The development of domestic automobile engines can be roughly divided into five stages, the first four stages, it is indeed inferior to foreign countries, but at this stage, at least in the category of four-cylinder engines, all aspects have not lost to foreign countries at all. Now I still think that domestic production is not good, either I don't understand the car, or it is hypochondriasis, so it is said that the domestic difference is in the knee, and the difference is not confident in the bones. And the joint venture is strong in the tongue, on the one hand people will blow, on the other hand, someone will lick.
The first stage: before liberation
China's first car was in 1956, Changchun FAW's Jiefang brand? No, that was the first car in New China! As early as before the "liberation", our first car in China was actually a "Minsheng brand" 75 truck developed and produced in the Shenyang mortar factory during Zhang Xueliang's administration of northeast China. Offline on May 31, 1931! On September 12 of the same year, it was exhibited in Shanghai and became the most eye-catching exhibit!
The technical level of this Minsheng brand car was not bad at that time, with a total of 666 kinds of parts, of which 464 were self-made, and only 202 were imported, with a localization rate of 70%. At that time in China, at that level of industry, this was a very proud achievement.
Of course, this old car is not completely independently developed by us - independent research and development is not realistic. At that time, it hired the American expert Miles as the chief engineer to reverse the development of the "Ruixue" in the United States at that time. This Minsheng 75 is still a six-cylinder machine, but it has only 65 horsepower and a top speed of 40Km per hour.
However, just six days after Shanghai's reference, the 918 Incident occurred, the northeast fell, and the entire Shenyang mortar factory fell into enemy hands. General Zhang Xueliang's ambition to establish a national automobile industry was also abandoned and destroyed. It is said that the company in charge of taking over in Japan was Toyota, and Toyota's main business at that time was textile manufacturing. There is a saying that Toyota immediately changed its name to "Toyota 31C Type" after taking over the "Minsheng Brand", 31 refers to 1931, and C refers to "China".
Of course, the facts are specific, I am not a historian, and many historical materials cannot be verified, but the fact is that the Minsheng brand automobile rolled off the production line in May 1931, and the automobile department of Toyota Motor's predecessor, Toyota Automatic Loom Factory, was only established in 1933. At least it can be explained that the mainland's automobile industry did not start too late, and it began to develop and produce cars 90 years ago! Unfortunately, because of the invasion, the results were taken away! Who started it? Less than a week after the 918, the sirens were still ringing! Say don't forget the national shame, some people, really forgot!
The second stage: the "yes" stage (1953-1980)
Some people say that FAW is the initial stage, and the second automobile is the growth stage. And I conclude that they all belong to the stage of starting from scratch. Changchun FAW relied on Soviet aid in many ways. The East Wind, on the other hand, is built entirely by our own strength. From the first Jiefang brand car off the production line in 1953, to the completion of five state-owned enterprise automobile manufacturing plants in the first big and four small. It has achieved a breakthrough in the new Chinese automobile industry from scratch.
On May 12, 1958, with the meaning of "Dongfeng overwhelms the west wind", China's first car code-named Dongfeng CA71 drove off the production line, which was also a French model developed in reverse direction.
At this stage, there is no concept of private cars at all, the main use of cars is still freight, and even in some remote areas, animal power cars are still the main production force. There is no other requirement at this stage, that is, there is! It is not the technology that is developing, but the scale. What engine noise, power, fuel consumption... None of this is taken into account. So of course, the level of the engine in this period is relatively low, in the final analysis, it can be used, and it can be produced. There is better than nothing! No matter how bad it is, it is better than an ox cart.
In 1980, 222,000 cars were produced nationwide, and 1.69 million were civilian cars, of which 1.48 million were truckloads.
At that time, cars were basically publicly owned, burning public oil, so there was no demand for fuel consumption. If it is used as a production tool, then what noise and NVH are no longer considered within the scope. Air conditioning you in your car? Don't even think about it! At that time, drivers were skilled workers, and they had to not only drive, but also have to repair cars. At that time, our engine level was indeed far inferior to that of foreign countries, and it was all-round poor. The reason is also very simple, we are still in the stage of "having", far from talking about "good".
If there is no 918, if the mainland's automobile industry can start from 1931 and continue to continue, by 1953, it has a history of more than 20 years, and by 1980, it has a heritage of nearly 50 years.
Phase III: Joint Venture Phase (1981-2004)
After the "have" stage, the automobile industry has also begun to transform from agricultural and commercial vehicles carrying goods to passenger cars. At this time, the problem of our backward technical level was exposed, and the previous engine had no requirements for fuel consumption, power, emissions, and noise, but these big guys could not be used in passenger cars. Although the mainland automobile industry already has a little foundation, it is almost zero in the family car industry.
As a last resort, we liberalized the market and exchanged the market for technology. At that time, we were begging people. When I negotiated with the public, I didn't talk about it for several years. We can't do it, it's about restricting imports and raising tariffs. Only then did he force the public to sign, and invited people to come in like asking the god of wealth.
At that time, you wanted to buy a Santana, you had to open a letter of introduction to the Shanghai Automobile Factory, people sold not to introduce you to the car, first arranged for you to live in a guest house, less than half a month, more than three months, just waiting in the guest house. At that time, a Santana with more than 200,000 yuan could buy a house of more than 100 square meters in the second ring road of Beijing.
FAW-Volkswagen, FAW Mazda, Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM, GAC Honda, GAC Toyota, Changan Ford, Changan Suzuki, Changan Mazda and other joint ventures have been established. However, the market we gave, but the technology did not buy. Taking Volkswagen as an example, the initial is equivalent to dismantling the whole vehicle into parts and components for import and assembling it in China. Preventing our Chinese side from stealing is like preventing thieves! Other joint venture car companies are the same, and you are not allowed to be ahead at all. We are at an absolute disadvantage in cooperation, so much so that we have little say.
In 2003, Carlos Ghosn, former president and CEO of Nissan, said in an interview with reporters at the Tokyo International Auto Show that Chinese automakers have contributed almost zero when cooperating with foreign automakers. Its contemptuous attitude is almost a portrayal of the status of our joint venture car company at that time, the Chinese side. In the automotive industry, I think it's another national shame.
Stage 4: Imitation Stage
The market changed technology, we changed a loneliness. And because of the joint venture car company, we account for half of the shares, and we also have half of the income. Therefore, these state-owned enterprises are also happy to make money, lacking the motivation for research and development. This situation lasted for more than a decade, from 1983 to around 2000.
On the one hand, foreign car companies are also deliberately exaggerating the difficulty of technology research and development, hoping that you will retreat from the difficulty. On the other hand, it is true that with the technical strength that is no less than 20 years ahead of us, it has gained a good reputation in the market.
Let's imagine, what was the domestic car like at that time? In the fifties and sixties, our own batch of commercial and civilian vehicles only pursued what they had, not good. Poor power, fuel consumption, high noise, but also love bad. At that time, the old drivers of state-owned enterprises were thrown on the road when driving trucks, why did many elderly old drivers hate domestic production? I understand them, injured by domestic cars. In contrast, whether it is a joint venture car or an imported car, the failure rate is indeed much lower than that of domestic production, so at that time, it was right to say that domestic production is not as good as joint venture, and it is necessary to recognize the gap.
What were domestic car companies doing at that time? Manage the country to complete the vehicle, grab the joint venture! Grab is to lie and earn, that is the cash cow, that is the laying of the egg golden chicken! And Chery, it is precisely because it cannot be grabbed, and the grandmother does not hurt the uncle and does not love, so it must be forced to the road of "independent research and development".
And before that, it is necessary to mention Mitsubishi's engine. I used to divide domestic car companies into one, two and three lines, and the most obvious feature of third-tier car companies is that they also use Mitsubishi engines to build cars. It is not that the Mitsubishi engine is poor, but the Mitsubishi engine is still used now, indicating that the technical reserves are insufficient and the strength is weak. At that time, Mitsubishi engine really solved our urgent need.
Of course, there is no need to thank Mitsubishi, the engines are all bought with real money and silver, and the price is not cheap. Mitsubishi did not want to block us, it was difficult at the time, the operating condition was not good, the domestic competition was not japanese Sanjie, and the Chinese market was also in the limelight at that time. Mitsubishi had a new product, so it sold us the obsolete old engine, at least so that the first car companies had cars available.
BYD, Great Wall, Dongfeng, Brilliance, Trumpchi, Southeast have all used Mitsubishi engines, some car companies, after using it, can not stop, and some car companies, through the dismantling of the engine, research, and even reverse research and development, but also gradually mastered a lot of engine core technology.
Here to explain, what is reverse research and development, to put it bluntly, is to dismantle the engine of others, and then copy one part after another in proportion. However, this kind of cottage is obviously far inferior to the original, one is that the accuracy of parts processing is insufficient, and the other is that it can be dismantled and structured, and it cannot be dismantled what process people use. In many cases, the assembly cannot be dismantled, and even if it can be imitated, the yield rate and failure rate are far less than the level of the joint venture.
In fact, there is no obvious time node at this stage. Because we started from the 1931 Minsheng brand is the reverse research and development of the Ruixue brand, including Hongqi, Dongfeng, are also in the learning and imitation stage. It wasn't until 2005, when Chery began to develop its own positive engines, that we were able to forge our own path.
Stage 5: The stage of all-round development
The development of our domestic cars (passenger cars) should start around 2000, before, the war consumed too much of our time, and after the founding of the country, we also took some detours. Later, in the joint venture stage, it attracted wolves into the house and sought skin with tigers. It was not until around 2005 that private enterprises Great Wall, Geely, BYD, including chery, a semi-state-owned enterprise, and later GAC Changan Hongqi, began to embark on the road of independent research and development. It was from that time that domestic cars began to accelerate and began to "take off".
Of course, research and development is not achieved overnight. From reverse research and development to forward research and development, from cooperation with foreign technical teams, to full autonomy. We began to catch up. At the same time, what is the joint venture car doing? Their research direction is not to improve technology, but how to reduce costs and grab greater profits.
If you think about it, when your products are not worried about selling, do you have the motivation to do better? For joint venture car companies, reducing costs can obtain greater profits, while for domestic car companies, we must catch up with or even exceed the technical level of joint venture cars to sell cars. Therefore, at this stage, domestic cars are making efforts, and joint venture cars are reducing allocation.
I say Nissan's CVT garbage, cold protection, slippage, failure rate is very high. So someone raised the bar with me. My neighbor's QiJun has been driving for more than ten years, and it is not bad - to be honest, the mechanical quality of Qijun for more than 10 years is really stronger than it is now! Around September 2014, the quality of the CVT steel belt was a watershed. The durability was very good before, and 14 years later it is industrial waste.
There is also a logic here, the production of scissors, kitchen knives must not make money, because most families, a kitchen knife can use three generations! Blunt grinding can also be used continuously. If the car company also lets you pass on three generations in one car, it will also affect the revenue. Therefore, there will be car companies that will do reverse research and development - research how your car can make your car have no problem within the shelf life, and the warranty is bad. The best control in this regard is Nissan.
You also think the joint venture car is of good quality – this is from the stereotype formed more than a decade ago, or even decades ago.
At present, the most thermally efficient engine is domestically produced. BYD's Xiaoyun 1.5L self-priming engine, thermal efficiency of 43%, 100 km fuel consumption of 3.8L, zero hundred acceleration 7.3S, as long as 100,000 start. And engine noise is almost inaudible.
Chery, why dare to give you an engine guarantee of 10 years and 1 million kilometers, or even a lifetime warranty? People have done 2 million kilometers of road practical tests, each engine bench test for at least 1.7 years!
Chang'an, blue whale engine 5500 rpm continuous operation of 259 hours and 46 minutes, do you really still think that the domestic engine is poor?
And joint ventures? Who is the engine that burns the oil? The second generation of EA888 and EA211 cover Mercedes-Benz BMW Audi Porsche, including the entire French system. Toyota's motor oil emulsification has not been solved until now. Honda's 1.5T is hailed as a carbon-deposition dream. Nissan, 2.0L, 2.5L self-priming has not changed for more than ten years, on the new, or 1.5T three-cylinder machine, running the desert is really fun.
What is the difference between domestic engines? In fact, the main difference lies in the consumer's cognition, and the difference lies in the establishment of word of mouth. In terms of products, we have a better price-performance ratio, better durability and more stable quality. Of course, in the field of large displacement engines, we do lack experience, and in fact, large displacement engines, what V6, V8, W12, will decline at a speed visible to the naked eye with the increasingly strict emission policies, until they become collectibles. There is no point in investing in research and development in this regard.
Nowadays, the loneliness of fuel vehicles, a little understanding of cars, people who pay attention to cars will feel it. Not to mention the rapid development of pure electric technology, the plug-in hybrid is still enough to lift the fuel vehicle. The same displacement, the same price, the plug-in mixed car power is stronger, the fuel consumption is lower, if it can be charged with household electricity, the cost of the car is lower. BYD's Qin Plus DM-i will most likely top the list of car sales before the end of the year, and the only thing that restricts its rise is the lack of production capacity.
Globally, more than half of the multinational automotive groups have announced the cessation of research and development of internal combustion engines, and the engine has come to an end. It is only a matter of time before traditional cars are replaced by new energy vehicles. In the field of new energy, it is actually another track, and on this track, we start earlier, run faster, and already have a big lead.
Whether you understand the car or not, as long as you understand the basic logic, before evaluating the car, please stand up and speak, and take your tongue back.