"Our plug-in mix will be supplied to foreign brands." On May 10, at the SAIC Roewe DMH super hybrid technology brand press conference, Lu Yong, deputy general manager of SAIC Passenger Car Company, executive vice president of SAIC Innovation Research and Development Institute, and executive deputy director of the technology center, took the initiative to break the news.
SAIC has divided its technological development into three stages: the first stage is from 2004 to 2014, which belongs to the imitation and innovation stage. At this stage, SAIC's R&D was completed from scratch and an independent R&D system was established; The second phase is from 2014 to 2024. This is the stage of independent innovation of SAIC Motor's technology, and there are three representative products, namely the e550 launched in 2013, the mass production of the A structure in 2015, and the launch of the Roewe RX in 2016. Starting from 2024, SAIC will enter the stage of reverse output and empowerment in terms of technology.
"We have been recognized by the German manufacturer to achieve the reverse output of the core technology." Lu Yong said. He said that European car companies are very strong in traditional fuel vehicles, but the stronger they are, the more difficult it is to give up, so European car companies do not take more hybrid routes. "That's why we're able to output in reverse. On the one hand, we have done a very high job in the industry in terms of thermal efficiency and efficiency in all aspects, and we want to choose the more advanced ones, but they don't have them. Lu Yong said.
Lu Yong
Last year, Jia Jianxu, general manager of SAIC Volkswagen, revealed that SAIC Volkswagen was developing long-range plug-in hybrid products, which would be the same as the current mainstream in terms of battery life, and he speculated at that time to use SAIC's technology. And this year, the scheme has been upgraded. In last year's plan, plug-in hybrid products were developed based on the gasoline vehicle platform, and in this year's new plan, SAIC Volkswagen's plug-in hybrid vehicles will be developed based on the electric vehicle platform, and range extender products have been added.
In addition to platform switching, SAIC Volkswagen plans to achieve "almost the same" cost of plug-in hybrid products and extended range products with fuel vehicles.
Volkswagen has agreed to hand over all hybrid models to SAIC Volkswagen, and SAIC Volkswagen, Volkswagen of Germany, and SAIC Motor will work together to develop hybrid models that meet the needs of the Chinese market. From the perspective of product planning, SAIC Volkswagen plans to gradually introduce four products to the market in the future to fill the blank range of existing hybrid models. According to the Volkswagen Group's previous news, Volkswagen China and the joint venture SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen jointly developed a new pure electric CMP platform, and developed the CAE electronic and electrical architecture.
Qiu Jie
Spiegel Pro has learned from sources that SAIC Motor will sign a new cooperation agreement with a luxury brand in late May, which will include important terms such as joint development of plug-in hybrid technology. In addition, for cooperation with the outside world, Lu Yong said that in addition to the lower body (which basically covers the core technical elements such as battery, electric drive, control, and chassis, that is, the platform), the technical cooperation between SAIC and foreign car companies is not limited to this, but also includes other aspects, such as intelligent network technology.
Plug-in hybrid technology upgrade
In terms of plug-in hybrid technology, SAIC Motor made a forward-looking layout in the field of plug-in hybrid technology as early as 2010. In 2017, SAIC's self-developed first-generation EDU hybrid technology was launched. The DMH super hybrid technology released at the conference has been upgraded in terms of integration and intelligence.
According to reports, DMH super hybrid technology has three technical characteristics: modularization, integration and exclusivity. According to the modular design and serial configuration, the system can match different hybrid routes such as PHEV/EREV/HEV through a set of systems, which can cover the driving needs and fuel consumption regulations of different users around the world. At the same time, the system has the industry's first "energy domain" global thermal management, powertrain brain PICU, engine + P1 motor coaxial structure and other leading technologies, with software algorithms as the core, matching hybrid special high-efficiency engine, gearbox, long-range battery and other special hardware, "software and hardware", to achieve super integration, to achieve the strongest performance and optimal indicators.
In order to achieve energy efficiency improvement, SAIC has made a number of technological innovations in every technical index. Qiu Jie, vice president and deputy chief engineer of SAIC Innovation Research and Development Institute, said that in terms of improving cooling capacity, SAIC Motor has designed a new fin structure and created the first EGR cooler in China with precise control of the boiling rate, and the heat exchange efficiency of the EGR cooler mass-produced by DMH is close to 94% through the combination of hardware and software, which is the leading in the industry.
In addition, SAIC has developed a new algorithm to expand the compression ratio limit and improve the control accuracy. Through the differential pressure sensor combined with the self-developed new algorithm, the limit of the high compression ratio is effectively extended to 0.98, compared to 0.95 in the industry.
In terms of the control system architecture of the powertrain, SAIC has also innovated. Conventional systems often use different control logic and independent controllers, which leads to signal delay and high vehicle BOM costs. SAIC engineers say it's like one person using a Windows computer and another using a MacBook, not on the same channel. SAIC's DMH system adopts a more integrated powertrain control system architecture, reducing the original five MCUs to one, realizing "seamless communication" between systems and reducing costs.
Of course, a high degree of integration brings new challenges to both hardware and software design, which is why other car companies rarely make breakthroughs. For example, EMS on hardware. The stacking of large load drive functions such as TCU brings the thermal design problem of the controller, and the circuit modules with different electrical characteristics are integrated in a single controller, resulting in battery compatibility design problems.
For example, in terms of software, the multi-core basic software platform of the backbone AutoSAR architecture, the key complex driver modules such as EPM, and the timing scheduling between multiple cores are all development problems.
After solving the above technical problems, SAIC's DMH has also been comprehensively improved, and it has entered the leading stage in terms of technical indicators. For example, the transmission has a better overall condition matching (coincidence ratio) in the efficient drive zone. For example, SAIC DMH reached 73%, while only 30% of a competitor with a large sales volume in the industry. In the 20-110 km common performance zone, the drive torque is 10% higher than that of the above competitors.
Secondly, DMH has a higher thermal efficiency ratio due to the advantage of multiple gears. DMH is able to run more of the customer's common operating conditions in the best economic zone of the engine. Among them, the proportion of thermal efficiency greater than 41% and 40% reached 35% and 50% respectively, far exceeding that of competing products. Finally, DMH has better RDE emissions.
More competitive products
At present, DMH has been the first to be installed on the Roewe D7 DMH and D5X DMH. Not long ago, the Roewe D7 DMH reached a range of 1962km and an average fuel consumption of 2.8L per 100 kilometers in the actual test. Among them, the D5X DMH has begun pre-sale, and the car is in direct competition with the Song PLUS DM-i in terms of size, space, configuration, and safety.
"It's easier and simpler for us to do exactly the same thing. However, in the whole process of product establishment, development and promotion, we still invested a lot of cost, and we suffered a lot of loss because the cost of investment is where customers can't see, but our purpose is to do a good job in quality and make a high-quality, high-performance, high-safety car that users need. Park Chunxu, chief marketing officer of SAIC Passenger Vehicle Company, said.
Park Chun-woo
For example, in terms of power, the Roewe D5X DMH uses a 1.5T hybrid engine, which increases the cost by several thousand yuan, but the 1.5T Roewe D5X DMH can achieve two performances: 6.9 seconds to 100 kilometers of acceleration time and a maximum speed of 200 km/h. At the same time, the car chose the largest battery in the same class to reach 21.4 degrees, forming two performance results: one is that the pure electric range is longer, reaching 135KM, and the second benefit is that it is equipped with 6kW external discharge to achieve more coverage of use scenarios. Third, the proportion of high-strength steel used in the whole vehicle reached 79%, and the proportion of ultra-high-strength steel used reached 44%. In addition, a Level 2 intelligent driving system is provided on the 135 technology version.
It is reported that in the next three years, the DMH super hybrid technology brand will carry out higher-dimensional performance improvement in five key areas: engine, gearbox, battery, motor, and energy control brain. For example, the thermal efficiency of the engine will break through to 46%, and take the lead in meeting the "Euro VII" emission standard in China. "We have completed the vehicle test and certification, and the thermal efficiency has exceeded 46%, which is data and reports." Lu Yong said.
In terms of transmission technology, the target CO2 emissions of the diesel-electric hybrid route will not exceed 95 g/km, and the plug-in hybrid and extended-range electric routes will adopt a new configuration of dual coaxial scheme; The energy control brain continues to be optimized, and the next-generation vehicle energy center concept is expected to be released in 2025.
The new plug-in hybrid technology will also become an important weapon for SAIC to conquer overseas markets. According to overseas media sources, the MG facelift EHS will use SAIC's new-generation hybrid technology, the car's pure electric range of more than 100km, will soon enter the German market. At present, SAIC is the largest exporter of automobiles in China, and MG is in the forefront of sales in many European countries. With the combination of new technologies, MG will undoubtedly have stronger competitiveness in overseas markets and become a new growth boost for SAIC Motor.