 10% plug-in hybrid, 30% light hybrid + standard hybrid models. If this plan goes well and there are no new breakthroughs in the field of automotive energy, Land Rover's full electrification will be completely completed in eight years.
On The Jeep side, their path to electrification has also begun. Jeep announced in the middle of last year that it would achieve its goal of electrifying 70% of its products by 2025. In the longer-term plan, the development of autonomous off-road and drones is also on the agenda. At present, what we have been able to see is that Jeep's flagship product, Wrangler, has launched a 4xe version (and there will be more Jeep products to launch such models in the future).
I have no doubt about the enthusiasm of these two giants to usher in the new energy era, and I know that such changes are crucial to the survival of the company. After all, the automotive industry has evolved so far, and even in the era of the internal combustion engine, new technologies have been constantly being developed and added to their own products. Among them are Jeep's 4X4 system, Land Rover's ATRS all-terrain technology, and so on.
However, their electrification will always be full of concerns, and this concern is partly due to the impact of electrification on performance, after all, exploring the most dangerous roads in the world requires the strongest performance. Without the internal combustion engine, whether such performance can still exist will obviously worry more people who love these two brands.
In addition, whether the spiritual worship of the internal combustion engine can be cured in the post-internal combustion engine era is also a test of whether the brand enthusiasts' belief in the brand is strong.
How to find the optimal solution for energy saving and performance
We seem to have become accustomed to the routine of electric vehicles to promote acceleration performance as their most advantageous performance indicator. In fact, this is indeed the advantage of electric vehicles, after all, the thermal efficiency ceiling of the engine has been fully revealed.
Taking today's engines with more than 40% thermal efficiency as a model benchmark, the amount of 1L fuel that can be truly used effectively, that is, more than 400 cc, is almost less than half. More than half of the fuel will be depleted during power transfer.
This means that the larger the displacement of the engine, the greater the energy lost during the driving process. There is no doubt that this is a natural increase in the loss of off-road automotive products that require a lot of torque to overcome complex road surfaces. Therefore, a motor that can constantly output large torque seems to be a good way to effectively improve the torque output of electric off-road vehicles.
In the process of motor operation, the electromagnetic field conversion power is not affected by temperature and air, and the suspended rotor and bearing have almost no running resistance, so the energy conversion rate can reach more than 95%. Therefore, in the actual off-road process, the energy loss of the electric vehicle is much lower than that of the internal combustion engine when the same torque is output.
More importantly, because the output of the motor does not need to be transmitted through various mechanical structures like the internal combustion engine, only need to step on the electric door, the motor will be discharged at the highest rated power, so the hysteresis that the power must have in the process of power transmission like the internal combustion engine is basically eliminated. During driving, the driver is able to perform a constant torque for a power delivery experience.
Of course, such an experience actually has certain drawbacks. After all, off-road driving conditions are different from traditional road driving and track driving, which can have a longer distance for the vehicle to brake. In off-road, in addition to the need for the vehicle to provide sufficient power, in the face of complex road conditions, the vehicle is also required to be able to provide a more delicate power output. For example, when climbing on the cliff cliff and crossing extreme road conditions such as shell craters and cross shafts, every foot the driver steps on the "electric door" is "floor electricity", and special attention is required on the strength of this foot.
Therefore, in the absence of a more delicate power output, simply relying on the full-load torque output of the motor seems to be likely to put the driver in a situation of unstable operation. Therefore, on the basis of having the large torque brought by the motor, it also has a more stable power output, which is provided by the engine when the delicate output is needed, and it seems to be a better solution to let the motor out when a strong output is needed. To meet these needs, hybridization is undoubtedly a better solution.
At present, the 4xe version of the Jeep Wrangler uses a power system equipped with 2.0T+8AT+ dual motors; Land Rover also retains enough hybrid product categories in its post-2030 product planning to meet different power output needs during off-roading.
The powertrain has changed, has the spirit changed?
After solving the power output problem that electrified products can solve and cope with complex road surfaces, let's look at the problem of feelings. First of all, I have to admit that at least at this stage, internal combustion engine cars still have a large number of fans, and electric vehicles seem to be still the compromises and concessions made by manufacturers to comply with the trend and users to meet policy needs in many scenarios.
But that doesn't mean that people who love off-road and pursue off-road brands and products like Jeep and Land Rover are a bunch of conformists.
For example, they will be more obsessed with mechanical differential locks, but more often because mechanical differential locks can lead to stronger and more delicate power distribution. But that doesn't mean they'll give up having the smarter pavement capabilities that ATRS brings.
Obviously, "new" has never been an obstacle to people's acceptance of Jeep or Land Rover. Take Land Rover's latest Defender model, for example, a new product that changes the horizontal and vertical and angular design of the previous Defender model, and delivered nearly 10,000 units in total in 2021.
For land rover defenders, whose price range has jumped from nearly 700,000, and whose functional positioning is very clear and not for the public, this sales volume is actually satisfactory enough.
This can also prove that consumers' love for a product or even a brand is not shaken by the adjustment of the product and the departure from the old norms. There are new technologies, but retain the old feeling, and there is no doubt that it is the best development direction for off-road vehicles, especially the off-road vehicle brand that plays with feelings. Of course, the premise of such development is that brands can maintain their product strength above the level generally accepted by consumers.
For more users who are obsessed with these niche brand genes and love brand culture, the spirit is never only outside the product. As long as these cars can still take them through the world and continue to lead their journey of exploration and conquest, then what kind of power is used may not be so important.