Observation chamber
Written by | Liu Jihao
The continuous popularity of new energy has far exceeded everyone's expectations, which has also enabled the transformation speed of traditional car companies to be improved again.
In late April, the Changan Automobile New Energy Technology Sharing Meeting, which was originally scheduled to be released during the 2022 Beijing Auto Show, was changed to online because the epidemic situation was changed, but this did not reduce everyone's expectations for it in the slightest, because the dry goods shared by Deng Chenghao, CEO of Changan New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., a science and engineering man, were too much, and even exceeded expectations.
From the perspective of consumers, the highlight of its sharing is undoubtedly the upcoming C385, because this pioneer general who aims at Tesla Model 3 has satisfied people's appetite in terms of strength, but from the author's personal point of view, its more valuable information lies in the model platform behind C385, that is, Changan Automobile's all-electric digital platform that has been grinding a sword for five years.
The future of Chang'an is in deep blue
The center of gravity of the deep blue is in EPA1
In the face of the brave progress of the new car-making forces, as well as the big strides of traditional car companies such as BYD and GAC in the field of new energy, Changan has been cautious before, and the best selling Ben E-Star is still oil to electricity. But this is only the appearance of people seeing, because since the moment of the release of the Shangri-La plan in 2017, Changan has been officially laid out on the new energy track, and it is directly invested in the research and development team of more than 2,000 people, and has worked quietly for 5 years.
The biggest achievement in these five years is the SDA architecture (software-defined automobile) represented by the EPA1 all-electric digital platform, which includes three major model platforms of EPA0, EPA1 and EPA2. The much-anticipated C385, as well as the cross-border SUV model C673 that will be officially unveiled in the second half of the year, are all from EPA1; the cute and obedient car LUMIN (glutinous corn), which is about to be listed, is the first mass-produced new car of the EPA0 platform; as for the EPA2, its products are still in the stage of secrecy for the time being - in these three platforms, the most important thing is EPA1, because this is Changan's core product position in the field of new energy, that is, the main power range of the deep blue brand. Just as it aims at the new energy market of 150,000-300,000 price points.
It is even no exaggeration to say that the EPA1 platform is the future of Changan, and I don't believe you can see what hard power Changan has injected into this platform.
In terms of system efficiency, EPA1 is undoubtedly a bully
In the first place, it must be a new generation of super collector electric drive. It adopts eight-layer flat wire winding, rotor double V topology configuration, ultra-low resistance wire, adaptive control algorithm, and applies low resistance topology optimization, the maximum efficiency of the electric drive system can reach 95%, and the average efficiency of the working condition is not less than 90% - the efficiency of the industry's current mainstream integrated electric drive system has been raised by nearly 10 percentage points, and Changan has applied for as many as 163 patents.
Super collector electric drive has a black technology, that is, micronucleus high-frequency pulse heating technology. Drawing on the principle of pulsars, it uses the inductance and switching characteristics of the electric drive to generate high-frequency pulse current between the drive battery and the electric drive, and realizes self-heating through the internal resistance of the battery. According to the previous tests disclosed by Changan, it took only 5 minutes for the battery pack to be increased from -30 °C to -8 °C, and the maximum charging power of the battery was increased from 10kW to 59kW, which greatly alleviated the experience of electric vehicles in extremely cold weather - compared with the traditional external heating method (water heating or metal film heating), its low temperature dynamics increased by 50%, and the charging time was shortened by 15%, and Changan applied for more than 50 patents.
"The electrical efficiency of the entire EPA1 platform power system (the ratio of the net output of the electric drive system to the power consumption of the grid) has reached 78%, which is a big step forward from the industry average of 70%-75%", Obviously, Deng Chenghao, who is from a technical background, is extremely excited when he mentions several core data of the platform.
Thanks to the system efficiency of the EPA1 platform, the C385 single-motor model has an endurance of more than 700 kilometers, and the CLTC's comprehensive power consumption is only 12.3 kWh - these two important indicators of endurance are better than the Tesla Model 3 single motor version, you know, its body length is more than 4.8 meters (Model 3 is less than 4.7 meters), and the wheelbase reaches 2.9 meters (Model 3 is 2.875 meters).
The body is larger and heavier, the energy consumption is lower, and the color of the core power system is clear at a glance.
Than performance, in front of Tesla is not afraid
Of course, the products of the EPA1 platform are not only efficient, but also ahead of their competitors in performance.
Still taking the C385 and Model 3 as an example, according to the previously published test data, the zero-hundred acceleration time of the C385 single-motor version is 5.9 seconds, which is 0.2 seconds faster than the Model 3 rear-drive version - in stark contrast, the C385 has a motor power of 190kW, while the Model 3 reaches 194kW.
The comprehensive trade-off of the EPA1 platform in terms of lightweight, body optimization design, and corresponding characteristics of the power system shows that it has reached the industry-leading level. According to Deng Chenghao, the EPA1 platform is the ultimate performance model platform that takes into account the four-wheel drive as the gene, and generally has a wide body, low center of gravity and 50:50 front and rear axle-to-load ratio, and handling is one of the core selling points.
In particular, the EPA1 platform uses an H-arm multi-link independent rear suspension system. This suspension structure is mostly exclusive to high-end cars, such as Tesla Model S and Model X (the previous generation of Range Rover is also used), and its typical feature is that the lower control arm is replaced by an H arm, which is more space-saving than the common E-type multi-link and more suitable for the layout of the rear-drive motor. As for the performance level, it can withstand both longitudinal and lateral forces, especially to improve the lateral stiffness of the suspension, which plays an enhancing role in noise reduction and shock absorption - specifically, the following of the rear suspension, high-speed stability, and riding comfort have been greatly improved, and the driving experience is more delicate.
Not only that, the products of the EPA1 platform have also been strengthened and adjusted in many details, such as the latest generation of brake dual redundancy system can take care of the needs of most users, and the clearance tapping sound pressure of the powertrain during rapid acceleration or rapid deceleration is also significantly better than the industry's top level, providing a first-class NVH experience.
Smart and secure, more patents applied
If battery life and performance are the most direct hard indicators that affect whether people buy electric vehicles, then intelligence and battery safety are soft indicators that affect people to choose one or the other.
But in this regard, Deng Chenghao seems to be more confident, because the hard currency of the EPA1 platform is equally dense.
For example, the three major domain control architectures that support the expansion of SOA services (vehicle domain, cockpit domain and driving domain), of which the first seven-in-one "Changan Smart Core" in China is an intelligent vehicle domain controller with completely independent intellectual property rights (with more than 80 patents), which is 70% higher than the performance of the split controller and 70% lower in volume; its cockpit domain controller takes Qualcomm 8155 chip as the core, has a high logic computing power of 105K low-Mipus, adopts Hypervisor domain control solution, and has multiple screens As for the intelligent driving domain controller, the EPA1 platform has been able to realize intelligent assisted driving from point A to point B under the navigation path of the high-precision map, covering scenarios including automatic lane change, up and down ramps, automatic parking, remote driving, etc., and supports L4 level automatic driving up to the highest level.
In terms of safety, the battery is undoubtedly the top priority, but we see that the iBC digital battery manager of the EPA1 platform adopts the combination of three major ways of "preferred battery cell + digital process control + cloud BMS dual monitoring", in order to prevent thermal runaway, a series of combined punches such as aerospace-grade full battery heat insulation technology, alcohol-cooled and efficient heat dissipation, transient pressure relief technology, overpressure sealing control, global anti-short circuit technology, directional pressure drainage and full-time temperature alarm.
It can be said that although Changan has not deliberately made a gimmick for its battery safety technology like BYD, GAC or Great Wall, in terms of practical application, it has been considered quite well for users - after all, in the iBC digital battery butler technology, the number of patents applied by Changan has reached 392.
A lot of things look boring, but if you simply judge by the number of patents, you know how hard Changan Deep Blue is in terms of intelligence and security.
"Final Talk"
On the day of the sharing meeting, Deng Chenghao expressed such a point of view in an interview with the media: Tesla is a straight man, Weilai is a niche, Changan can not go their way, because Changan is a large-scale car company with annual sales of one or two million new cars, to serve the general public, so the deep blue brand should be "big".
How big is this goal? According to Deng Chenghao, the goal of the C385 is to sell 2W+ per month, which is enough to break the wrist with tesla Model 3. To this end, the first batch of 600 order centers of the Deep Blue brand will be opened with the listing of C385, and the delivery center and maintenance center will also open recruitment at the same time, and then there will be a warehousing center and a butler center.
But the C385 is just the beginning, because the product capacity of the three platforms of the Deep Blue brand is very large. Far from it, with reference to the C385 benchmarking Model 3 approach, it is not surprising that the C673, which will be unveiled in the second half of the year, will list model Y as an imaginary enemy, and its sales are naturally not expected to be low. After that, in the rhythm of the deep blue brand pushing a new product every six months to a year, the EPA1 platform as the main force will be the undisputed protagonist.
Of course, Chang'an (or deep blue) in the new energy battle can be a hit, the final listed products have the most say, fortunately, this day is very close, C385 will be the touchstone to test the color of the EPA1 platform. But judging from the details of the official announcement that the platform provides two additional power sources at the same time, such as range-extended hybrid and hydrogen fuel cells, people may be able to find more surprises at that time.
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