During the Beijing Auto Show, Tank brand executives said that it was possible to launch the Tank 300 diesel version and the Tank 400 gasoline version in the form of user co-creation.
The current Tank 300 is available in a petrol version and a plug-in hybrid version, and the Tank 400 only has a plug-in hybrid version.
It seems that some car enthusiasts have made the above point, but I don't think there is any need for these two versions to be launched, and even if they were launched, they would only be very niche options. Such a suggestion even has a feeling of "digging a hole for the tank", the diesel version of the off-road vehicle has always been an unpopular car, such as the Isuzu Ranger, the BJ40 diesel version and the Chase Territory diesel version, etc., how many of these cars can be sold in a year?
Advantages and disadvantages of diesel cars
First of all, we must explain the advantages of diesel vehicles, the only advantage is fuel saving, compared with the gasoline version of the same car, it can save about 1/4~1/3.
The rest are disadvantages, such as:
- Loud noise
- Low power
- Poor convenience of using a car
The diesel engine adopts compression ignition ignition technology, the vibration in the process of doing work is relatively strong, the vibration intensity determines the noise intensity, the noise of the diesel engine will always be greater than that of the gasoline engine; and the off-road vehicle is the high-end model of the passenger car type, the price of the best-selling off-road vehicle is not less than 150,000 yuan, the starting price of the tank 300 in the hot-selling car is about 200,000 yuan, the main version of the Ford Martyr is priced at more than 300,000 yuan, the new Toyota Prado is priced at about 500,000 yuan, and the price of the Jeep Wrangler or Mercedes-Benz G-class in the imported car is higher。
So do users of these mid-to-high-end cars care more about the fuel cost of a few dollars per 100 kilometers, or pay more attention to the driving experience and quality of the vehicle? The answer is obvious. So diesel-powered off-road vehicles are not at all what the main users of off-road vehicles need, and it is undoubtedly a waste to build such a car.
High-end car users will always have higher performance requirements for vehicles, and the performance requirements are not limited to off-road scenarios, after all, off-road vehicles are also driven on the road most of the time.
Diesel engines are even more incompatible with user needs, because diesel engines are characterized by high torque and low power.
At present, the strongest 2.0T twin-turbo diesel engine comes from SAIC Maxus, with a maximum torque of 500N·m and a maximum power of only 160kW, while the average 2.0T diesel engine only has a peak power of about 120kW. However, the same 500N·m gasoline engine can reach 260~270kW, and the high-power 2.0T gasoline engine can reach the high standard of 220kW! 1kW is equal to 1.36PS (metric horsepower), the greater the horsepower, the faster the acceleration, and the faster the acceleration car can overtake happily on the paved road.
Therefore, diesel vehicles have never been the mainstream choice of high-end car users, among them, the acceleration performance of the high speed range is too poor to be suitable for economical vehicles, and individual high-end models using diesel engines have basically been discontinued.
After the diesel vehicle has been added to the particulate matter trap and the selective catalytic reduction system, the convenience of its car is getting worse, and the vehicle will have the situation that the particulate matter trap is blocked every hundreds of kilometers in the urban road; there are two solutions after the blockage, one is to drive continuously for more than half an hour at a speed of more than 80km/h, and the other is to clean the particulate matter at a high speed in situ, once the trap is blocked to the limit and the vehicle happens to be just started, the owner can only use the car after waiting for the cleaning to be completed.
Selective catalytic reduction systems require regular urea additions, which is not very expensive but is also an expense.
This is the characteristic of diesel vehicles, and their NVH characteristics and low power characteristics are destined to be suitable only for commercial vehicles that do not pursue driving quality.
There was no need for a gasoline version of the tank 400
Why are major car companies pushing plug-in hybrid (including extended range) vehicles?
The reason is simple.
Because the fuel consumption of the plug-in hybrid system is very low, through the cooperation of the electric drive unit and the internal combustion engine, its fuel consumption can be 1/3~1/2 lower than that of the same fuel vehicle! This is also the reason why it is not recommended to launch the diesel version of the Tank 300. The choice of the diesel version is nothing more than to save money, and the plug-in hybrid version is more cost-effective than the diesel version, and the plug-in hybrid car can also be driven by pure electric vehicles, and it only needs to be charged daily to drive as an electric car, and the cost of charging is lower, so there is no need to push the diesel version at all.
In the same way, the gasoline version of the tank 400 still does not perform as well as the plug-in hybrid version, and it naturally makes no sense to launch a gasoline version.
There are opinions that gasoline or diesel vehicles have a better off-road experience, but such opinions do not hold true at least for tank brand off-road vehicles.
Because it does not use a multi-motor four-wheel drive system, but a traditional four-wheel drive architecture based on a longitudinal four-wheel drive mechanical structure and a series electric motor, its four-wheel drive system retains the gearbox and transfer case, with 4L (low-speed four-wheel drive mode), its off-road platform is no different from the fuel version, but the performance has been enhanced.
So the Tank 300 does not need a diesel version, the Tank 400 does not need a gasoline version, and it is just a waste of time to build these two cars.
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