The century-old automotive industry has ushered in a critical leap moment, and major technology manufacturers have brought a new car-making model - ecological car-making. This is a forward-looking idea that Tesla and Apple cannot realize in the short term, and at present, looking at the industry, only Xiaomi and Huawei, two major technology manufacturers, have the ability to achieve such a scientific and technological ecological car manufacturing layout.
On December 28, Lei Jun officially unveiled the mystery of Xiaomi cars. However, this time, Lei Jun lectured on automotive technology, and briefly brought some product information, as for the price that the outside world is most concerned about, it has still not been released. Some people think that Xiaomi is "selling off", but in fact, after really understanding Xiaomi's car technology and the story behind it, you will find that it deserves a separate press conference.
Especially for Xiaomi, building a car is a process from 0 to 1, at this stage, what kind of technical system Xiaomi has built, and how deep the technical thickness it has, will directly affect the upper limit of its product capabilities.
Two days ago, Lei Jun also admitted frankly on social platforms that the outside world thinks that Xiaomi cars are slow because Xiaomi does not use the existing automobile industry to simply save a car, but starts from the underlying core technology and uses ten times the investment of others to build a good car.
In Xiaomi's view, an outstanding electric car must meet three conditions: first, it must be a good-looking, easy-to-drive, comfortable and safe car, second, it must be a mobile smart terminal, and finally, it must become an advanced mobile intelligent space.
This understanding is also Xiaomi's positioning of the first car. Previously, although Lei Jun said that Xiaomi's first car, Xiaomi SU7, did not have an accurate benchmark vehicle, he mentioned two cars: "In terms of drivability and other mechanical qualities, we hope to be comparable to Porsche Taycan Turbo, and in terms of intelligence, we hope to be comparable to Tesla Model S."
Those who are familiar with the history of automobile development know that in the more than 130 years of automobile history, Porsche and Tesla are two brands of epochal significance. The former is a model of traditional automobiles, while the latter ushers in the era of smart electric vehicles. If it corresponds to the "three conditions" mentioned above, the two brands correspond to the first two conditions, and the third condition - "mobile intelligent space", Lei Jun said, "This is the starting point of Xiaomi's car manufacturing".
Five core technologies
For Xiaomi's first car, Lei Jun summed up two key words, namely "surprisingly upright" and "ten times the investment".
"Integrity" means that Xiaomi Auto should fully respect the laws of the automotive industry, first ensure that the first car can be done well, and then innovate under this premise. The "ten-fold investment" refers to the fact that Xiaomi Auto has invested 3,400 engineers in the first car and invested more than 10 billion yuan in R&D, which is more than ten times the investment of ordinary car manufacturers.
Because of this, at the technical conference held on the 28th, Lei Jun had so much to talk about. According to its introduction, Xiaomi Auto has conducted its own research on full-stack technologies in manufacturing, intelligence and other aspects. Among them, manufacturing-related technologies include smart factories, large die-casting clusters, frame platforms, motors, etc., while intelligence-related technologies include vehicle electronic and electrical architecture, Xiaomi surging OS, intelligent cockpit, intelligent autonomous driving, etc.
If put into the industry for horizontal comparison, the differentiation of Xiaomi cars is mainly reflected in the five core technologies, namely electric drive, battery, large die-casting, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit.
In terms of electric drive, Xiaomi has released two generations of super motors, HyperEngine V8s and HyperEngine V6/V6s. Among them, the HyperEngine V8s super motor with a speed of up to 27,200 rpm has a power density of 10.14kW/kg, which exceeds Tesla's current state-of-the-art level by more than 60%. It is completely self-developed and produced by Xiaomi, which has applied for 155 patents for this motor, of which 60 have been authorized.
In order to achieve a speed far exceeding the industry standard, Xiaomi and Shougang established a technical joint laboratory, and conducted 108 batches of tests in a year and a half, and finally created a 960MPa special silicon steel sheet, which is more than twice the strength of the industry's mainstream products.
It is worth mentioning that Lei Jun also announced that Xiaomi has successfully pre-developed the next generation of super motors, and through the "carbon fiber laser winding process", the rotor has successfully achieved a maximum speed of 35,000rpm in the laboratory.
Coupled with the HyperEngine V6/V6s with a speed of 21,000 rpm, Xiaomi has released three generations of motor technology in one go, with sufficient technical reserves, demonstrating Xiaomi's innovative strength and deep accumulation in the field of motors, and also providing more possibilities for the diversity and innovation of its future products.
In terms of battery, Xiaomi has developed its own CTB integrated battery technology, and the world's first cell inversion technology, so that the battery capacity can reach up to 150 degrees, the theoretical CLTC range is up to 1200km+, and the battery integration efficiency can reach 77.8%, which is at the leading level in the world.
In addition, the industry's top heat dissipation and thermal insulation design is also a highlight of Xiaomi's battery technology. The double-large surface strong cooling scheme ensures that there are heat dissipation plates on both sides of the cell, and the cooling area reaches 7.8m and the largest in the same class, achieving 4 times the average cooling effect of the industry. A total of 165 pieces of aerogel insulation material are used on the side of the cell, which can resist high temperatures of 1000°C, making the thermal insulation performance of the battery reach a new high.
From self-developed materials, equipment cluster systems, to finished castings, Xiaomi has completed full-stack self-research in almost all links in the large die-casting industry chain. With its self-developed 9100t super large die-casting technology, Xiaomi HyperCasting, Xiaomi has also become the only domestic automobile manufacturer that independently develops both "large die-casting equipment cluster" and "die-casting materials".
According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi's large die-casting equipment cluster covers an area of 840m², with a total weight of 1050t, which is equivalent to the size of two basketball courts, and the clamping force reaches 9100t, which is at the top of the industry. Based on this device, Xiaomi Auto integrates 72 parts of the rear floor, reduces the number of solder joints by 840, reduces the overall weight by 17%, and significantly reduces production man-hours by 45%.
Some Xiaomi insiders said that Xiaomi had also tried the industry die-casting scheme before, but because it could not achieve the required effect, Xiaomi took the self-development route. To this end, Xiaomi has invested more than billions of yuan in die-casting equipment alone.
Of course, large die-casting technology is also an important trend in the automotive industry, and the higher safety brought by improving the structural strength and the increased range brought by the weight reduction of the body are the most desired aspects of electric vehicles. Therefore, Xiaomi's mastery of die-casting full-stack technology through self-research not only improves its production efficiency and automotive technology at this stage, but also seizes the commanding heights of future automobile manufacturing.
For intelligent driving, Xiaomi's current total investment is more than 4.7 billion yuan, and the team size is also more than 1,000 people. Lei Jun said that at present, Xiaomi Auto has mastered three key technologies, including adaptive zoom BEV technology, road large model and super-resolution occupancy network technology.
Among them, the adaptive zoom BEV technology is the first in the industry, which can zoom like the human eye and adaptively call different perception algorithms according to different scenes. Therefore, the perception grid of Xiaomi cars can reach a minimum of 0.05m, a maximum of 0.2m, and the recognition range extends from 5cm to 250m, which also makes the parking scene of Xiaomi car more accurate, the urban scene can be seen wider, and the high-speed scene can be seen farther.
At the same time, Xiaomi's industry-first road model is subverting the perception of traditional intelligent driving on road condition recognition. The model can not only recognize real-time road conditions and intelligently adjust the driving trajectory, but also navigate smoothly without relying on high-definition maps in complex intersection conditions.
In terms of obstacle recognition, Xiaomi's super-resolution occupancy network technology realizes unlimited types of special-shaped obstacle recognition. Compared with the traditional way of occupying the network that relies on natural language models to describe obstacles into squares, Xiaomi's innovative super-resolution vector algorithm can simulate all visible objects into three-dimensional objects with continuous curved surfaces, thereby improving the recognition accuracy to 0.1m, which is twice the industry level and 3 times that of Tesla.
A new model of car manufacturing - ecological car manufacturing
The day before the technology conference, Xiaomi put out huge advertisements in many cities, paying tribute to BYD, NIO, Xpeng, Ideal, Huawei, etc.
Lei Jun said that after three years of building the car, he really felt that it was not easy, at least ten times more difficult than he originally thought. As a peer, I look at BYD, Wei Xiaoli, and Huawei's automobile business, and I admire it even more.
In the eyes of the outside world, Xiaomi Automobile, as a new player who is about to enter the industry, this operation to pay tribute to its predecessors not only shows Xiaomi's extremely high emotional intelligence, but also has the meaning of saluting first and then soldiering. Because from the moment it was announced to build a car, Xiaomi has become an opponent that all car manufacturers have to pay attention to.
At present, the new energy vehicle industry has formed a situation of three major lineups competing for each other, namely traditional automobiles, traditional new forces and technology manufacturers. BYD is the representative of traditional automobiles, Wei Xiaoli is the representative of traditional new forces, and as for the representatives of major technology manufacturers, it was Huawei before, and now there is another Xiaomi.
Compared with the other two lineups, the advantage of major technology companies lies in their leading cognition, comprehensive grasp and deep integration of advanced technology. For example, Xiaomi, in the past 13 years, has laid out 12 technical fields and 99 subdivisions, and formed a "converged technology stack" based on the principle of "deep integration of software and hardware, and comprehensive empowerment of AI".
Not only that, Xiaomi has also collaborated with industry partners to lay out the "industrial ecology" in the whole link, from industry developers, supply chain to intelligent manufacturing. Therefore, at a critical moment when the century-old automotive industry is ushering in a critical leap, major technology manufacturers have also brought a new car-making model - ecological car-making. This is a forward-looking idea that Tesla and Apple cannot realize in the short term, and at present, looking at the industry, only Xiaomi and Huawei, two major technology manufacturers, have the ability to achieve such a scientific and technological ecological car manufacturing layout.
For Xiaomi, its "ecological car manufacturing" has five ecological advantages, including technology ecology, product ecology, industrial ecology, user ecology, application and service ecology. These ecological advantages are most obvious in the intelligent cockpit scenario.
The Xiaomi car smart cockpit is equipped with a 16.1-inch 3K ultra-clear central control screen, a 56-inch large HUD head-up display, and a 7.1-inch flip instrument screen. Based on Xiaomi's surging OS, Xiaomi has built a unified visual interaction system to achieve a comprehensive sharing ecology from software to hardware. Therefore, Xiaomi Auto has the same interactive experience as mobile phones and tablets, which allows users to quickly get started without Xi.
What's more, the smart cockpit also has super powerful ecological application expansion capabilities, including Pad APP sharing, mobile APP sharing, and ecological hardware sharing. For example, mobile phone applications can be directly projected to the car desktop for use, mobile phone video conferencing can share the outside camera, and in-car reading lights can call the light sensor of the mobile phone.
At the same time, the Xiaomi smart cockpit has supported 1000+ Mijia devices to get on the car without feeling, and the Pin point expansion interface reserved in the car supports plug and play of devices. At the same time, Xiaomi has also opened up unified standardized interfaces and rich standard protocols to create an exclusive CarIoT ecosystem.
Previously, Xiaomi's group strategy has been upgraded from "mobile phone X AIoT" to "people, cars and home ecology". This is a people-centered ecology, thanks to Xiaomi's past accumulation in mobile phones and IoT scenarios, when other car manufacturers began to make mobile phones across borders and wanted to create a car-machine interconnection ecology, Xiaomi Auto has just been released, and it has already connected a complete software and hardware ecology.
Therefore, compared with many pioneers, although Xiaomi Auto is the latest to enter the game, it has a higher starting point. More importantly, the discussion of Xiaomi cars cannot ignore the brand blessing brought by Lei Jun. More than two years ago, when Lei Jun shouted "to fight for Xiaomi cars", he had already pushed Xiaomi cars into the spotlight, and in the past time, Lei Jun, as the "No. 1 product manager" of Xiaomi cars, put most of his energy into the car.
A person familiar with Lei Jun said, "The most powerful thing about Mr. Lei is that he can turn what he wants to do into a hobby, for example, when he first started building cars, he said that he wanted to drive 100 cars, and now he has driven more than 150 cars." Including many product details of Xiaomi SU7, such as color, are ultimately decided by Mr. Lei." It is reported that Xiaomi SU7 will be launched in three colors: bay blue, elegant gray, and olive green.
Therefore, in creating a "mobile smart space", Xiaomi occupies the right time, place, and people. In the past 13 years, the technological precipitation and intelligent ecological layout have achieved the innovation and leadership of Xiaomi Auto as a "major technology manufacturer and ecological car manufacturer". Lei Jun also said that the development trend of smart electric vehicles is the integration of the automotive industry, the consumer electronics industry and the intelligent ecology, and Xiaomi Auto will comprehensively redefine the technology stack of the automotive industry, which will be a major leap forward in the technical scope of the automotive industry.