The coordinate system has received more than 100 million yuan in financing, and will promote further financing plans during the year. There is probably a "small goal" away from mass production.
Text丨Zhijia.com Zero sauce
Editor丨Langlang Mountain and Mingzhi Mountain
"Pure electromechanical wire control technology is the core cornerstone of the future of smart cars, it is equivalent to an infrastructure, after the infrastructure is built, you will find that the whole vehicle can greatly expand the application scenarios of smart cars, change the cockpit design and vehicle form, but you can't do it without this technology. ”
Yan Shifu, founder and CEO of Suzhou Coordinate System Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., described the wire control technology in this way.
As an enterprise that has only been established for half a year, what kind of strategy does the coordinate system have in the field of wire-controlled chassis, which is a story that the industry and capital want to know.
In Yan Shifu's view, the two words strategy can be explained separately:
War is choosing what to do, and slightly choosing what not to do.
This is a fundamental question that a start-up needs to think about.
01.
Tier 1&Tier 0.5的差别
"Wire control" - a not very new technology, in recent years after being installed in the automobile chassis, is widely regarded by the industry as one of the technical architectures of future intelligent vehicles.
To put it simply, the chassis is divided into five functions: shift-by-wire, throttle-by-wire, suspension by wire, steer-by-wire and brake-by-wire. Among them, the brake-by-wire system can be divided into two types: Electro-Hydraulic Brake (EHB) and Electro-Mechanical Brake (EMB). Among them, the EHB system continues the traditional hydraulic braking system structure and is the current mainstream braking system.
The EMB system, on the other hand, has the core advantages of system reconstruction and software and hard layering by abandoning complex hydraulic pipelines and parts, which is the future development direction of BBW.
At the end of last year, ZF unveiled a four-wheeled EMB concept and a prototype with a new dry braking system that eliminates the need for brake fluid and can be used in a mix of wet and dry vehicles. Schaeffler also said at the opening ceremony of its Taicang New Energy Phase II plant that it is developing the core components of the steer-by-wire system. In its just-released 2023 annual report, Bethel, a local leader in automotive chassis, said that it has carried out research and development work on electromechanical braking (EMB), and the first sample of EMB's A round has been completed in August 2023 and has been verified in winter tests.
We can see that both international and domestic companies are actively embracing the implementation of this technology, and EMB has attracted the dawn of mass production.
But how to break through?
Yan Shifu, founder and CEO of Coordinate System, believes that the difference between Tier 1 and 0.5 supplier positioning is the key.
The purely electromechanical wire-controlled chassis is a subversive change and reconstruction of the current chassis system.
Components including chassis domain controllers, purely electromechanical EMB by wire, pedal-by-wire, steer-by-wire and suspension by wire require in-depth collaboration, common definition, and even joint development between suppliers and OEMs to finally clarify the delivery status of the system.
How the entire architecture is designed, how it is built, and how it is divided cannot be defined by Tier 1.
Following the naming pattern, it can be called Tier 0.5
However, Tier 0.5 here does not refer to a simple supply and demand relationship, but a capability model, including the architecture capability of the whole system, the ability of software layering and decoupling, and the ability of hardware delivery. With these capabilities, we can meet the differentiated needs of OEMs in multiple dimensions, not only delivering a single actuator or domain controller, but also delivering a complete system solution. ”
As the infrastructure of future smart vehicles, pure electromechanical drive-by-wire technology must be jointly defined and developed with OEMs, and each other is an ally to promote the implementation of new technologies.
The more open and transparent it is, the more open the profits.
"Intel is so powerful, why did Nvidia pop up, why wasn't chatGPT born in Google?"
This is also the original intention of Yan Shifu, who has been deeply involved in the chassis industry for many years, to establish the coordinate system with a number of industry insiders.
02.
A breakthrough point for electrification & intelligent sharing
In the course of the dialogue, Yan Shifu has been emphasizing one sentence:
"The competition of wire-controlled chassis is not the competition between factories, it is the competition of routes, the competition between hydraulic and wire-control, similar to the competition between fuel vehicles and electric vehicles. ”
Why did the coordinate system choose the wire control route?
"I've been working on chassis for 20 years, and after several generations of chassis product changes, I think it's a huge shift from the current chassis to the electromechanical system. With leading technology and better cost, I have never encountered such a cost-effective solution."
Yan Shifu used one sentence to summarize the reason why the coordinate system completely abandoned hydraulic technology.
What's the deal?
In the Three-Body Universe, the "technological explosion" is one of the basic concepts of its world operation.
In Yan Shifu's view, wire control technology is currently on the eve of "technology explosion", and the technical problems of "stable power supply" in the era of fuel vehicles are basically negligible when the penetration rate of electric vehicles is increasing year by year.
The explosive growth of electric vehicles provides sufficient soil for the large-scale use of wire-controlled chassis.
On top of this, intelligence and price war are becoming the two major driving forces to promote the development of wire-controlled chassis.
According to Yiou data, in 2023, China's new energy vehicle sales will reach 9.5 million, of which 6.14 million smart electric vehicles will be sold, with a penetration rate of 65%.
Starting from the beginning of 2023, brands such as Tesla, Xpeng, Li Enterprise, NIO, and Wenjie will successively promote the implementation of urban NOA (Navigate On Autopilot). A series of brands such as Zhiji and BYD are also planning to land in urban NOA in 2024. The next ten years will be a period of long-term complex coexistence of L1, L2, 3, 4, and 5 levels of intelligent driving.
For the traditional hydraulic system, it is necessary to adapt to the needs of intelligent driving step by step by constantly "patching", and also increase the cost of car companies step by step.
The pure electromechanical wire-controlled chassis is designed to meet all the needs of autonomous driving, from brake redundancy, power supply redundancy, communication redundancy, including response speed, it can meet the needs of all scenarios from L1 to L5.
And this is crucial to reduce the cost of building a car.
Yan Shifu believes that the price war of car companies is forcing supplier companies to promote technological breakthroughs.
"The application of new technologies for car companies, at least can make the price of the whole vehicle have a premium space, and in the worst case, you can also maintain your price, which is the attraction of new technology. ”
Yan Shifu introduced the current technical team in a timely manner:
"The core team members such as CTO and COO of the coordinate system have worked in well-known companies such as Bosch, Nexteer, and Haldex, and have experience in the double-sided development of braking and steering, and have mature experience in commercialization. In the field of EMB, the coordinate system is the enterprise that invests the most resources in China.
Now the whole team has about 50 people, of which 80% are R&D teams, and then by the end of the year, it should be about 60~70, and the incremental part is mainly the development of the electronic control system of steer-by-wire, which is an area in which almost the entire industry has not yet achieved large-scale mass production. ”
So what are the results?
As a start-up company established in August 2023, Coordinate System has completed the development of the first EMB, and has obtained joint development projects from a number of domestic first-tier OEMs, and has completed the joint winter test of a full set of EMB systems (EMB actuators, wire control pedals and domain controllers) for related models, which is expected to be officially mass-produced by the end of 2025. At the same time, the coordinate system also officially launched the development of steer-by-wire SbW, made efforts in XY two-way fusion control, and signed cooperation with a number of ecological chain enterprises.
In order to meet the upcoming large-scale mass production demand of intelligent chassis, the first EMB production line of the coordinate system was settled in Suzhou Industrial Park.
03.
100 billion market & capital darling
Some people in the industry once estimated like this:
"In 2023, domestic car sales will exceed 30 million units, and according to this figure, it is inferred that if automatic driving assistance technology is fully popularized, at least 20 million cars will need to use drive-by-wire chassis technology. The value of a single vehicle of the three major brake-by-wire chassis systems, brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire and cast-by-wire suspension, is about 10,000 yuan, which is equivalent to a domestic market size of 200 billion yuan a year. ”
A 100 billion market that has not yet been monopolized by large foreign manufacturers is bound to become a sweet spot in the eyes of capital.
According to the statistics of Gasgoo, in the first half of 2023 alone, there will be no less than 10 financings in the field of wire-controlled chassis disclosed in China.
At present, the coordinate system has completed the Pre-A round of financing, which is jointly invested by Northern Light Venture Capital and Suzhou Shunrong, which is also the second financing obtained by the coordinate system in the past six months since its establishment.
Huang He, partner of Northern Light Venture Capital, said: "Wire-controlled chassis is a market with a market size of 100 billion yuan, and domestic chassis manufacturers are expected to usher in a period of historical opportunities. In terms of key product selection, EMB systems are likely to be an important entry point for new players in the market. As the next generation of brake-by-wire, the EMB system has entered the pre-development stage of major car manufacturers around the world, and we believe that there is an opportunity for a new company on the track of EMB braking system because the EMB braking system has eliminated the hydraulic module that has been used for decades. ”
As the coordinate system of the new company, while counting the money, I calculated the accounts for the media:
"For example, our current goal is to achieve mass production by the end of 2025, that is, from the product, technology, development, verification, team, including industrialization investment, factories, processes, and laboratories, we estimate that about 200 million yuan will be needed before mass production, and it may double if it is really profitable."
It is reported that the coordinate system has received more than 100 million yuan in financing, and Yan Shifu revealed that further financing plans will be promoted during the year.
There is probably a "small goal" away from mass production