Independent brands have made visible progress in recent years, the appearance design has become more mature, the shadow of plagiarism and copycats has been reduced, and the like of Zotye has been eliminated by the market.
Geely, BYD, Changan have their own family design language, highly original appearance has been recognized by the majority of consumers, saying that domestic cars are ugly has become history, but the design of joint venture cars is becoming more and more moderate.
The widely criticized three major technologies have also made a qualitative leap forward, Chang'an's blue whale power, Chery's Kunpeng power, BYD's Xiaoyun power, Dongfeng's Mach power, Geely's Raytheon power and other domestic power has risen in an all-round way.
Blue Whale NE1.5T engine maintains a full throttle high-speed operation state of 5500 rpm throughout the whole process, and the full load operation is 259 hours, 46 minutes and 45 seconds without any problems, and the durability, durability and reliability have been fully verified.
The Kunpeng 2.0T engine surpassed the Volkswagen EA888 2.0T engine in all aspects, and the 1.5TD hybrid special engine released by Geely achieved a thermal efficiency of 43.32%, setting a record for the highest thermal efficiency of the world's mass-produced hybrid engine.
Not long ago, Xingtu Lingyun S achieved zero hundred acceleration of 6.29 seconds, Elk test score of 85.9km/h excellent results, reflecting the domestic car in power matching, chassis adjustment of the huge progress.
From the perspective of products, the current domestic car, whether it is the appearance, interior, configuration, or power, control, chassis is not worse than the joint venture car, it can be said that it has made great progress.
For ordinary consumers, the gap between domestic cars and joint venture cars has become more and more difficult to perceive, and even many people mistakenly think that domestic models have surpassed joint venture cars.
Such a misunderstanding is not a bad thing, but it reflects everyone's confidence in "domestic", and everyone should maintain such self-confidence.
But self-confidence is self-confidence, if from the perspective of the automobile industry, then it involves all aspects of industrial manufacturing, and the gap between domestic cars and joint venture cars begins to appear.
First, key core components rely on imports
We can design and manufacture excellent engines and gearboxes on our own, but there are still big gaps in core components, core software technology and control systems.
For example, the Great Wall 7-speed dual-clutch is a clutch module provided by BorgWarner, a transmission control unit provided by mainland Germany, and the Geely 7-speed dual-clutch still relies on Volvo's technology.
Chery's self-developed CVT gearbox has a high degree of intellectual property rights, I remember when I was in school, the teacher was very excited to say that Chery achieved a breakthrough in the field of CVT transmission in the mainland, and everyone listened to the blood boiling. Later, I learned that the steel belt of the core part of the CVT gearbox was still imported from "Bosch", and I felt very lost.
Not only the gearbox, the turbocharger of the turbocharged engine also relies on imports, we must not underestimate these parts, its role is related to durability, power, and power response speed.
This is not a problem that can be solved by one or two car companies, involving materials science and high-precision machine tools, which are in the hands of Japanese and German companies and are in a state of technological blockade.
Due to the lack of machine tool accuracy, domestic turbochargers perform poorly in durability, and domestic turbocharged engines must rely on imports if they want to get stable quality.
Bearings are the most commonly used parts in automobiles, from bearings on engines and gearboxes to bearings on wheels, which may be inconspicuous to everyone, but also rely on imports.
The car repair master is very aware of the fact that if the car uses imported bearings, it can be done that the bearings are good when the car is scrapped, but if it is replaced by a domestic bearing due to an accident or other reasons, it may be possible to use 20,000 or 30,000 kilometers after the abnormal sound.
Bearing this problem is related to the accuracy of the machine tool, but also related to the industry standard, know a domestic auto parts supplier of technical personnel, he talked about the gap between domestic cars and joint venture cars, very ashamed to say: "The requirements of domestic transmission parts are three-in-ten-thousand failure rate, and Toyota Aisin requirements are one-millionth of a failure rate, and there is a very large gap in quality control in the field of domestic processing." ”
However, we still have to seek truth from facts, many times it is not domestic bearings that deliberately lower the standard, but the use of high standards there is no way to recover the cost, the current cost of imported bearings is thousands of yuan, and the cost of domestic bearings is only two or three hundred yuan.
Price determines the quality, quality determines the price, domestic bearings can not sell high prices, can only control the cost by reducing the standard, so it is caught in a vicious circle, is not conducive to the sustainable development of the domestic automobile industry supply chain.
It is often said that the joint venture car is durable, but there is a premium, and the premium is there, but it is also true that high-quality bearings and turbochargers are used in invisible places.
Of course, with the rising profit margin of domestic cars, domestic cars have also used imported parts in recent years, and the quality performance of suppliers like joint venture cars is similar.
According to the "2021 China New Car Quality Research (IQS)" released by J.D.Power, the gap between independent brands and international brands has narrowed from 10 PP100 in 2020 to 5 PP100 in 2021.
Second, the core electrical parts also rely on imports
In addition to the hardware, software is equally important, and the sensors and control software on the car are in the hands of foreign brands, such as the most popular driver assistance system at present.
Independent brands basically use NVIDIA's assisted driving solutions, although Huawei and Baidu also have technology in this regard, but NVIDIA's assisted driving solutions can be said to be nanny-level, directly tailored, and car companies have even saved adjustments.
And in terms of technology is indeed ahead, has been mature for many years, as the mileage is getting longer and longer, the system will be optimized more and more mature, our company wants to catch up, it is too difficult to rely on one or two companies alone.
The same is true of the control units including the engine and transmission, and the current mainstream suppliers are Germany's Doctor and Continental, France's Valeo, Japan's Panasonic and Denso.
These controllers are like the brains of the car, even if our engines and gearboxes are well designed and no matter how advanced the technology is used, without these control units, fuel economy and power cannot be guaranteed.
The control unit and the driver assistance system are still imported, and you may understand that if I say that the headlights are imported, will it hit the confidence of the headlights?
At present, the headlights used in domestic cars are mainly from the "small series" and "Hella", "small series" may not be familiar to everyone, but KOITO brand headlights should have heard of, this is a Toyota directly subordinate enterprise.
Some people may think that what is the technical content of headlights? At present, domestic headlamps can only be sold as sub-factory parts, and there is no opportunity to directly supply the main engine factory, which shows that the gap is very large.
Third, the same supplier technology, on what basis is there a gap between domestic cars and joint venture cars?
Domestic cars and joint venture cars are used supplier technology, which is true, for example, BMW does not produce its own gearbox, basically use ZF and Aisin.
Japanese cars and Korean cars are different, they are good at using their own technology, for example, Hyundai Kia can develop its own AT gearbox; we often say that the 6AT, 8AT Aisin gearbox also belongs to Toyota Holdings.
Toyota and Hyundai Kia are among the top car manufacturers in the market, and they will not rely on others in core technology, nor dare they rely on others.
GAC Trumpchi has suffered losses in this regard, once the sales of the GS8 were close to the Highlander, and the GS8 used Aisin's gearbox.
I believe that everyone guessed the result, Aisin transmission due to insufficient production capacity, can only give priority to Toyota, resulting in GS8 without a gearbox can not deliver the vehicle in time, and eventually lost a lot of customers.
In recent years, all car companies have fallen into a state of "lack of core", the new domestic car-making forces are heavily dependent on chips, the price of chips has risen hundreds of times, forced to delay delivery and collective price increases, behind which is still the core technology is stuck in the neck of the consequences.
Fourth, the lack of domestic cars is not car-making technology, but the lack of high-quality car-making suppliers
The automotive industry is a test of comprehensive industrial capabilities, from audio, seats, brake calipers, suspension springs, tire hubs, etc., which are imported from foreign suppliers.
The gap between us and the joint venture car is not the gap in the car manufacturing technology, but the gap in the car supplier, and the only thing we can do at present is "Fuyao" glass.
Only when more and more domestic auto suppliers like Fuyao Glass, the gap between independent brands and joint venture cars will really narrow.
We now encourage independent brands to develop new energy vehicles, because electric vehicles are a new industrial chain, the introduction of Tesla is to introduce a complete electric vehicle supply chain, have the opportunity to cultivate local suppliers, optimize the technical level of the local supply chain.
At present, CATL and BYD have become the world's first and fourth power battery suppliers, including electric drives and electronic controls can also achieve self-development and self-production.
We often say that the curve overtaking is not a single reference to car manufacturing technology, but the curve overtaking of the complete supply chain system, and the gap between domestic cars and joint venture vehicles in the field of fuel vehicles has an insurmountable gap.
The field of electric vehicles is completely different, this is a new track, we already have the advantages of technology and volume, in the future, independent brands in electric vehicle technology must not be inferior to Volkswagen, Toyota and other joint venture cars, let us wait and see!