The prelude to the big change: Why are fuel vehicles going to collapse, and why are electric vehicles growing?

 The track of fuel vehicles is a typical involution industry. 

The Chinese auto industry has been criticized. In 2009, the Chinese auto market surpassed the United States and Japan for the first time with a production and sales volume of nearly 14 million vehicles, ranking first in the world. Doo turn the star moves , a decade later, China's auto market has reached annual sales of 30 million this magnitude, but the actual situation so that we are still awkward.

The bustle is a joint venture brand, but Chinese independent brands still have nothing.

The above picture is August 2020, which is the top ten best-selling models on the market two months ago. In terms of traditional fuel vehicles, independent brands are basically a supporting role. Among the main passenger cars, there is only one Geely Emgrand in the top 10, and the others are joint venture brands. The SUV is slightly better, and the Haval H6 is firmly in the first place. However, among the top 10 best-selling SUVs, only 4 of the independent brands are left. Most of them are joint venture brands. 

Since the establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen, China's first joint venture automobile company, in November 1984, China's automobile industry, especially the passenger car industry, has always been the world of joint ventures. 

The former Nissan Renault president Carlos Ghosn, who made a big noise in early 2020, accidentally told the truth, “Chinese automakers have almost zero contribution when cooperating with foreign automakers, so in the long run, , They must “add value” to the joint venture manufacturing business and other operating businesses.” This embarrassed the Chinese side of Chinese auto joint ventures. 

The restriction on the shareholding ratio of joint ventures is the first lifeline for China to protect the auto industry after joining the WTO. According to Article 48 of the "Automotive Industry Development Policy" promulgated in May 2004: The proportion of Chinese shares in a Sino-foreign joint venture manufacturing vehicle, special purpose vehicle, agricultural transport vehicle and motorcycle shall not be less than 50%.

However, it now appears that this restriction on the share ratio of market-for-technology has protected China's auto industry to a certain extent. The sequelae is that the joint venture party is lying on the existing market interests and not thinking about making progress. Zhu Yanfeng, the general manager of FAW Group , said at the time, "Independent brands must endure loneliness for 20 years". There are conflicts of interests and self-reliance when facing the huge gap between China and foreign countries. 

The policy is as firm as ever in caring for the auto industry and its own brands, so why did so much effort get flea? Because the space for technological advancement of fuel vehicles is limited, the industry is highly involuted.

Fuel vehicles have a very high lower limit and a very low upper limit. Because of the high lower limit, electric vehicles were eliminated a hundred years ago, but because of the low upper limit, they are destined to be defeated by electric vehicles in the future. 

The history of electric vehicles is earlier than that of fuel vehicles. The world first appeared in electric vehicles (1835), and then diesel vehicles (1886). Around 1900, about 40% of the cars in the US market were driven by steam engines, 38% were driven by electricity, and only 22% were driven by gasoline. %, the market share of electric vehicles exceeds that of fuel vehicles.

In 1908, the epoch-making Ford Model T was launched. Fuel-fueled vehicles gradually replaced electric vehicles with high speed, long battery life, and low prices. However, the old problems of electric vehicles remained the same, with short cruising range, inadequate speed, and price. Expensive, and gradually withdrawn from the stage of history around 1930. Fuel vehicles have eliminated electric vehicles with their own affordable upper and lower limits. 

But the problem of fuel vehicles is also fatal, and the upper limit is very low.

If it is sad to say that the debut is the peak, then the fuel car is really sad.

For fuel vehicles, the basic consideration is nothing more than the internal combustion engine, which is the total efficiency of the engine. The engine does work through fuel combustion. The full degree of combustion is the combustion efficiency. After combustion, the heat drives the mechanical movement. The efficiency of this process is called thermal efficiency. The mechanical movement drives the wheels through the transmission system. The efficiency of this process is called mechanical efficiency.

The total efficiency of the engine is the product of combustion efficiency, thermal efficiency and mechanical efficiency, which is the fuel burned and mechanical efficiency are optimized can do more than 90%, but the heat because it is a low-quality energy, into mechanical energy must be lost, Theory The highest thermal efficiency is about 60%.

In other words, the overall efficiency of the engine can reach 50% is the limit, and the overall efficiency of the actual gasoline engine can be more than 30%, and the diesel engine can reach 40%. No matter how high it is, it is difficult to reach the sky. 

How much progress has fuel vehicles made over the years? 

how to say? From the fuel consumption of about 16L per 100 kilometers in the middle of the last century, it has dropped to about 8L now, an average of only 0.1L per year. Among them, the contribution of the improvement of the internal combustion engine is not unique, and the lightweight and electronicization of the vehicle has also played a big role. 

The design of a machine like an internal combustion engine has such a rule that it is easy to get started and surpass difficult. For latecomers, you only need to spend 10% of the time to copy an 80% performance equipment, but if you want to achieve 90% performance, it may cost you another 90% of your time. Going further, when approaching the limit, 900% of the effort is needed, and only 1% of the progress is achieved, because the potential of the machine is too small.

For example, one of the famous IQ tax representatives is a mechanical watch, a top craft tourbillon, which consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. In terms of timekeeping accuracy, it is still bombarded by electronic watches. 

Fuel vehicles have also entered a dead end like mechanical watches, and they have begun to pursue fine, complex, and refined surfaces. In order to extremely close to the limit of engine thermal efficiency, various unique technologies are frequently introduced. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW introduced turbocharging technology for aero engines into automobile engines. Toyota has developed a dual-injection, dual-variable valve timing system.

In order to make the engine's gear shift pursuing "a silky feeling like chocolate", Volkswagen has DSG dry and wet gearboxes, Toyota has Aisin 6AT gearbox, a simple gear shifting device, and now it is complicated with aero engines Together, they become the pinnacle of human machinery.

If this is not an internal scroll, what else is not an internal scroll? This kind of surface is fine, complex and exquisite, and as a result, the most core engine efficiency limit is very low. After all, no matter how hard it is, it is just a punch in the crotch, and there is nothing to do. 

Under this involution, some phenomena in the fuel vehicle industry are logical. 

Phenomenon one

——The tortoise and snail race car race

Let's take Toyota's best-selling model Corolla as an example. The first generation of this model was born in 1966, and it is now the twelfth generation. Every new generation of new cars is full of gongs and drums, firecrackers blasting, and the movement is quite big. When you look at the changes, well, the biggest change is the appearance. After sixty years of being so happy, it is still selling well. 

We call this competition of car manufacturers the tortoise and snail race. Among these tortoises and snails, there are all the big names in the market that you know, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Ferrari... It is in such a market that everyone takes advantage of the first-mover advantage. Hello, me, and everyone.

That's why there is a spectacle where new models are listed in the Chinese market and the old models are renamed and sold, and there are three generations of Volkswagen China Jetta, Bora, and Sagitar. In fact, apart from the appearance, there is no qualitative difference between cars of each generation. 

However, it is not deliberate that the R&D cycle of auto manufacturers is always three to five years, but because technological progress is too slow, only three to five years will be able to come up with a technical selling point. 

The fact is that traditional fuel vehicle manufacturers are living very comfortably. Three to four decades have passed and the overall competitive landscape has not changed much. 

Phenomenon two

——Super stable parts supplier system

On June 29, 2020, "Automobile News" released the 2020 list of the top 100 global auto parts suppliers. Only 7 companies are on the list in China, which has the world's largest auto production and sales volume. Yanfeng ranks 19th in the highest ranking of Chinese companies.

At the top of the list, we remember that the three major auto factories are about to close down in the United States, with 24 on the list, 21 in Japan, 18 in Germany, and even 8 in South Korea, one more than China. Oh, by the way, China's top ranked Yanfeng is the...Chinese joint venture partner of these world auto parts suppliers. 

China's auto sales are already the world's largest, but auto parts companies are as weak as ever. 

Because the technological advancement of automobiles, especially passenger cars, has been slow, and the competitive landscape has not changed much. Of course, there will be no changes in the supply chain. Who is going to toss suppliers when it is all right? 

In the pre-installation market we usually say, it takes at least three years for a supplier to enter a new car brand system. Why? It usually takes five years for a new model to go on the market from research and development. If you enter the qualified supplier system for the new model during the research and development period, the follow-up matching will be useless.

That’s why Huawei’s car manufacturing team talked to traditional auto parts manufacturers and practitioners. The existing manufacturers felt that Huawei did not understand the rules of auto parts matching, and Huawei felt that you did not understand technology. After all, it is difficult for the thinking of both parties to be on the same logical line as a barbarian who comes out of the involution industry and hits the door. 

Phenomenon Three

——Practicality gives way to human design 

There is a rule in the optional consumer industry. Once a brand in an industry starts to sell people, it means that there is not much difference between products in essence.

The personal design inherent in the Chinese passenger car market is the craftsmanship of BMW, Benz and Volkswagen , Toyota and Honda are refined and fuel-efficient, and their own brand garbage. Geely Li Shufu's "car is four wheels and a sofa" was ridiculed by the crowd, but isn't Li Shufu the kid who told the emperor's new outfit? It's just a transportation tool. Is there any essential difference between independent brands and other brands in meeting this demand? 

Why commercial vehicles have basically wiped out foreign brands in China, because commercial vehicle users only care about whether the vehicle is not profitable or not, whether it is cost-effective or not, regardless of whether you have the spirit of craftsmanship. Is not in line with one's noble status. 

How to break the internal volume, Huawei internal forum also gave an answer. "Only out of the circle, stood out constantly to break through on a higher level, creating a new record and made in order to prevent the kind of sophisticated, complex, it seems particularly dedicated involution status haunt us, in order to return to the The new normal is booming upwards ." 

This higher level is electric vehicles, because the upper limit of electric vehicles is much higher than that of fuel vehicles, which determines that fuel vehicles must withdraw from the C position of the historical stage. 

The ultimate form of transportation in the future will inevitably be intelligent driving and even unmanned driving, and the only way to realize unmanned driving is electric vehicles. Moreover, the continuous decline in the cost of photovoltaic power generation determines that the cost of electricity in the future can be reduced to a very low or even close to zero, while oil, which fuel depends on as a non-renewable resource, will not. Whether it is from the performance ceiling or from the economic point of view, electric vehicles can be used to lift fuel vehicles in the future. 

Compared with fuel-fueled vehicles, electric vehicles are not so much about overtaking on a curve as they are being overturned and restarted. Everyone restarts a game of Mahjong, cleans the house and treats others. 

"Wang Chuan: Why are most traditional car manufacturers going bankrupt soon?" 》The huge difference between the design of electric vehicles and fuel vehicles: 

Electric vehicles do not need a fuel engine or a gearbox, and the corresponding fuel delivery and emission control systems are also unnecessary. The core of the technology accumulation of fuel vehicles over the past century, the mechanical system centered on engines and gearboxes, instantly disappeared from the market.

From a design point of view, the technical heritage of fuel vehicles can be applied to electric vehicles, almost rare. All these engineers who depended on the technology of internal combustion engines suddenly found that their skills were useless. FAW-Volkswagen will no longer recruit graduates from the mechanical industry such as vehicle engineering in 2020 school recruitment. 

This is a big change that is calm on the surface but surging under the current.

According to data from the German Federal Labor Agency, one-seventh of the employed population in Germany is related to automobiles. We know that engines plus gearboxes account for at least 25% of the value of the entire vehicle, which means that 4% of the German automobile industry is employed If the personnel cannot adapt to the conversion from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles, they will lose employment opportunities forever. Japan, another major automobile country, accounts for 20% of total exports. For Germany and Japan, this is a war that cannot be lost. 

His arsenic, my honey . The decline of fuel vehicles is destined to be the carnival of electric vehicles. This time, Chinese electric vehicles are no longer absent. 

The three most important parts of electric vehicles, batteries, motors, and electronic controls, are all top heavyweight players in China. 

The core battery industry for electric vehicles, China is in sync with the world. 

In the battery section, it is basically the East Asian version of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Looking back at their respective competitive landscapes, Japan and South Korea are scarcely star-studded, and the general trend is set, while China is competing against each other, and everything is possible.

According to Orient Securities reported data, in 2019, the world community dynamic power battery shipments company is China's highest Ningde era (SZ: 300750), 32.31Gwh, followed by Japan's Panasonic and South Korea's LG, Samsung SDI, SKI, Ranked third, fifth and tenth, BYD (SZ:002594) ranked fourth. In addition, there are China's largest battery companies, Guoxuan Hi-Tech (SZ: 002074), Yuanjing, Lishen, Yiwei Lithium Energy (SZ: 300014) and so on.

The battery industry’s capital investment and R&D expenditure are huge. American companies are not good at heavy capital expenditure and manufacturing. European companies have no first-mover advantage in battery R&D. This has resulted in a high concentration of the world’s power battery industry in China, Japan and South Korea.

Among them, Japan is mainly Matsushita outstanding, supporting highly dependent on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), South Korea’s LG is a global layout, Samsung SDI is the main niche square battery, only China is a hundred flowers, a hundred schools of thought, even if the Ningde era is already the world 1. However, when the industry's technical route is undecided and the battery system capacity density still has great room for improvement, any enterprise may seize an instantaneous reversal of the technological route.

The so-called shopping mall is like a battlefield, the silver bottle bursts into the water, life and death are impermanent for a moment, trembling, like walking on thin ice, no one dares to say that they are safe. In the face of what may be the biggest technological change in the next fifty years, everything is possible. 

In the motor industry, with abundant resources, Chinese companies have a first-mover advantage. 

There are many types of motors, but only DC motors, AC asynchronous motors, permanent magnet synchronous motors and switched reluctance motors are suitable for electric vehicles.

From the perspective of practical applications, permanent magnet synchronous motors have become the most widely used electric vehicle motors in China with their higher peak efficiency and best control performance. The most important thing is that China has the most complete rare earth industry chain in the world, which gives China a first-mover advantage in the motor industry.

Thanks to Academician Xu Guangxian's new rare earth extraction theory, China's rare earth purification and deep processing industries are unique in the world. In 2019, China's rare earth production accounted for 80.5% of the world. The core raw material of permanent magnet motor, iron boron, is a kind of rare earth. With three rings (SZ: 000970), represented by the permanent magnet manufacturer, continued development and improvement of new technologies, improve product performance, led to the rapid expansion of China's permanent magnet synchronous motor applications.

According to senior engineer production and research data electric car Institute, in 2018 the country new energy shipments of motor BYD the first three respectively, ocean motor (SZ: 002249) and a giant Anhui, the three are downright Chinese independent brand enterprises.

Because electric vehicle motors currently do not have scale effects, some companies have only single-digit gross profit margins, while similar industrial motors are basically between 25%-30%. The current electric vehicle motor industry is rapidly increasing. The phase of withdrawal is accelerated, but no matter how it develops, China Electric will have a place. 

In the electronic control industry, BYD took the lead in breaking through.

Electronic control is the brain that controls the drive motor. The core is the power device, which is IGBT, which accounts for about 35%-50% of the cost of electronic control. This part is basically the world of foreign semiconductor companies. 

BYD (SZ: 002594), which has always emphasized the entire industry chain of electric vehicles, is once again ahead of all domestic electric vehicle companies. As early as 2009, BYD designed the first IGBT chip in mainland China, IGBT1.0, and successfully upgraded it to version 2.0 in 2012. Based on this, it created an automotive-grade IGBT module. In 2018, the new automotive-grade IGBT4.0 version was launched, and the current production capacity is the supporting capacity of 1.2 million new energy vehicles. 

We can see that whether it is batteries, motors or electronic controls, BYD has a place, which is the driving force of a national independent brand. In this electric vehicle creation movement, the hottest, cutting-edge, and fastest technologically advanced market is China.

A variety of new car-making forces are emerging one after another, and the competitive landscape is ever-changing. For example, SAIC-GM-Wuling , which recently claimed "whatever the people need, Wuling will make" , and the new electric vehicle Hongguang MINI EV, gave everyone a surprise. Its monthly sales exceeded Tesla's model 3 and reached the top of China's pure electric vehicles. Monthly sales champion.

This electric car with a maximum battery life of only 170KM and a starting price of less than 30,000. With a monthly sales of nearly 15,000 units, it told those new car-building forces who have been behind Tesla, what is it that the people love to hear , What is market demand-oriented and what is a vast world? There is a lot to do.

If 20 years ago, P&G’s marketing department was the Huangpu Military Academy for Chinese marketing talents, then today’s Wuling, and those of Pinduoduo, tell us what the new era is with their flagship products that have sunk into the fifth and sixth tier markets. The Long March, what is the encirclement of the city from the countryside, and the needs of the people.

China's electric vehicle industry should bravely go its own way from a primary perspective. There is no future for simply imitating. 

In the era of fuel vehicles, because the industry is extremely involved, developed countries have too much first-mover advantage, and there is no global brand in China. China's independent brands, including auto parts manufacturers, have not become mainstream even in the Chinese local market. But on the track of electric vehicles, China will definitely be one of the protagonists. As long as the competition is synchronized, we really haven't been afraid of anyone. 

Tesla is a great company. It is great because he brought electric vehicles to the road of subverting fuel vehicles by his own power, making the impossible possible. Like the Ford Model T, Tesla has epoch-making historical significance, and it is a big event that can be written into historical teaching materials.

But a single flower is not spring, a hundred flowers bloom in spring, and the Chinese electric vehicle industry will definitely fill this garden. We will surely witness the rapid rise of countless outstanding Chinese companies in this industry. 

Now that you have lived up to the clear night sky of autumn and missed the snow and ice in winter, don't miss this colorful spring.

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