Written by | iDailycar
In recent years, independent brands have made full progress in both product strength and consumer reputation, and you will find that the living space of joint venture brands has been squeezed by many independent brands.
This progress is not only a more mature design, richer configuration or simply intelligent progress, but the platform technology hidden behind the apparent advantages of the product has played a more critical role.
Previously, relying on the platform to create products was still a patent of the joint venture brand, and now the independent brand has made a technological breakthrough in this field. For example, the newly listed Changan UNI-V, with the empowerment of the Ark architecture, can not only challenge a number of joint venture brands in terms of safety performance, but even rival Volvo, which is known as the "safety benchmark".
Good safety design requires a combination of rigidity and flexibility
Vehicle safety indicators have always been the part that car companies focus on at all costs, especially after the A-pillar incident that a joint venture brand made a lot of noise some time ago, I believe that manufacturers have once again seen how high consumers' attention to this problem is.
Previously, we had some misunderstandings about safety, whose steel plate is thicker, the heavier the weight, the higher the safety, but obviously the safety of a car is too superficial to evaluate.
Because in the event of a collision, hard does not necessarily make the occupants safer, how to make the body rigid and soft, how to balance the energy absorption part and high-strength protection is the key to the safety of a car.
The answer given by UNI-V in this regard is the "Ark Cage" body. It can be seen that in the part of the crew compartment, the Ark structure forms multiple force transmission closed loops in both horizontal and vertical directions to ensure the safety of the occupants after the collision.
On top of this, the Ark cage also constructed enough collision energy unloading design on the outside of the crew compartment, such as the subframe detaching structure, unloading part of the collision energy to reduce the impact on the crew compartment.
This concept is actually similar to the "safety benchmark" Volvo, and the reason why Volvo's products can maintain a safe occupant space in a collision is due to the design concept of its high-strength cage safety body. Equivalent to the driver's front, rear, left and right are surrounded by a safety cage structure, which well protects the safety of personnel in the car.
It is understood that relying on the design of the "Ark Cage", UNI-V has applied up to 70% of the high-strength steel on the body, and has used hot-formed steel for many parts such as B-pillar reinforcements, and ultra-high-strength steel for multiple parts such as sill beams;
According to the topology optimization technology, the optimal force transmission path of the body is identified, and the rigidity of the key structure is strengthened while the redundancy quality is greatly reduced. Thanks to the protection of high-strength steel, the deformation of the body can be effectively avoided in the event of a collision, which is evident in the hardness of Volvo Cars.
We all know that in the compact sedan market of the same class, FAW Toyota Corolla and Dongfeng Honda Civic are the models with higher market popularity in this class. After many iterations and upgrades, the proportion of FAW Toyota Corolla and Civic high-strength steel applications is lower than that of Changan UNI-V.
Among them, the proportion of 2021 FAW Toyota Corolla high-strength steel is only 42%, far lower than UNI-V. It can be seen that in the safety competition with the hot-selling models of the joint venture brand, the advantages of UNI-V are very obvious.
In fact, too many official words look like a book of heaven to consumers, and if you understand it well, the "Ark Cage" design is like creating a solid "fortress" for the occupants of the car.
And through topology optimization, while ensuring the strength, the body is lightweight, making the "Ark Cage" light and hard. This also made it win the honor of "2021 China's Top Ten Body Bodies" selected by the China Auto Safety and Body Conference.
It is undeniable that independent brands are limited by factors such as production costs and technical research and development capabilities, and few car companies adopt the high-safety cage-type safety body design concept. Changan Automobile's pursuit of "safety" is not just lip service now.
Proactive security boosts all-round protection
With the accelerated introduction of intelligent and digital technologies into the automotive industry, the safety protection attributes of vehicles are no longer limited to the passive safety level, and the active safety that provides auxiliary functions to avoid risks has become the object of pursuit by all parties in the market.
Also taking Volvo as an example, the City Safety urban safety system is that after ensuring passive safety, it is much better to actively avoid accidents than to react to accidents in response to driving "actual combat". After all, after we buy a car, our biggest wish is that we will not be able to use the passive safety configuration of this car in this lifetime.
In this regard, the Ark architecture gives UNI-V the software prowess to surpass its peers and even joint venture brands. Compared with the same level of Corolla, Langyi and other models, UNI-V has formed a cross-level differentiation in terms of configuration richness, which can actually be compared with Volvo's City Safety urban security system.
The basic safety configuration is equipped with 6 airbags and tire pressure monitoring as standard, and the slightly higher-end functions such as AEB intelligent emergency braking assist, LDW lane departure warning, LKA lane keeping assist, LCDA parallel line assist and many other well-known functions have also appeared in the UNI-V configuration table, with full-speed adaptive cruise, in addition to reducing the driver's pressure at the same time, safety has also been greatly improved.
For example, when we are on the congested expressway in the morning rush hour, many drivers face the stop-and-go road plus warm sunlight into the car, sleepiness is easy to sweep the driver's whole body, at this time, if you go to a god, the front of the car will most likely "kiss" the rear of the car in front, bringing hidden dangers to safe driving.
However, if there is ACC adaptive cruise in the full speed segment with functions such as AEB, this phenomenon will only stay in the imagination and basically will not happen.
In fact, having the above configuration is good enough for a compact sedan. But for UNI-V, which wants to highlight the strength of science and technology for consumers, how can only such a power configuration be worthy of the official title of "Huashi Rising Value Leader"?
In order to meet people's multi-scenario car needs, with the strong software and hardware support of the Ark architecture, UNI-V also implements some IACC high-level driving assistance functions when driving on urban roads or high-speed sections, including UDLC driver trigger lane change and IRLC wisdom recommendation lane change.
So, what are the day-to-day use scenarios for this feature?
In fact, the former can automatically detect the adjacent lane space and surrounding road conditions when the driver turns on the turn signal to change lanes, if the conditions are met, no manual operation is required, intelligent lane change operation can be realized, while saving worry and effort, it can also avoid the safety hazards caused by the driver forgetting to check the car after changing lanes.
The latter can monitor the road environment in real time with sensors such as radar and cameras when the vehicle in front is driving slowly, and combine the road condition information provided by the online map to determine whether the adjacent lanes are more smooth and fast, and if they meet the conditions of intelligent road recommendation, they will give the driver lane change suggestions.
If it is on the road section of the highway that is about to leave the ramp, the system can also actively remind the driver to change lanes to the right when driving in the left lane of the vehicle to avoid missing the ramp.
With these two new features, it's hard to imagine the capabilities of a vehicle that sells for just $100,000. And for some novices, these two functions also have high practical value.
In fact, the addition of the active safety system is like driving alone, sitting in the co-driver position to always help you observe the road conditions of the safety officer, when necessary to remind the driver and even avoid risks. It is believed that with this very intelligent safety officer, UNI-V can ensure the safety of every trip to the greatest extent.
Fast and safe, I want it all
Power, control, this is the biggest gap between the previous independent brand and the joint venture brand, but under the application of the Ark architecture, UNI-V also shows a high level of mainstream peers at the driving control level.
The 1.5T engine of the specially tuned Blue Whale NE series is placed under the hood of the UNI-V, and the maximum power of 138kW and the peak torque of 300N·m have taken advantage over the 1.4T and 1.5T engines of the same class, which makes people marvel at the technical strength of the Blue Whale engine.
At the same time, coupled with the unique exhaust sound wave and electric rear wing of the sport version of the model, both the data and the atmosphere are in place, I believe that after sitting in the cockpit, the driving desire will be instantly stimulated, "cool", "fast" These two words can almost outline the dynamic performance of this car.
It should be noted that UNI-V does not focus on the performance of the vehicle's power and ignore the most important safety for the occupants.
One of the characteristics of the Ark architecture is the low center of gravity, as we all know, the low center of gravity can bring a better sense of handling to the vehicle, on the basis of fast, in order to ensure safety must have a good and stable control.
If you are a driver who pursues a sense of control, imagine that when you are enjoying speed and passion, without a good body control system, then the faster the vehicle in the dashboard travels, I am afraid that the more fear will be in your heart.
In addition, suspension construction and tuning will also play a crucial role, UNI-V is equipped with a reinforced front MacPherson suspension with transverse stabilizer bars, and the rear suspension is a multi-link independent suspension, but the stabilizer bushing is a reinforced bushing with its own metal inner skeleton.
Therefore, when driving daily, good suspension coupled with a highly rigid body gives the UNI-V greater lateral stability, and the roll will be significantly reduced.
Moreover, as early as the vehicle modeling process, the real driving scene has been projected into the computer through big data, and the Ark architecture has undergone tens of millions of evolutions through system calculations to obtain the optimal suspension structure. The above practices are first of all to increase the rigidity and stability of the vehicle in driving, thereby improving the handling, and through technical means, find a balance between comfort and control.
Therefore, whether it is a daily up and down ramp or a mountain bend, or even a high-speed corner on the track, UNI-V can bring more extreme control to the driver, but also bring a safer driving experience.
Of course, we all know that in fact, many times the cause of accidents due to driver operation is that the dynamic response of the brain and the vehicle is inconsistent. At the same time as the body sends out signals, if the vehicle can bring safe and stable control, with the precise control ability of "pointing where to fight", then while bringing driving pleasure, safety naturally accompanies us.
Based on safety, to stimulate the sports potential of the vehicle, this is the UNI-V is different from other models in the market understanding, for us consumers, this is naturally a good thing, because it will further reduce the threshold of sports, no matter how your driving technology, you can feel the fun on UNI-V, after all, there is safety as a support.
summary
Active and passive safety and driving, how to make occupants safer? UNI-V shows us the Ark Architecture's understanding of this issue from three levels, and at the same time, it also shows us its product strength beyond its peers, beyond the joint venture brand, and directly to the industry benchmark.
As an advanced, intelligent and iterative architecture, Ark Architecture can not only accelerate iterative product upgrades through technology, but also further enhance the overall influence of Changan Automobile brand.
It is foreseeable that the future research and development of Changan Automobile will largely stem from the empowerment of the platform architecture, and the Ark architecture will also adjust the market strategy and product layout in a timely manner according to the changes in its automobile consumption market, leaving more room for future development. 【iDailycar】