After the Americans dismantled a BYD tram, they completely broke the defense

Superelectric Laboratory

2024-05-23 15:50Published in Shandong Science and Technology Creators

Author: Wang Lei

Edited by Qin Zhangyong

Recently, an American company carried out an in-depth teardown of the BYD Seagull and was surprised by the results.

They thought it would be shoddy at a low price, but after tearing it down, it was found that the car not only had excellent driving performance, but the production process was even comparable to the more expensive American-made electric cars.

The head of the company directly lamented that the United States has lagged behind China in the design of low-cost electric vehicles.

Although BYD has not yet entered the U.S. market, under the rhythm of domestic independent brands going overseas intensively, it is a matter of time before the two countries fight for new energy vehicles.

So the United States raised tariffs, or is it because it is afraid of Chinese trams?

01

"The United States can't make it anyway"

Caresoft Global, an American research organization, has a deep disassembly of the BYD Seagull.

Because after the teardown, Caresoft Global was surprised by the Seagull's price of only $12,000, which they thought the United States could not build at this price.

According to the cost of local manufacturing in the United States, it would need to be at least three times the price, and they really couldn't figure out how BYD could achieve such a low cost.

The company, Caresoft Global, is a well-known automotive data research company in the United States, focusing on consulting services in the automotive industry, with a special interest in analyzing the internal design and manufacturing processes of vehicles through CT scanning or dismantling of vehicles, and evaluating quality and cost.

In other words, as long as it is a popular model in the United States, they have scanned or disassembled, such as Tesla, Toyota and other brands, and now they are also eyeing local brands in China.

The original intention of this agency to dismantle the BYD Seagull is to study the help of China's new energy subsidies for car companies, in other words, to see how much money cars cut corners.

As a result, not only is there no shortage of parts, but most of the parts are made by BYD itself, which is far beyond their imagination in terms of cost control and manufacturing process.

The disassembled Seagull Flying Edition is not only equipped with six airbags, electronic stability control, but also high-quality brake components, which ensures driving safety very well.

And in terms of exterior and interior, the details are also quite exquisite, even the seat stitching matches the exterior of the body, and the interior materials are only used in the United States for more advanced models, and the doors can be closed very tightly when closed, without much cheapness.

In addition, after a short test drive of the Seagull, Caresoft Global found the ride to be fairly quiet, handling corners and bumps as well as a high-end EV, and not as dizzy as other EVs when accelerating, far exceeding what would be expected from its $12,000 price.

After a comprehensive dismantling of the inside and out, Caresoft Global came up with an answer: it is not a miracle that BYD produces high-performance seagulls at such a low cost, but because BYD has done a very good job in cost control and manufacturing technology.

For example, BYD has achieved self-sufficiency in most parts through self-development. First of all, BYD produces many components by itself, including motors, dashboards and bodies, etc., and has a very strong vertical integration ability, because the global annual sales of 3 million cars, to mass production to reduce costs, economies of scale will become more and more obvious.

As a result, BYD Auto can achieve a high level of performance and quality, while benefiting consumers at a lower price.

Moreover, on the design side, through the simplification of design, the number of parts can be reduced, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing costs, which many American automakers have not been able to do in the course of hundreds of years of development.

Caresoft Global的总裁沃乔斯基（Terry Woychowski）还举出了一个例子。

There is only one glass wiper on the front windshield of the Seagull, but it is not a cut of corners, because the model is small, a larger glass wiper can fully achieve the effect of two wipers, such optimization, not only can save a motor and a wiper arm, but also save costs and installation manpower, reduce the weight of the vehicle.

In addition, after the weight is reduced, the Seagull can use a smaller battery. For example, the Seagull weighs about 1,240 kilograms, which is about 408 kilograms lighter than the Chevrolet Bolt, an electric car made by General Motors, and BYD's lithium iron phosphate battery technology, although it has a shorter range, has a lower battery cost compared to most current lithium-ion batteries. On the premise of reducing the weight of the vehicle, it can run farther.

As the chief engineer of General Motors' large pickup trucks, Wojkoski bluntly said that "the appearance of the Seagull is a wake-up call to the American industry" after dismantling the "Seagull" this time.

The U.S. must quickly relearn a lot of design and craftsmanship to keep pace with the times and move away from a century of car making, it said.

At least in the United States, American car companies cannot produce products like Seagull at a cost of $12,000, and the design and workmanship of Seagull can fully compete with products above $30,000 in the American market.

Wojchowski believes that the reason why the United States cannot make such low-priced models cannot be blamed entirely on the high labor costs in the United States, and the real reason is that American car companies have lagged behind China in terms of car manufacturing concepts, electric vehicle manufacturing technology and production process organization.

For example, American companies lack the technical competitiveness of batteries that account for the majority of the cost of electric vehicles, and they also need to rely on Chinese technology to manufacture cheap power batteries.

In general, to build a model of this level at this price, the United States cannot make it.

02

Foreigners are addicted to Chinese electric vehicles

This is not the first time that overseas institutions have dismantled China's new energy vehicles.

As early as 2021, Japan's NHK TV station did a program about Chinese cars, and they dismantled the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, which was very popular in China at that time.

After the dismantling, the result is also to break the big defense, not only did not cut corners, the cost price alone reached 27,000 yuan, but also made modular innovation for its internal parts, bluntly said that Japanese car companies should learn from Wuling.

And what shocked the Japanese media the most was that none of the parts of Hongguang MINIEV sold in Japan came from Japanese companies.

Later, they dismantled and found that the car's single profit was only 89 yuan, which was unthinkable in Japanese car companies, you must know that Japan itself is good at making small cars, but like Japan's more popular Toyota C+POD micro electric vehicle, its price is converted into RMB as high as 92,000, but this money is enough to buy three Wuling Hongguang MINIEV.

In 2023, Nikkei BP, the Japanese publishing industry, gathered the chief engineers of Japan's four major automobile factories to dismantle the BYD seal, and also published a book called "China's BYD SEAL (Seal) Completely Decomposed (All Editions)", priced at RMB 45,000.

Before the disassembly, they thought that the seal might just be another "copycat" work of the Chinese brand, and felt that the design concept of the seal and the Tesla Model 3 had many similarities.

However, in the process of dismantling, the new structure of the "blade battery" on-board battery and the CTB (Cell to Body) battery-body integration technology surprised the person in charge of the disassembly.

In addition, most of the important parts such as the centralized control of automotive electrical components are produced by local companies, and most of the products are ahead of Japanese auto parts manufacturers.

In addition, the latest release of Great Wall Motor's latest release of the world's only horizontally opposed eight-cylinder motorcycle, has also attracted the attention of Honda, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. Deputy General Manager Junshi Ogata, is even more blunt "I will personally take the relevant personnel of the R&D Department to carefully analyze and study how the Great Wall Soul 8-cylinder motorcycle was developed." ”

Whether it is a car or a motorcycle, Great Wall and BYD are just a microcosm of the domestic automotive industry. In recent years, with the increase of domestic enterprises in the research and development of new energy vehicles, domestic car companies have a complete new energy vehicle industry chain, from batteries, electronic control, motors, to chassis, engines and intelligent driving systems have achieved independent control.

As Caresoft Global argues, "sounding the alarm to the U.S. auto industry" is not out of sight.

After all, Musk has also said: "China's electric cars are very good, and if there are no trade barriers, they can destroy most of the world's car companies." ”

Not only Caresoft Global, but the American Manufacturing Alliance (AAM) also previously released a report, saying that China's electric vehicles represented by BYD will lead to the extinction of the U.S. auto industry, requiring higher tariff barriers on Chinese cars.

This is also the reason why other companies are afraid of Chinese trams.

Although China's new energy vehicles are quite involuted in China, once they run abroad, there is a high probability that they will be hit by dimensionality, so aside from brand premiums and trade barriers, China's new energy vehicle industry is indeed quite strong.

However, one of the key problems is that there seems to be little enthusiasm for trains in overseas markets at the moment.

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