The new energy era is unstoppable, but it is also full of challenges. The market judgment in the next five years is related to how many resources upstream suppliers will invest, how to connect with customers, and even affect their business models.
In the dialogue with Zhang Li, the new general manager of Shanghai Electric Drive, the NE Times reporter more deeply felt the importance and strong correlation between thinking and acting.
The past is the prologue
"Shanghai Electric Drive is a place for me to boil my blood, a place where I can bring out my previous accumulation."
Li Zhang, who worked in development, audit, finance, management and investment for Delphi, United Nations, Intel and Schneider Electric, later acquired Ballard shares for Dayang Electric. This year, he became the new general manager of Shanghai Electric Drive.
Zhang Li, General Manager of Shanghai Electric Drive (first from left)
From his life history, it can be seen that he is familiar with auto parts and semiconductors, proficient in company management, and has penetrated into the domestic and overseas automotive environment. His arrival will not only continue the previous development strategy of Shanghai Electric Drive, but also open up a new business path and rethink the relationship between Shanghai Electric Drive and customers and opponents.
Zhang Li said that in 2019 and 2020, Shanghai electric drive is really difficult, after two years of very painful stage - subsidies fell, resulting in a cliff-like decline in the market, the company's projects also slowed down, capacity utilization rate can not go up. But the company persevered, and without the persistence of these two years, there would be no rapid growth today.
"Going to Shanghai Electric Drive is one of the things that I find particularly challenging, and makes me feel that all the experiences in my life are valuable. There are too many challenges and huge opportunities. I am very grateful to Mr. Yougong and our whole team for developing the company to this stage. I am fortunate to take over the position of general manager now, and I will continue to develop Shanghai Electric Drive with the team. ”
"Science and technology Innovation Shanghai leads the era, electricity drives a better future", shanghai electric drive of the new slogan, indicating that the company still continues the previous technology and innovation leadership, but also indicates that electric drive companies and electric drive industry have a better future.
QCTDS has seeped into our bloodstream
"Although technology leads, we will always carry out three soul tortures for ourselves: Why do consumers buy new energy vehicles? Why do consumers buy our customers' new energy vehicles? Why do our customers buy our electric drive products? ”
"For us, the most important answer is what is the value of Shanghai Electric Drive to customers?"
"QCTDS is the core of our competition, which is quality, cost performance, technology, delivery, service. Shanghai electric drive is more pursuit of quality, PPM level leading. The implementation of C requires our technical iteration, economies of scale, and experience, and is not simply to acquire customers through low prices. ”
Zhang Li believes that electric drive products have their own "Moore's Law", that is, the power density increases by 20% every two or three years. Through the upgrading and iteration of technology, it can reduce the cost. Second, large-scale supply, stable operation and efficiency improvement will further reduce costs.
Electric drive systems are a convergence of technologies that may be combined with other technologies in the future to generate new value that enhance safety, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Zhang Li said that this will be the focus of the company's thinking in the next three or five years, the pursuit of 10% or higher progress for each component, the promotion of system fission, and the realization of the company's continuous small-step progress.
Small cars help the supply of pure electric drives to take off
Under tremendous pressure, Shanghai Electric's pure electric business ushered in rapid growth after a two-year period of hardship. Zhang Li revealed that this year's sales volume has increased significantly, and the main source of growth is Chang'an, Great Wall, Renault, Xiaopeng and other customers who have made a lot of investment, thereby promoting the growth of their own scale.
According to the data compiled by NE Times, in August 2021, the three-in-one system ranked sixth, the motor matching volume of Shanghai electric drive ranked TOP3, and the electronic control matching volume ranked sixth. The supporting features show that its market share and customer share in small cars are considerable. Benben, Black Cat, BAIC EU5, Mango, White Cat, Dongfeng EX1, Yidong EV, Xiaopeng P5, etc. are all important models that support its listing.
The characteristics of the installed models also reflect the direction in which Shanghai Electric Drive selects customers. "The entire electric vehicle market belongs to the thin waist type, high-end buy smart, low-end buy travel." Most of the customers of Shanghai Electric Drive are travel vehicles for the 2C market.
Zhang Li specifically analyzed the reasons for the hot sales of Hongguang Mini and Reading Mango: "Hongguang Mini is more youthful, while Mango is more practical. "And they represent the definition of travel cars and the upgrade of low-speed vehicles to regulatory vehicles by mainstream passenger car companies."
On the one hand, these low-end electric vehicles meet the travel requirements of end consumers, and on the other hand, they meet the points needs of automakers, which is a two-way positive travel tool.
Shanghai Electric Drive performed well in the small pure electric vehicle market, and at the same time, there are also a number of mass production vehicles in A-class pure electric, and there are also many projects in high-power pure electric that have been fixed.
In order to make its own electric drive products more competitive, Shanghai Electric Drive maintains sufficient production capacity in Shanghai, and is also put into production in Weifang, Shandong, Wuhu, Hubei Shiyan and other places to supply customers nearby.
Not only export, but also joint venture arrangements for local production
While the domestic supporting volume is increasing, Shanghai Electric Drive is also committed to developing overseas customers and continuing to deepen the cooperation model.
It is understood that the two-in-one electric drive system of Shanghai Electric Drive is applied to the Renault Dacia Spring Electric model, and Dongfeng will introduce this model in the future; the 100kW and 55kW three-in-one electric drive system is exported to the Indian Tata, which ranks first in the Indian local new energy vehicle market; Hyundai Hybrid adopts its high-voltage BSG; Changan Mazda has applied its three-in-one system.
So far, Shanghai Electric Drive has supplied a number of models to India's Tata, of which the three-in-one assembly has been installed on the Kanger and Limber models.
At the same time, the two companies are committed to upgrading the supply relationship to a joint venture relationship and realizing the localization of electric drive systems to cope with India's new energy subsidy policy.
At the beginning of 2020, the vehicle business group where Shanghai Electric Drive is located established a joint venture with Tata. The establishment of the joint venture will help it to establish a relatively low-cost production base in India, further improve the market competitiveness of the products and enhance profitability.
The specific localization production mode is that Shanghai Electric Drive sends the loose parts to the joint venture company, and the joint venture company carries out local assembly and then transports them to Tata. The company mainly produces three-in-one electric drive products.
The joint venture with Tata is not only an upgrade of Shanghai Electric Drive's cooperation model with overseas customers, but also serves as a new starting point to expand the international market for new energy vehicle powertrain system products.
DhT hybrids are promising
After research and research, Zhang Li and his team believe that the opportunity for Shanghai electric drive is, on the one hand, the pure electric drive system that has been adhered to, and on the other hand, the emerging DHT products.
"In the future, DHT will support half of us." Zhang Li is very excited about the demand for electric drive products brought by hybrid power, "DHT is basically a dual motor version, and the corresponding motor and electronic control market will have a 5-year 10-fold change." We are like standing at the door of an era. ”
Zhang Li explained that Shanghai Electric Drive has done a lot of work and found that DHT is more suitable for development in the A-class car market. Consumers of A-class cars mainly use cars to travel, that is, 2C. In this market, new energy vehicles are 10,000 yuan more expensive than fuel vehicles, and consumers are particularly sensitive to price. And DHT can fully offer a better performance in the A-class car market at a similar price, directly with the fuel car wrench wrist.
Through the car sales data of the past two years and the new car planning forecast data, NE Times found that since 2020, basically all companies have clearly decided to take the full hybrid route, and car companies have spontaneously launched hybrid products represented by DHT and DM-i to replace fuel vehicles.
According to the forecast data of the NE era, the sales of hybrid vehicles such as DHT and DM-i will exceed 3.9 million units by 2025. Considering that the hybrid solutions launched by Toyota THS, Honda IMMD, Great Wall Lemon DHT, BYD DM-i and other independent car companies are mostly dual-motor solutions, the total shipment of motors will be close to 7.5 million units. When hybrid eats the market for fuel vehicles, the upstream and downstream of the supply chain will be promising.
The consideration now is that DHT can be platformized
"The hybrid side has finally come out with a technical route that can be platformized. So the hybrid business is now back to the direction of our key business. ”
Since 2015, Shanghai Electric Drive has cooperated with central enterprises and international commercial vehicle companies on hybrid systems, and in 2017, it developed a dual motor controller with Changan, and later developed a prototype for SAIC-GM. Therefore, hybrid products are not newly developed products for it without technical accumulation.
Now hybrid with the development of DHT can implement a platform development strategy, in a certain power range of dual motor controllers can maintain core modularity and even architecture platformization. At this time, the scale and quality are easier to improve, and the competitiveness is easier to achieve.
Shanghai Electric Drive believes that they have found a model suitable for the hybrid business. As a result, the dual motor controller returned and was placed high hopes.
Moreover, past experiences such as compact design and deep integration have enabled Shanghai Electric Drive to make the dual motor controller more compact and smaller.
Dual motor controller
"The dual motor controller is a relatively easy platform product for each family, but its threshold is very high. On the one hand, it cannot be a simple physical integration, and the biggest challenge is that it is very close to the engine, and heat dissipation and vibration need to be considered. In this regard, the extended range experience of Shanghai electric drive can be transplanted. On the other hand, it requires miniaturization. Only when it is compact can there be the possibility of platformization. We will use double-sided soldering, embedded distributed PCB and other technologies for deep integration. In addition, the motor needs to be integrated with the reducer, and we can not only provide the integrator with a dual motor controller, but also supply a flat-wire stator rotor. Zhang Li analyzed the advantages of Shanghai Electric Drive in the hybrid business.
Further, hybrid has brought deeper changes to the business model of Shanghai Electric Drive. "In this ecosystem, we are partners with each other, we are customers of each other, and together we can seize the growth opportunities that will be tenfold in five years."
As a pioneer enterprise in the domestic electric drive industry, Shanghai Electric Drive has encountered many winds and waves and reefs, moving forward in bumps, but it is still in the forefront of the industry. "In the next five years of the industry's key window period, Shanghai Electric Drive will continue to adhere to scientific and technological innovation, adhere to creating value for customers, while laying out at home and abroad, to meet the growth of pure electricity and DHT two markets, riding the industry's east wind, breaking the huge wave of competition, continue to sail away."