In the past February, Nezha Automobile reappeared as a dark horse, pressing Weilai and Xiaopeng with a delivery volume of 7117 vehicles, ranking second in the delivery list of new forces, second only to ideal.
In fact, Nezha Automobile has broken the solidification pattern of Wei Xiaoli many times last year and January this year, and has also achieved delivery of more than 10,000 yuan for three consecutive months. In addition, Nezha has also become the fourth new force car company to achieve a cumulative delivery volume of more than 100,000 after Wei Xiaoli.
Nezha Automobile has a brilliant performance in the delivery volume for 5 consecutive months, and the main models currently on sale are about 100,000 affordable cars, which should be the only one in the new forces, but therefore it also makes the outside world pay some attention to the level of its product strength and intelligence.
Making a high-end car has become another new mission after Nezha Automobile survived the fierce competition.
However, brand attack still needs to be supported by products, and the strength of product strength depends on a strong and advanced technology platform and architecture. In the face of these, can Nezha, who previously took the parity route, work?
Behind the advent of the Shanhai platform
Zhang Xu, who was born in the FAW Technical Center, is now the president of the Nezha Automotive Engineering Institute. In the second half of 2019, Daniel Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Nezha Automobile, approached him and proposed to create a higher-positioned product, and it was a car.
"The first thing I thought was to modify the chassis based on Nezha U." Zhang Xu recalled.
The advantage is that it can launch a car product "short and fast", but the disadvantage is also obvious, "if this product is to be transformed based on the existing Nezha U, it will not only change a large range, but also have a great lack of advanced technical indicators and market adaptability." ”
Zhang Xu proposed, "Let's make a platform." ”
Nezha Automobile in 2019 is still an unknown new car-making force. You know, at that time, it was a time of general difficulties for the new car-making forces, and even Li Bin, the founder of the head Weilai Automobile, was ridiculed by the outside world as "the most miserable person in 2019", especially for Nezha Automobile, who was still unknown at that time.
Building a platform requires a huge investment, which is a completely different level of investment than simply changing a car. However, Daniel Zhang did not hesitate, "Do it! ”
Therefore, at the end of 2019, Nezha Automobile officially launched the research and development of the Shanhai platform, according to Zhang Xu's words, "almost the entire United company (Nezha Automobile parent company) to do this platform."
The concept of "platform" has long appeared in the automotive industry, and it is not a new thing in the 80s of the last century.
The core concept of the automotive platform is the modularization of parts, simplifying the R&D and manufacturing process, so that the production cost of the car can be reduced, and different models developed based on the same platform can achieve the universal use of parts.
After the platform, the automotive industry has derived the concept of "architecture", which can break the barrier between different platforms and meet the simultaneous development and manufacturing of multi-brand and multi-model models.
Although the platform and architecture are different, there is no distinction in the strict sense, they are all to reduce R&D and production costs and improve R&D efficiency.
In the process of transitioning from the era of traditional fuel vehicles to the era of intelligent electric vehicles, some car companies try to opportunistically take shortcuts and improve the launch of electric vehicles on the fuel vehicle platform, which is equivalent to people of different sizes wearing the same pair of pants, which is definitely not fit. The sales performance of the market side also gave them a loud slap, "oil to electricity" did not work, consumers did not accept.
As the reform of the new four modernizations continues to enter the deep water area, traditional car companies have begun to wake up and have to make up their minds to bid farewell to "oil to electricity" and launch an exclusive platform for electrification.
Among multinational brands, most of them started with "oil to electricity", and since the advent of the exclusive pure electric platform MEB, Volkswagen has really begun its electrified product offensive. GM launched Aoteneng's pure electric platform, based on which Cadillac's first electric vehicle, the Lyriq model, will be launched in China this year.
Among the independent brands, the e-platform developed by new energy pioneer BYD has evolved to the third generation, and the latest e-platform 3.0 is designed for the next generation of high-performance intelligent electric vehicles; Geely's SEA Haohan architecture, which has invested 18 billion yuan in 4 years, was also officially released in 2020, and the first model of the Haohan architecture, Extreme Kr 0001, relies on its advanced performance, and it is hot on the market.
Obviously, the entire automotive industry has entered a new era of platform car manufacturing. To build electric vehicles, it is more necessary to build a pure electric platform developed around the battery as the core.
In this context, Nezha chose a more difficult road, gathering the financial, material and manpower of the whole company to create a platform, which also showed the determination and courage of Nezha Automobile to change.
After two years of research and development, at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of 2021, the Shanhai platform was officially launched.
Can the Shanhai platform be played?
Shanhai platform is different from other electric vehicle platforms, it supports both pure electricity and extended range in the form of power, based on its first landing product Nezha S has a pure electric version and an extended range version for users to choose.
Although from a technical point of view, the extended range is only a transitional product, but from the user's point of view, the extended range may be a more ideal choice, mileage anxiety is still the biggest concern of users to choose new energy vehicles, the success of the ideal car proves this.
To be compatible with pure electricity and extended range at the same time, this brings certain difficulties to the development of the Shanhai platform and Nezha S.
Unlike the Widely Used McPherson Suspension in the same price segment, the Nezha S uses a front double wishbone suspension, which can be understood as adding an additional rocker arm to the McPherson suspension.
Under the extended range power, it is necessary to put the engine in, but in the world, there are almost no cars with horizontal engine double wishbones because it is very difficult to arrange. The Nezha S is almost the first to achieve a transverse engine arranged under this suspension form of a double wishbone, and it is achieved in a sedan, which is very rare.
In order to cope with the problem of greatly reduced mileage in winter, Nezha Automobile has applied a self-developed integrated heat pump system in the Shanhai platform, which has the advantage of higher efficiency.
Now usually the winter mileage of electric vehicles will be 5 to 6 discounts, after the use of the heat pump system, the discount rate will increase to 70% to 80%, greatly reducing the user's mileage anxiety. In the subsequent models of the Shanhai platform, it will be applied to this heat pump system.
In addition to the highlights in terms of power form and endurance, the Shanhai platform has also made sufficient efforts in terms of safety and intelligence.
In the process of the development of automobiles to intelligence and networking, problems related to network information security such as on-board system defects, cloud security risks and data privacy protection continue to appear, especially in recent years, the hacker attacks against intelligent connected vehicles have increased significantly, and in 2020 alone, there have been more than 2.8 million related malicious attacks worldwide.
When it comes to network security, 360 in China is an enterprise that cannot be avoided, and 360, which has been working in the field of network security for many years, is now the second largest shareholder of Nezha Automobile. Then, 360 has made it a natural choice to empower Nezha Automobile with the network security technology accumulated over the years.
On the previously listed Nezha V Pro model, it provides the unique 360 safety protection of the same level. Although Nezha Automobile has not yet released specific information about the application of 360 security on the Shanhai platform, for such a focused product, the network security technology blessing of 360 will play a role in icing on the cake.
In addition to network security, the security system of Shanhai platform also covers battery safety, body safety and platform redundancy and functional safety, etc. It can be said that Shanhai platform is the only car platform on the market that focuses on safety. Shanhai Platform's emphasis on safety has also set a benchmark for the industry, and I believe that more car companies will follow suit in the future.
In addition to security, intelligence is another major highlight of the Shanhai platform.
As the brain and nervous system of smart cars, the electronic and electrical architecture of cars is gradually moving towards concentration. The electronic and electrical architecture of the Shanhai platform will initially be mainly composed of five major domain controllers: cockpit domain, intelligent driving domain, body domain, power domain and AI domain, and will gradually evolve to the central domain fusion architecture by 2025 to achieve complete decoupling of vehicle actuators and computing resources.
Specific to the intelligent driving level, the hardware of the Shanhai platform can support the 1000TOPS computing platform and 6 lidar sensor solutions, through the redundancy of the hardware and the combination of self-developed NETA-OS, Nezha Automobile will gradually realize the full-scene intelligent auxiliary driving of high-speed road sections, low-speed road sections and urban road sections.
At the level of smart cockpit, the intelligent cockpit created by Shanhai Platform based on the concept of "third space" not only has a wealth of peripherals, such as screens of different sizes and styles, but also covers a variety of scenes such as lossless K-song room, surround stereoscopic cinema and remote administrative office, which can sing, watch movies and work in the car.
Promote the Nezha brand upwards
Nezha Automobile named the new automotive platform "Shanhai Platform", which means that in the era of rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, it will meet the future star sea with calm, confident state and faith.
Behind this calmness and self-confidence, it also comes from the good performance of Nezha Automobile in the past year.
First of all, in terms of sales, Nezha surpassed the ideal car for the first time in May last year, ranking among the top three of the new car-making forces, and then entered the top three in August, September and October in the second half of last year, as well as January and February of this year, and Nezha Automobile also achieved three consecutive months of delivery of more than 10,000.
Previously, the top three of the new car-making forces have always been occupied by the three heads of Wei Xiaoli, but Nezha Automobile's many breaks broke this "three lacks one" situation, successfully squeezed their cards, and ranked among the first camp of the new forces.
Secondly, in terms of financing, it is reported that Nezha Automobile has recently completed a new round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, which is the third round of D series financing. Last year, Nezha completed a 4 billion yuan D1 round of financing led by 360; at the end of the year, Nezha disclosed the 2 billion yuan D2 round of financing participated in by NINGDE Times, 360, and BAIC Production and Investment.
It can be said that whether it is the delivery volume that reflects its own hematopoietic ability or the financing that reflects the external blood transfusion ability, Nezha's recent achievements are remarkable.
However, the models currently on sale in Nezha Automobile are Nezha V, Nezha V Pro and Nezha U Pro series, with a price of 60,000-180,000, which belongs to the low-end products, and there is still a certain gap in product strength with Wei Xiaoli's models, which is also the homework that Nezha Automobile urgently needs to make up.
The advent of the Shanhai platform provides an important technical guarantee for the upward development of the Nezha brand, and Nezha S, which is sprinting to mass production and listing, is the first product to ask for directions.
In terms of performance performance, Nezha S zero hundred acceleration as long as 3.9 seconds; endurance performance, pure electricity is 710km, extended range version up to 1100km, and equipped with a new generation of self-developed HozonEPT4.0 constant temperature thermal management system, Nezha S's winter measured mileage can be increased by 20%.
In the more critical aspect of intelligence, Nezha S will be equipped with Nezha full-stack self-developed intelligent driving system TA PILOT4.0 version, which can realize NNP Nezha intelligent pilot assistance, NTP Nezha memory parking, NCP Nezha city navigator and NMS Nezha magic summoning and other functions, then Nezha will be on a par with Wei Xiaoli's products in terms of intelligent driving, in Nezha's official words, to achieve "generation leveling".
Nezha S specifically uses 2 solid-state lidar, 5 millimeter-wave radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and 11 assisted driving cameras (including 2 forward 8M cameras, 4 surround view cameras, and 5 perimeter view cameras), such sensor configurations are currently mainstream configurations.
It is worth noting that Nezha S is equipped with Huawei's MDC computing platform and 2L5R11V configuration. Huawei provides support on the hardware, while the software is self-developed by Nezha's intelligent driving team.
Speaking of self-development, Nezha Automobile believes that intelligent driving is a long-term track, in order to adapt to the characteristics of long-term and rapid iteration, the full-stack self-research method can ensure rapid iteration of products and form a long-term system capability accumulation, and finally provide customers with a leading and safe driving experience.
It can be seen that Nezha Automobile is gradually making up for the shortcomings of intelligence, starting from Nezha S, Nezha Automobile has sounded the clarion call to march into the high-end market.
Daniel Zhang also had high hopes for Nezha S, and he once said: "Through Nezha S, we will completely reverse everyone's impression of the original technology of Nezha Automobile, so that everyone thinks that Nezha is a company with technology." ”
In addition, it is worth mentioning that under the efficient development and technical support brought by the Shanhai platform, the universal rate of the model parts developed based on the Shanhai platform has reached 80%, which can greatly reduce the research and development time and cost, which will also help Nezha Automobile to quickly and economically launch more competitive new models.
The advent of the Shanhai platform has supported the upward development of Nezha automobile brand and become the technical cornerstone of Nezha's development in the next 5-10 years. In addition, it can also practice Nezha's ideal of scientific and technological equality, so that Nezha cars can form their own moat.
Che Yun summary
"Nezha has never ushered in a highlight moment like Wei Xiaoli!"
Daniel Zhang once said this in an industry forum and lamented that how to survive the winter is their most important proposition.
Judging from Nezha's performance in the past year, it has come out of the cold winter. Not only is it gradually ranked first in the new force in terms of delivery volume, but also the financing and technology have also been blessed by industry giants such as 360 and Ningde Times. The release of the Shanhai platform shows the technical strength of Nezha Automobile in the field of intelligent electric vehicles, and also provides a cornerstone for the upward development of the future brand.
Nowadays, Nezha Automobile, which is full of stamina, is moving towards its own highlight moment.