Produced by | Tiger sniff car group
Author | Wang Xiaoyu
Header image | Visual China
"We've been changing lanes overtake over the years."
On March 26, Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, said at the 8th China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, "It turned out that everyone was worried about how big the gap between our internal combustion engine and other technologies and the international community was. But I have always advocated that we should look for opportunities to change lanes and overtake, and the development of new energy vehicles is a typical lane change overtaking. ”
In 2021, China's new energy vehicle market continued to break through, with production and sales increasing by more than 160% year-on-year, and sales reaching 3.52 million units. But it also needs to be paid attention to that European and American countries are also catching up. Last year, new energy vehicles in the United States doubled, with sales reaching 670,000 units, and European new energy vehicle sales reached 2.338 million units, an increase of 66% year-on-year. But The penetration rate of the new energy vehicle market in Europe has reached 16.5%, higher than China's 13.4%.
In 2022, such a pattern is definitely an uphill battle for the automotive industry. At the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, more than 300 guest representatives participated in the discussion of the next stage of industrial development. Judging from the results of their speeches and discussions, there will be three problems that are particularly prominent this year: lack of chips, lack of batteries, and carbon emissions.
First, the domestic core is rising
Just a few days ago, Mercedes-Benz announced that when Mercedes-Benz car drivers equipped with Drive Pilot turn on the vehicle's advanced driver assistance system, they will be legally responsible for the operation of the car.
Behind this news, there are two levels of information: First, the high-level automatic driving technology equipped by Mercedes-Benz has achieved the top level in the industry at this stage. Second, in the supporting of laws and regulations, Germany's "green light" has made Mercedes-Benz run at the forefront of the industry. This is a sense of crisis for China's new energy automobile industry, which is known for its "intelligence".
"Smart cars are disrupting functional cars. The mainland's automobile industry has changed lanes first, achieved some first-mover effects, and provided opportunities for the mainland to change from a big automobile country to an automobile power. But the window of opportunity will not be too long. Chen Qingtai, chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association, said.
At the same time, he also put forward a trend judgment - the development of the automobile industry still needs to attach great importance to the opportunity of automobile value chain and supply chain reconstruction. "The bottom of the auto power is the parts power. The subversiveness of future automobiles to traditional cars will make more than 50% of the traditional parts system face restructuring. ”
In smart cars, the most critical component is still the chip.
"Now, there are many chips in the car, from gateways, body control, automatic driving, cockpit, power, etc., all aspects of the smart car need a large number of chips, probably hundreds or even thousands of chips." Shan Jizhang, founder and CEO of Black Sesame Intelligence, said.
He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, expressed concern about the chip supply problem of smart cars at present, a smart electric vehicle has more than 20,000 parts, of which there are about 1,700 chips. In 2021, the industry believes that the chip shortage problem will be alleviated in the second half of 2022, but now, the situation in the first half of 2022 has not only not eased, but also worsened.
Miao Wei also mentioned the problem of 'lack of core and less soul' - "Our car regulation-level chips and operating systems are our shortcomings, lack of cores and less souls, and this is even more so at the car regulation level." In the past, the automobile factories basically ignored these things, and basically handed over to the first-level suppliers to do this thing. Foreign auto factories have begun to invest in TSMC, and if they want production capacity, our auto factories will only call there. ”
In fact, the investment layout of car companies in domestic chips is accelerating. For example, after announcing the car, Xiaomi has frequently shot at the car-grade chip track, and has invested in companies such as Black Sesame Intelligence and Flag Core Micro Semiconductor in this field. In addition, Ideal Automobile has also recently invested in a semiconductor company, and Ideal Automobile has set up a joint venture with Sanan Semiconductor, with the former holding 70% of the shares.
In smart cars, there are two chips that can directly affect the competitiveness of products - motor control chips and autonomous driving central computing chips. The former determines the core parameters of electric vehicle energy consumption, endurance, acceleration, etc., and the latter determines the height of the hardware ceiling of intelligent vehicle autonomous driving. But now there is a "double British pattern" in the industry, that is, Germany's Infineon has a dominant position in motor control chips, and NVIDIA in the United States has taken a large number of orders from Chinese car companies on automatic chips.
For car companies, choosing international suppliers may be the best choice to quickly improve competitiveness in the short term. But in the long run, the safety of domestic supply chains is the foundation of survival. As Chen Qingtai said, to win this automotive revolution, we must pay extraordinary attention to the construction of electrification, networking, and intelligence of the three supply chains - the goal is to achieve autonomy and controllability under open conditions.
Huashan A1000
At present, from the mass production of domestic large-scale car specification chips, it is still necessary to break through several key technologies. For example, in terms of chip technology, advanced packaging technology and independent IP technology are needed; the system architecture of high computing power chips needs to be broken, and has a high security tool chain, a high-security operating system and information security; in terms of vehicle regulation certification, a series of core technologies such as functional safety process, functional safety product certification, vehicle regulation reliability certification, and ASPICE software certification need to be broken one by one.
It is not difficult to see that the realization of the mass production of large-scale car specification chips is a difficult process, which requires the necessary stages and investment. Taking huashan series of autonomous driving chips as an example, it has taken more than 3 years from the completion of product definition, tape-out, packaging and testing, vehicle specification certification and algorithm tool chain ready, functional safety certification to end-customer verification, mass production and on-board.
Huashan No. 2 A1000 Pro was successful in tape-out last July, with a single hash rate of 106-196TOPS
"2022 will be the year of mass production of domestic large-power car specification chips."
Shan Jizhang revealed that Black Sesame Intelligence has formed a complete solution at the L1 to L3 level, and is constantly expanding the scale of partners, and has cooperated with nearly 70 partners. Huashan No. 2 A1000 series chips are scheduled to start mass production this year, and will become the largest and most powerful autonomous driving chip that can be mass-produced in China.
It can be seen that the current car companies and chip companies are racing with the window period.
Second, the domestic battery is waiting to take off
Domestic battery manufacturers are also catching up with the research and development cycle.
Wu Kai, chief scientist of the Ningde era, revealed in the forum of the Electric Vehicle Hundred Association that the Kirin battery is the third generation of CTP technology in the Ningde era. Kirin battery system weight, energy density and volumetric energy density continue to lead the industry at the highest level. Under the same chemical system and the same battery pack size, the power of the Kirin battery pack can be increased by 13% compared with the 4680 system (Tesla's).
Some time ago, Sunwoda, which had just received joint investment from "Wei Xiaoli", also revealed the latest battery technology. Zhang Yao, vice president of Sunwoda, also said at the scene that the beV super fast charging battery range produced by Sunwoda at the end of this year can reach 700 kilometers, and the endurance of charging for 10 minutes can reach 400 kilometers, and there is no limit to the number of fast charging, so that there is no fire and no heat spread.
In addition, Li Hong, chief scientist and founder of Weilan New Energy, also revealed that the company is cooperating with Nio Automobile to launch a mixed solid-liquid electrolyte battery with a single charge range of 1,000 kilometers based on the ET7 model, with a battery pack of 150 kWh and an energy density of 360Wh/kg, which is expected to start mass production at the end of this year or the first half of next year.
But R&D belongs to R&D, and mass production is another abyss pit.
Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that in recent years, if the power battery industry is described by two keywords, one is "expansion", crazy expansion; the second is "up", crazy price increases.
"Expansion", based on the high speed of demand in the terminal market, domestic such as Ningde times, BYD, AVIC lithium battery, hive energy, Guoxuan hi-tech and other lithium battery companies actively cloth production, "mainland battery production capacity is expected to reach 1.5TWh in 2023, 3TWh in 2025, can be optimistically estimated to 2025 domestic battery annual demand / annual shipments of about 1.2TWh, when there will be a high probability of cyclical overcapacity." ”
Fujian Ningde Times Company factory
"Up" is in response to this round of high prices of lithium carbonate, and the reason is mainly due to the rapid growth of global demand for new energy vehicles since last year, which has produced a progressive demand amplification effect in the field of batteries and materials, and the overall reason for the rise in the price of lithium resources in 2016~2018 is basically the same, but compared with the previous round of fluctuations, this round of superimposed epidemic impact, the price fluctuation range is greater.
However, behind the increase in battery prices is a problem of unbalanced supply and demand relations. Ideal Auto founder Li Xiang proposed at the forum, "Lithium carbonate, the proportion of our own reserves in the world and the proportion of our use are several times different." These two days are rising prices, because the cost of lithium carbonate may be 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, should not be so expensive, is a huge profit. ”
In this regard, Academician Ouyang Minggao pointed out that the delay in the release of supply-side production capacity is also the reason for the rise in the price of lithium carbonate: the release cycle of lithium carbonate production capacity in typical ore production takes 3-5 years, and the release cycle of brine lithium extraction capacity is 6-8 years.
Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, suggested that the layout and production capacity of lithium carbonate resources should be comprehensively sorted out, domestic mining and foreign imports should be increased, market supply and demand should be maintained, price expectations should be stabilized, and the healthy and safe development of the industry should be promoted.
Finally, Academician Ouyang Minggao made the latest judgment on the current rising price of raw materials for power batteries, which has attracted much attention at present, "It is expected that the balance of supply and demand of lithium resources is expected to return to normal in 2-3 years." ”
Third, low-carbon has a long way to go
We can afford to supply raw materials, but we can't afford to wait for a warming climate.
A week ago, a number of meteorologists observed extreme heat in the Antarctic And Arctic, some of which exceeded the same period in previous years by 30 or 40 degrees Celsius. There are contingencies to this, but it is undeniable that the global warming trend is intensifying. Zhang Xiyong, general manager of Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd., said at the forum that the three major systems of automobiles, transportation and energy are interrelated and mutually constrained, which plays a vital role in the realization of the "3060" goal (carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060).
"The mainland road transport sector accounts for about 10% of the total carbon emissions of the whole society." Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said that new energy vehicles are an effective way to achieve the goal of "double carbon". An average carbon emission per kilometer of an ordinary fuel vehicle is 241.9 grams, while a pure electric vehicle is only 146.5 grams, reducing carbon emissions by about 40%, according to the Ministry of Public Security data, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles is 7.84 million, based on a car driving 20,000 kilometers per year, a year can reduce carbon emissions by 15 million tons.
For electric vehicles, the most critical part of carbon emissions is the production of electricity. The mainland has always been dominated by thermal power generation, but the energy mix has been changing rapidly in the past two years. Huang Xuenong, regulatory director of the National Energy Administration, said: "Our installed capacity of coal power has actually fallen below 50% since the beginning of the previous year, and now the proportion of installed coal power is 46%. ”
Huang Xuenong believes that the current energy and power structure adjustment has achieved remarkable results. By the end of 2020, the development of non-fossil energy in the mainland has reached a new level, and the installed capacity of renewable energy power generation in the country has historically exceeded 1 billion kilowatts, the new energy power generation capacity has exceeded 1 trillion degrees, and the installed capacity of hydropower, wind power and photovoltaics has exceeded 300 million kilowatts。
For car companies, carbon emission reduction is also a responsibility on their shoulders.
Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, proposed that through the intelligent algorithm scheme, the extended range electric vehicle should be driven completely pure electric in the core area. The range extender is not allowed to start, resulting in a true 100% zero emission within the urban areas of all major urban cores. "It's completely possible, and we've been very effective in testing over the last few months."
According to his predictions, through a new generation of extended-range technology and a new intelligent way of operating, Ideal Is very confident that it will reduce carbon emissions in the city from the past by 76% to more than 90%.
But at the same time, he also put forward a long-term forecast: "If we look forward to 2030 or even longer 2035, we think that central-style power energy, arranged through the grid, and distributed liquid energy, we think will coexist in the long run." "Central energy, as mentioned earlier, replaces more coal power with green power through the transmission of the grid. On the other hand, to solve the problem of distribution, the most important thing is hydrogen energy.
However, the development of hydrogen energy is more dependent on the pull of commercial vehicles at this stage.
From the current trend, commercial vehicles need hydrogen energy, and hydrogen energy needs more commercial vehicles. Academician Ouyang Minggao pointed out that commercial vehicles are the focus and difficulty of carbon emission reduction in the current automobile industry, and there is a comparative study. For example, the European Union has around 5% of commercial vehicles, but it accounts for 40% of carbon emissions. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in large transport countries like China. We actually own only about 5 percent of our commercial vehicles, but carbon emissions account for more than 50 percent of the industry.
The industry has always believed that hydrogen energy is an expensive energy drive method, from hydrogen production to hydrogen replenishment is a major project with heavy investment. But Zhang Xiyong of BAIC believes that the cost of zero-carbon low-carbon commercial vehicles is decreasing year by year, "until the end of the '14th Five-Year Plan' fuel cell engine cost is expected to drop to 1,500 yuan per kilowatt, which is comparable to high-horsepower diesel engines." ”
At present, hydrogen energy commercial vehicles are like a fulcrum of hydrogen energy. Its large-scale volume directly boosts the low-carbon transportation structure, directly drives the development of clean energy such as green hydrogen, and related research predicts that the demand for green hydrogen in the transportation field will be close to 40 million tons in 2050. However, after promoting the construction of hydrogen refueling stations, hydrogen energy commercial vehicles can in turn promote the development of hydrogen energy passenger vehicles.
For the topic of low carbon, BMW also gave another solution to the problem - recycling.
"There are many statistics that show that only 2%-3% of the vehicle part can be recycled at present, so achieving our goal of a circular economy is promising." Gao Le, president and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, said that about 25%-28% of the materials in the industry can be recycled, and BMW hopes to increase this proportion to 40%-50%, using more recycled materials.
But whether it's that kind of technology route or that kind of business model, it's ultimately for one purpose – sustainable development. As Keller puts it, "Our industry is getting more and more complex, and when it comes to discussing sustainable mobility, we see that no single company can make this change really happen on its own, so it requires our car companies, energy companies, governments to work together." ”
Write at the end
Judging from the trends discussed by these more than 300 guests, the time left for traditional fuel vehicles is running out.
Academician Ouyang Minggao predicted that the sales of traditional fuel vehicles will be basically close to the peak in 2022, and the sales performance of subsequent fuel vehicles may decline rapidly. New energy vehicles have entered a period of rapid growth, and it is expected that the sales of new energy vehicles will be the same as that of fuel vehicles around 2030.
As for the future fate of fuel vehicles, as Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said, there are 85 brands in the traditional fuel vehicle market in 2021, of which 34 brands have monthly sales of less than 1,000 units and 9 brands have died. In the next 3-5 years, 80% of Chinese brands will shut down and turn.
Will your next car buy new energy vehicles?