With the official convening of the 8th Electric Vehicle 100, there has been an interesting discussion in the new travel community.
That is, under the "carbon neutral process of automobile, transportation, energy transformation", whether the existing layout of "pure electricity + extended range + plug-in hybrid" is reasonable, and in the past decade, whether the extended range is a good fuel alternative.
Judging from the results of the discussion among community users, different users have come to different conclusions. In particular, there is a big disagreement about whether range-extended electric vehicles are a good fuel alternative.
So is range extended electric vehicle a good fuel alternative? Next, we will talk about this problem from different dimensions.
First, technological diversification to help 2030 carbon peak 2060 carbon neutrality
"Carbon peak in 2030 Carbon neutrality in 2060".
In September 2020, China solemnly promised the world that China's carbon dioxide emissions would reach a carbon peak by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
This move is a good demonstration of China's responsibility as a big country. At the same time, based on this strategy and goal, the domestic economic development mode also needs to transition to green and low-carbon, and strive to achieve the goal of carbon peaking by 2030 by deepening the transformation.
When it comes to the relationship between green and low-carbon and automobiles, everyone's first reaction must be new energy vehicles.
In the past 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales exceeded 3.521 million units, compared with 1.376 million units in 2020, an increase of 160% year-on-year.
In the case of tightening subsidy policies, it is indeed surprising to many people to achieve such a growth rate. Therefore, it can be said that the development of new energy vehicles at this stage has realized the policy of de-subsidy and has come to a positive development stage relying on marketization.
A large part of the positive development of this rapid realization of marketization is due to the diversification of products, including the sales of 3.521 million vehicles, relying on the "pure electricity + plug-in hybrid or extended range" to achieve the joint realization.
However, under this diversified energy drive type, users seem to have "inherent discrimination" against range extenders, and the market performance of range extended electric vehicles is the opposite of this "discrimination".
Take the example of the ideal ONE, which we are familiar with as a range extender representative model. In 2021, the ideal ONE, priced at 338,000 yuan, achieved the first sales volume of medium and large SUVs in China, and sold more than 10,000 for three consecutive months.
So that a large number of new energy vehicle companies such as Lantu FREE and Qingjie M5 have also followed the layout of range extended electric vehicles.
Therefore, under the strategy of helping China to complete carbon peaking in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2060, the development of domestic new energy vehicles must be technologically diversified, including pure electricity, extended range, plug-in hybrid development.
Second, the extended range: the most misunderstood technical route
Under the development of this technological diversification, the most discussed and misunderstood is the "extended range". To this end, many extender electric vehicle users will raise the question of "why can't it be a range extension".
As long as we search casually on the Internet, there will be a lot of misunderstandings about the extender, what is not technical, outdated technology and good technology why no one uses it, and so on.
Among them, the most memorable is the evaluation of Zengcheng by Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan.
On September 8, 2020, Volkswagen held a media conference in Chengdu. At the media briefing, Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan said: "The increase in the range is the worst solution. ”
Even these things aside, applications of extender technology have always existed.
Before the ideal ONE, there are Models such as Chevrolet Bolt, BMW i3, Nissan Note, etc.; after the Ideal ONE, there are also models such as Lantu FREE, Inquisitive M5, and Self-Touring NV, which all adopt the technical route of the extended range.
The BMW i3 has also launched an extended version
Just the ideal ONE, Lantu FREE and Inquisitive M5 adopt a longer technical route of pure electric endurance to better meet pure electric travel and energy saving and emission reduction.
Even Honda i-MMD, BYD DM-i technology to some extent also belong to a kind of extended range technology route, but on this basis to increase the engine direct connection.
Honda SPORT HYBRID i-MMD Plug-in plug-in hybrid system
Therefore, whether it is from the performance of sales data or from the application of range extension technology by various car companies, it shows that "range extension is not a bad solution", it is in line with national conditions and user needs.
Third, the nature and advantages of extended range technology
Judging from the speed of sales and follow-up of car companies, since "the increase is not a bad solution", what are the essence and advantages of the extended range technology?
Extended-range electric vehicles are defined as plug-in hybrid models in the ministry of industry and information technology declaration. From a practical point of view, extended range electric vehicles can indeed be both refueled and driven, and long-distance pure electric drives.
On the specific technical route, take the ideal ONE as an example. In terms of hardware structure, the ideal ONE is equipped with a range extender (engine), two drive motors, a generator, a fuel tank and a large battery, which is consistent with the plug-in hybrid model.
Only at the drive level there will be a little difference, the extended range technical route is actually a tandem route, based on the tandem technology to cancel the engine direct drive.
The blunt understanding is that the range increase is equivalent to adding a set of range extenders and generators on the pure electric vehicle model, and this set of range extenders and generators will not be responsible for vehicle drive, only responsible for power generation, and the vehicle drive will always rely on the drive motor to drive.
This operation allows the engine to work better in the efficient range, thus realizing that even if it is driven by fuel-fired power generation, its fuel consumption will be lower than that of the same level of fuel vehicles.
From the official fuel consumption and pure electric endurance of the three models of the ideal ONE, Lantu FREE and Q&I M5, it is not difficult to find that the extended range can not only bring relatively low fuel consumption performance of the same level at the level of technical indicators, but also have a longer pure electric endurance.
Such performance fully meets the technical requirements of new energy vehicles in various places, so from the perspective of regulatory technical indicators, the increase in range is in line with policy requirements.
In addition, range extended electric vehicles will also have certain advantages in terms of driving experience and daily use.
The first is the driving experience level, the extended range electric vehicle can achieve 100% electric drive, in daily use there will be no power switching caused by the setbacks. At the same time, in terms of starting acceleration, the acceleration response achieved by extended range electric vehicles relying on electric drives will also be faster.
At the level of daily travel, the increased range of the ideal ONE, Lantu FREE and Qijie M5 adopts a large battery solution, and the relatively long pure electric endurance can well meet the power consumption of urban travel, and when long-distance travel, it can rely on the extended range to generate electricity, so that there is no mileage anxiety and low fuel consumption.
Fourth, how to replace fuel vehicles?
As mentioned earlier, "China has solemnly promised the world that China's carbon dioxide emissions will strive to reach a carbon peak by 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060." ”
Based on this strategic goal, the development of the domestic automobile market will inevitably be oriented by new energy. Especially at the moment when the development of new energy vehicles has achieved phased results, it is an inevitable trend to "replace new energy vehicles with fuel vehicles as the development goal".
But what to replace with fuel vehicles becomes a problem.
At the 8th China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum in 2022, the speech of Li Xiang, founder of Ideal Auto, may bring us different dimensions of thinking.
Ideal Car founder - Li Xiang
In his speech on the day, Li xiang said: "There are two main cores in how passenger cars use energy. The first is what the people need, and the second is what the government needs. ”
The needs of the people are actually particularly simple, mainly in three aspects;
1, the convenience of energy access: as long as the people's home parking space can be installed on a charging pile, at least can ensure that in the urban area will no longer have to go to the gas station;
2, the cost of energy acquisition: home charge less than 1 wool one kilometer, the outside public facilities in 2 ~ 4 gross one kilometer. Using fuel, in today's fuel price increases, it may take 6 to 8 gross kilometers. In contrast, even if the income of 10 million yuan a year, they are willing to use the method of cost within 1 cent, especially with the convenience of the front;
3, environmental protection: our car service is a family user, a very important scene is to pick up the child at the school gate, the original fuel car parked there, open the air conditioning, the car inside and outside are gasoline smell, do not open the air conditioning car and stuffy panic. Therefore, car users who have fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles at home will drive new energy vehicles to school 100%.
Based on this demand, Ideal Automobile firmly supported the national technology strategy when it was established in 2016, took the pure electric drive route, and finally chose the extended range, and was the first extended range electric vehicle in the world to achieve a cruising range of more than 150 kilometers.
The ideal ONE relies on a large-capacity battery pack of 40.5kWh to deliver NEDC's 188km of pure electric endurance, which even exceeds the battery life of some A00-class pure electric models.
At the same time, the ideal car is for home users and relatively wealthy family users, so 70% of the ideal users have installed home charging piles, and more than 90% of car owners have fixed charging conditions.
Therefore, the extended range electric vehicle has truly realized a key point - urban electricity, which not only meets the convenience needs of users, but also meets the cost needs, and also meets the needs of environmental protection, which can be described as "one fell swoop".
On the other hand, from the perspective of long-distance demand, the ideal car is for family users, and the extended range electric vehicle will not appear with wives, parents, and children looking for charging piles everywhere for family users.
Especially on holidays, because high-speed charging piles have a tidal effect, holiday charging is 4 to 5 times that of the usual queue.
The ideal car has created a new concept and really put it into action, that is, urban electricity, long-distance power generation, and adhere to pure electric drive.
The data given by Li Xiang also further proves this point, and the ideal ONE has an evaluation of 70% of pure electric mileage in major cities, and the proportion of pure electricity usage time is more than 80%.
Based on this car environment, the emission reduction of the ideal ONE in the use link is very obvious, in the whole country, compared with the same level of fuel vehicles, the ideal ONE carbon emissions can be 65% lower, if concentrated in a city like Beijing, the carbon emissions can be 76% lower.
Therefore, from the perspective of user experience, user needs and national strategy, range-extended electric vehicles are indeed an effective route to replace fuel.
On this effective route to replace fuel, the ideal car continues to improve. The flagship SUV Ideal L9 to be launched next uses a fully self-developed flagship extended range electric system.
The fully developed flagship extended-range electric system is equipped with a range extender with a thermal efficiency of up to 40.5%, which increases the thermal efficiency by 15%, and further reduces long-distance energy consumption through technical optimization.
At the same time, in terms of pure electric endurance, the L9 is equipped with a larger capacity battery pack, and the 44.5kWh battery pack brings 215km clTC pure electric endurance. Combined with intelligent algorithms, the ideal car can even use completely pure electric driving in the core area in the future, and the range extender is not allowed to start.
In this way, in the core urban areas of all major cities, the range-extended electric vehicles can truly achieve 100% zero emissions.
At the carbon emission level, based on the new generation of extended-range electric technology and the new urban operating model, carbon emissions are expected to be reduced by more than 90%, strengthening the feasibility of extended range electric vehicles to replace fuel vehicles.
Fifth, looking forward to the future green electricity + clean fuel
Looking forward to the future, Li Xiang also gave his own ideas, respectively;
Realize the autonomous control of pure electric drive technology;
The security of the national energy strategy, whether there will be a much larger futures market behind lithium carbonate than the spot;
Centralized power energy and distributed liquid energy will coexist for a long time.
In terms of central-style energy, Li Xiang proposed to rely on electricity, transmit through large-scale power grids, and shift from coal power to green power.
In terms of distributed energy, Li Xiang proposed to rely on liquid fuels to provide distributed energy resources through convertible, transportable and storable, but this part of the reliance on electricity is no longer a fossil fuel, but a clean fuel, such as hydrogen and clean methanol.
Compared with central energy, distributed energy resources have the characteristics of local conditions, nearby utilization and independent operation, which is more conducive to reducing the loss of long-distance transmission of energy.
From Li Xiang's outlook for the future, it is not difficult to find that in the future, whether it is distributed energy or central energy, its final form is green energy saving.
However, whether it is a central energy source or a distributed energy source, the ultimate goal is to achieve local conditions and diversified green energy types to better achieve energy conservation and emission reduction.
Editor's Summary:
In the transition period to full electrification, battery life anxiety and mileage anxiety still exist.
On the other hand, environmental protection is becoming more and more urgent, based on the national strategic goals and the domestic car environment, the range extension technology can not only undertake the heavy responsibility of energy conservation and emission reduction, but also have a better car experience, which is indeed an effective route to replace fuel for the current environment.
Of course, the realization of domestic strategic goals is not only dependent on the increased range, the diversification of technical routes can better help 2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality.