Look forward to the technology of 2022: thousands of miles of range, high-voltage fast charging, lidar car enterprises "arms race" hot and controversial co-exist

In 2021, the new technology stack will intensify the competition and accelerate the change of the automobile industry in the market transformation.

New energy vehicles and smart cars have become the highlight of the automobile industry, and an "arms race" in the field of the new four modernizations is in full swing. Among them, 1000 km range, 800V high voltage fast charge, and lidar have become the "entry threshold" for new energy car companies to participate in 2022 and even future competitions.

However, although consumers' enthusiasm for the future of technology has been ignited, the aspects of technology and cost are still controversial. In the intelligent electric track, there is no doubt that there is still a long way to go.

The price of thousands of miles is difficult to control.

There will be a batch of models with a range of more than 1000 kilometers on the market in 2022, and the first one to use this as a selling point is Ulay. As early as January 2021, the first luxury electric sedan, the ET7;, was released at the same time, according to the plan, the 150kWh solid-state battery pack will be mass produced in the fourth quarter of 2022.

This semi-solid battery will send the ET7 to the 1000km + club.

After Lulai, GAC Ean AION LX Plus, which appeared on the market on January 5, is "the world's first endurance breakthrough 1000km pure electric vehicle". According to GAC Ean, the sponge silicon negative electrode battery technology can make the silicon negative electrode inside the battery as soft and elastic as a sponge, so that the expansion and contraction of silicon in the process of charging and discharging are limited and buffered, without breaking apart, at the same time, it can also absorb water like a sponge, so that the silicon negative electrode can give full play to the advantage of large capacity and store more energy. Thanks to the sponge silicon negative chip battery technology, the energy density of the whole package of, AION LX Plus battery reaches more than 205Wh/kg, which realizes the super charge of 144.4kWh and the mileage of 1008km.

In addition, Zhiji Automobile, a high-end brand of SAIC, also announced that its models will be equipped with a battery with silicon-doped lithium technology, which can achieve a maximum range of more than 1000 kilometers, and is expected to go on sale this year.

However, the introduction of new technology is also accompanied by more controversy. "from a technical point of view, a range of 1000 kilometers can be achieved, but with the high range, the safety technical requirements become higher and the cost control becomes more difficult." With regard to the 1000-kilometer range, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice president of the China Electric vehicle Association, once said, "the 1000-kilometer range is more likely to appear on the luxury car SUV. One is that there is room to install batteries, and the other is that consumers are willing to pay for it."

As Ouyang Minggao said, the price of the AION LX Plus "Qianli version" on the market is as high as 459600 yuan.

"A range of 1000 kilometers is more like exploring Mars and the moon. Exploring the limits of range has technical value, but it doesn't make much sense in real life." Shen Fei, vice president of Weilai, said frankly that the 1000 km range model is more like a "roll" between brands.

High voltage fast charging still needs to be improved.

To solve the problem of mileage anxiety, in addition to increasing mileage, many car companies have also adopted the method of speeding up the charging speed, and high-power fast charging has become the focus of the layout of many car companies in 2022.

According to Zoz Auto Research's 800V High Voltage platform Research report from 2021 to 2022, BYD, Geely, Great Wall, Xiaopeng, ideal and Zero have successively released the layout plan of 800V high voltage technology in 2021. From the perspective of mass production time, new cars based on 800V high voltage technology solutions from major car companies will be on the market one after another after 2022. In addition, Huawei has given a set of relatively clear technical goals: by 2025, it will launch a fast charging scheme with a voltage platform of over 1000V and power 600kW, which can achieve 30% 80% SOC charging performance in 5 minutes.

Take Xiaopeng Automobile as an example, the super energy replenishment system of Xiaopeng Automobile is promoted by Synchronize at the end of the car, the end of the pile and the end of the station. The mass production model equipped with 800V high voltage SiC platform will be deployed at the vehicle end, the pile end will take the lead in mass production and laying 480kW high voltage overcharge pile, and the station end will deploy self-developed energy storage charging technology, which can meet the uninterrupted high power overcharge demand of 30 vehicles at one time.

At present, the vehicle model based on 800V high voltage technology platform has entered the stage of mass production, and the deployment of super charging piles is also advancing in an orderly manner. In addition to cooperating with operators to deploy the charging network, the mainframe factory is also actively building its own charging network. Whether self-built or cooperative operation, high voltage is an important development trend.

At the same time, in the 800V high-voltage platform parts upgrade process, Great Wall, SAIC, Geely, BAIC and other car companies are also actively strengthening the layout of third-generation semiconductors such as SiC. At the "Intelligent Geely 2025 Conference", Geely announced that it would mass-produce 800V high-power SiC chips in 2023.

However, for the current car companies to pursue the 400KW, 800V high-voltage ultra-fast charging technology, there are also some technical problems to be improved. Ouyang Minggao said, "Super fast charging is completely full, while the battery also needs to have safety and long life, which is very difficult to compromise."

"from the charging principle, the lithium-ion battery starts from the positive pole, goes through the diaphragm and electrolyte, and reaches the negative electrode, including three processes: stripping, migration and embedding. The more lithium ions migrated and embedded per unit time, the faster the charging speed. If lithium precipitation is caused, it will not only reduce the battery performance and shorten the cycle life, but also limit the fast charging capacity of the battery, and may cause catastrophic consequences such as combustion and explosion. " Liu Guanwei, chief strategy officer of Linkage Tianyi, explained this.

Lidar intensive "stacking"

In addition to solving mileage anxiety, intelligent driving above L3 has also become standard for new models. Among them, lidar has become the focus of hardware "stacking" of automobile enterprises with many advantages, such as high angle resolution, clear detail identification, long-distance testing and so on.

According to the research of Guojin Securities, a total of 19 models have been announced to be equipped with lidar in 2021, and the industry penetration is expected to rise rapidly in 2022. China Merchants Securities said that 2022 could be the first year of lidar production as car factories such as Lailai, Changan, BAIC and Great Wall successively release self-driving plans equipped with lidar. Among them, Lvlai ET7 and ET5, Xiaopeng G9, Nezha S, ideal X01, Weima M7, SAIC Zhiji L7, Great Wall Jialong, Changan Avita 11, Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI version are all new cars with lidar on the market in 2022.

The mass boarding of lidar has also set off another round of financing. On January 10th, Yijing Technology announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan Pre-C round financing. This round of financing is led by Xiaopeng Automobile, and SAIC Group's Shangyi Capital, Dongfeng BoCom Automobile Fund, and Intel Capital, the old shareholder, continue to raise their bets. This is only half a month after Suiteng Juchuang announced on December 24, 2021 that it had won the strategic investment of BYD and signed the strategic agreement.

Prior to this, Ludai earlier invested in lidar start-up Innovusion; Wesai Technology through Lidar Capital controlled by Li Bin, while it received financial support from Xiaomi, Baidu and other technology car manufacturers, and has been designated by Jidu Automobile.

According to the forecasts of third parties such as Yole, the volume will accelerate in the next 5-10 years. Global shipments of lidars are expected to reach about 6.6 million and 79.34 million in 2025 and 2030, respectively, and about 2.92 million and 31.54 million in China, respectively.

However, in the pursuit of intelligent driving above L3 level, the reality is that the foundation of L2 intelligent driving is still not solid. A few days ago, the China Automotive Technology Research Center released an evaluation data report on intelligent driving of six models, including Tesla Model3, Lai EC6, BYD Han EV and Xiaopeng P7. The results show that the average intelligent driving score of the six models is only 67.2%, and the overall performance is not good.

"at present, vehicles can deal with single-lane following and bends, but they do not have the ability to identify dangerous scenes." Zhou Boya, head of the Evaluation Technology Management Department of the China Automotive Center, believes that objectively speaking, the mainstream smart cars in the market still have a long way to go from the robust and reliable L2 level. "

"the production car is infinitely close to the function of the L3 but does not deviate from the definition of the L2, which is the safest and most common practice at this stage. The future may be a long-term parallel state of L2 + and L4. " Li Xiaolong, a senior researcher at the Automotive Innovation Center of the National Intelligent Network Alliance, said to this.