Many netizens, as well as the executives of Geely Great Wall Motors, would not have thought that the prophecy of the founder of Li Auto about the range extender would come true.
Last year, Li Xiang posted on his personal Weibo: "China's own brands, car companies that are still insisting on multi-gear PHEVs, will switch to the technical route of range extender in the next one or two years, and this judgment can be verified in 2025."
"Both the Great Wall and Geely will switch to the extended-range route, Chairman Li Shufu has always been a supporter of the extended-range route, and British taxis are the best practice; Chairman Wei Jianjun will definitely agree more with the range extension as long as he sees with his own eyes the actual proportion of pure electric use of Blue Mountain large battery hybrid users."
With the launch of the Star Era ET, at present, on the side of traditional domestic car companies, Geely, BYD, Chery, Changan, Dongfeng, BAIC, and GAC have all launched extended-range models. Among the traditional car companies, there are not many extended-range models, only a few car companies such as Great Wall and SAIC. I don't know how long these car companies will last.
Multi-gear DHT models, in the past few years, were considered to be the complete explosion of range extender on the Internet, and it is simply an insult to multi-gear plug-in hybrid with such backward technology as range extender, and multi-gear plug-in mixing, but now look at it?
At that time, many people said that multi-grade DHT was more advanced, better, and better in all aspects, and there was really no reason to buy a range extender, but now what about it? The best model sold by the multi-gear DHT plug-in hybrid is the Galaxy L7, which sold 5,519 units in April, which looks pretty good, doesn't it? If you look at the sales of range extenders, will you be speechless. And multi-gear plug-in hybrid, basically only a few cars of Geely Galaxy can be sold, and the range extender is more flowering. Is this really a coincidence? Is it really an example of what individual brands will bring to market?
In 2023, the sales volume of plug-in/extended-range hybrid passenger cars in China will reach 2.754 million units, a year-on-year increase of 85.5%, and the growth rate has surpassed that of pure electric passenger vehicles for five consecutive quarters, which is higher than the overall growth rate of the new energy vehicle market. Last year, the growth rate of range extender models was as high as 170%, and there are still people who can't wake up, and they think that range extender is all marketed, and bad money drives out good money.
Speaking of which, many people can say that the disadvantage of the range extender is that the engine can not be directly driven, and the multi-gear DHT can be directly driven, and there is one less energy conversion, so under high-speed conditions, the fuel consumption of the extended range feed will be much higher than the multi-gear DHT in the subconscious of many people, but in fact, the gap is minimal.
Because in recent years, with the progress of the range extender and the innovation of the direct power generation of the motor by the range extender under high-speed working conditions, the range extender system can maintain normal performance even under disadvantaged working conditions, and can always work in a high-efficiency range, and the actual fuel consumption performance will be relatively stable.
The multi-gear DHT, after the engine participates in direct drive for a long time, with the change of car speed, the load and speed of the engine change greatly, and it may not always be able to be in the best transmission efficiency range, even if it is running at high speed, can you maintain a speed of 100 mph and 110 mph for a long time? Do you need to accelerate overtaking, do you need to often slow down because of the turtle speed of the car in front, between acceleration and deceleration, the gearbox and the engine are often not so perfect, the engine can not always be in the efficient operation range, therefore, in actual performance, the high-speed fuel consumption of multi-gear DHT is not as perfect as it seems.
And what about the larger battery with extended range, higher pure electric range? At this time, it becomes an advantage, the current multi-gear DHT model with the highest pure electric battery life is the Wei brand Mocha, which is 215 kilometers, and there is more than one extended-range model with a pure electric range of more than 300 kilometers.
The multi-gear DHT model, on the contrary, will have the problem of shifting frustration due to the addition of the gearbox, and there will be a higher risk of stalling than the extended-range model. There is also a large area of transmission failure of a certain brand, as well as the extra cost of multi-gear DHT structure, and the resulting reduction of power battery layout space, which is not the negative impact of multi-gear DHT?
In the final analysis, many people are talking on paper, and they think they understand after listening to the technical instructions of car companies, especially some so-called car critics on the Internet, who depreciate the range extender as worthless and blow multi-gear DHT to the sky, but consumers' eyes are bright. The sales of range extenders far exceed those of range extenders, which is the best proof that which of these two technologies is superior and which is inferior, does not need to be discussed for a long time.