At the just-concluded Beijing Auto Show, the most common comment I heard was that the new cars unveiled at the auto show were too homogeneous, and the future-oriented design and technology trends were not obvious.
At present, in the era of rapid evolution of the new energy industry, compared with the forward-looking design that everyone focused on in the past, the large number of mass-produced new cars entering the market may not be everyone's eager expectations for the future. But once it falls in the context of the transformation of the automotive industry, all the changes that have taken place in China's auto market are far more relevant than before.
Automobiles, from the very beginning, have been designed to improve people's efficient communication. From then to now, regardless of how much emotional value the outside world gives it, it has become more unified with the perception of the whole industry. A new car that looks good, is easy to drive, and easy to use is a product that we want to see and experience as soon as possible.
Last year, with such a clear goal, BYD, as a global leader in new energy, hit a record high of more than 3 million annual sales in one fell swoop. From this, in addition to seeing the first-mover advantage brought by fully embracing new energy, it must be more because BYD has indeed come up with enough strength and hole cards on the product side.
Starting from the popularization of e-platform 3.0, a series of new cars with obvious technical advantages have almost pushed the development trajectory of the entire market forward a lot. In my opinion, from the seal, Yuan PLUS, dolphin to the Hiace 07EV that has just used the e-platform 3.0 Evo, the kind of understanding of the trend that only belongs to BYD has brought a strong reference to the industry.
Entering 2024, many experts have proposed that products equipped with plug-in hybrid and extended-range hybrid technologies will seize the share of China's new energy market on a large scale. But even so, in the pursuit of technological innovation and improvement in the field of electric and electric vehicles and the evolution in the category of paying attention to the convenience of using a car, I believe that no one will choose to relax their vigilance. Including, BYD, which is now on the front line of the market.
Hiace 07EV aims to gather consumer pain points
In China, many joint venture brands have not understood what is happening in this market that makes consumers lose their enthusiasm for them overnight. However, the "Volkswagen" have fallen into development bottlenecks one after another, which realistically shows us how powerful the Chinese market is to change.
On the surface, the reason why new energy vehicles can quickly occupy the market is due to their innovation, which allows many consumers to see another way of automobile development, so as to take out their wallets for early adopters. Emerging brands such as Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli" have survived to the present, which is the best example.
However, once the market size expands to a certain extent, as the data given by the Federation of Passenger Cars several times, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles on the market exceeds 50%, in fact, it means that compared with "freshness", the best-selling new energy vehicles in China's auto market are not born by creating simple emotional value.
The essence of technological innovation is to make new energy vehicles surpass traditional fuel vehicles in terms of power, quietness, intelligence, etc., and can reach an absolutely attractive point in terms of cost.
Today, the BYD Hiace 07EV, the first SUV built using the e-platform 3.0 Evo technology, can be seen as the latest move by BYD to expand its marine network product line.
In fact, from the technical advantages of BYD's introduction of the e-platform 3.0 EVO to the market, it can be seen that BYD still wants to be ahead of everyone in eliminating the limitations of electric vehicle use.
The product itself, given the positioning and price of the product, the Hiace 07EV will definitely be the same as its predecessors and can attract a specific consumer group. Here, based on the e-platform 3.0 Evo, I would like to foresee how BYD will maximize the practical characteristics of electric vehicles.
The world's first CTB vehicle safety architecture technology cluster, 12-in-1 intelligent electric drive technology cluster, intelligent wide-temperature high-efficiency heat pump technology cluster, global intelligent fast charging technology cluster, and intelligent motion control technology cluster are the technical footholds given by BYD for the evolution of the platform.
Listening to the name, these technologies have a very high threshold, but to sum up, in this logic from single-point innovation to cluster innovation, security, efficiency, and intelligence are obviously the core development points.
Specific to the Hiace 07EV, here are a few examples:
In order to improve the safety of the whole vehicle, the main rear-wheel drive safety power architecture under the new technology increases the safety buffer space of the front cabin by 100mm, an increase of more than 32%, and the safety performance of the front collision is increased by 60%; The steering front structure increases the deformation resistance of the passenger compartment by 50%, greatly reducing the amount of collision and intrusion of the passenger compartment. The endoskeleton CTB safety architecture has comprehensively upgraded the body structure design of key areas of the passenger compartment, and the strength of the body in the area has been increased by more than 60% compared with the industry......
Second, the first-of-its-kind high-efficiency 12-in-1 intelligent electric drive system integrates 23,000rpm motor, high-efficiency reducer, silicon carbide electronic control, vehicle controller (VCU), battery manager (BMC), DC converter (DC-DC), on-board charger (OBC), power distribution module (PDU), intelligent boost module, intelligent lift module, intelligent self-heating module, and energy management intelligent control system in one, ensuring the first integration in the industry. The technical route of creative electrical architecture reuse and deep integration of functions and the high integration of multiple functions such as boost, current rise, and self-heating of the electric drive system can be said to comprehensively enhance the drive strength of Hiace 07EV.
Of course, in addition, from optimizing the thermal management system to strengthening the vehicle's energy replenishment strength, and even empowering the Hiace 07EV with technical means, BYD has also done it all.
Technology-driven life is what China's auto market needs
"The new energy vehicle industry has become an important engine for cultivating new quality productivity."
After two years of market evolution, this is what we can conclude at the moment. For BYD Ocean Network, it has more distinct new energy attributes and a younger market positioning, which really means that BYD is reshaping the entire market pattern at full speed.
It is understood that the cumulative sales of BYD Ocean Network in the past few years have reached 1.58 million vehicles, and the time taken from annual sales of 700,000 vehicles to annual sales of 1.38 million vehicles is also unique in the whole industry, and it is a proof that compared with emerging brands that use gimmicks to please consumers, BYD focuses on practical use and the research and development ideas of technology-driven life are undoubtedly more in line with market trends.
As the pace of development of China's auto market is carried forward by a bunch of new power enterprises, the outside world always has the illusion that the current car environment has reached a new stage where the whole people have entered a new stage of driving cool and luxurious.
Especially when I see those electric vehicles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at every turn, and get tens of thousands of orders on the market, this feeling is even stronger.
You say it's not reality, but it's happening. If this is the reality, I can't help but wonder if the current economic environment can really make everyone get caught up in the story of the "high-end" tram manufacturers.
Since Chinese families began to have a wide range of exposure to automobiles, the essence of automobiles has not left the labels of commuting, economy, and pragmatism.
Therefore, when the development process of China's auto market is being sorted out by emerging brands, I always believe that as consumers, we need to pay more attention to what is the most suitable new car for the needs of the majority of users compared to a large number of hedonistic products.
Previously, due to the people-friendly product power, micro electric vehicles have brought a wave of car buying boom in the market, so that young people who have just entered the society or users who mainly commute for short distances can feel the pragmatism of Chinese brands.
Now, when the market is more impetuous, when the competition is more disorderly, for the details of the car that users care about the most, relying on the technical advantages of the e-platform 3.0 Evo, if Hiace 07EV is to use BYD's best way to set up a real pragmatic blueprint for the industry, I think, this may be the prerequisite for the healthy development of China's auto market.
In fact, we cannot deny that in this stage of new energy technology paths, it is difficult to tap the potential of the 200,000-level pure electric market. Returning to the essence of the event, the reason why consumers have a choice is that the daily use scenarios are too diverse.
It's just that with the Hiace 07EV as a new contact point, if you look at what BYD is doing now and what it will do in the future, you will find that in the transformation of electrification, BYD is really exactly what Chinese consumers need. In other words, since it is impossible to avoid competition in the future, it must be what we want to see to solve all consumer pain points through technological upgrading, rather than covering up our own shortcomings by creating consumer demand.