Finally at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, the Ningde era CIIC integrated intelligent chassis was unveiled.
For the Ningde era of this smart chassis, the industry is often referred to as the skateboard chassis.
According to the official introduction, its core feature is “up and down decoupling, highly integrated, open to the outside world”, through the expandable software and hardware architecture and standardized interface design, to achieve a chassis architecture, a variety of models.
The concept of “skateboard chassis” has been concerned by the industry since 2021.
Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the 2021 media communication meeting of the China Electric vehicle Association that the skateboard chassis represents the development trend of technology, “which will bring a revolution to automobile design and manufacturing.
” At that time, it coincided with the listing of Rivian, a new force in American car building, which caught fire with the concept of “skateboard chassis”.
In the following two years, the skateboard chassis became silent from being all the rage for a while, and it was not as favored by capital as before.
Enterprises engaged in skateboard chassis are also struggling on the survival line, mass production is blocked, and losses are intensified.
Now, with the new development of CIIC integrated intelligent chassis in Ningde era, does it mean that the skateboard chassis has come to a new inflection point for commercial application? What are the advantages of skateboard chassis? The era of skateboard chassis is coming? The skateboard chassis is the “seven most”.
According to the explanation of the industry, the skateboard chassis is a highly integrated customized car-building platform, which highly integrates the steering module, braking module, three-electric module and suspension module on the chassis to become a car chassis with the shape of a skateboard.
The skateboard chassis integrates the steering, braking, three electricity, suspension and other systems of the original electric vehicle into the chassis of the electric vehicle in a modular way.
” Zhang Yu, a technical engineer for a skateboard chassis enterprise, said that the enterprise can change the corresponding modules according to the requirements of different models, so as to shorten the development cycle and realize the decoupling development of the upper and lower car bodies.
“it is called a skateboard chassis mainly because its shape is similar to that of a skateboard.” Dr. Lu Jianbo, chief worker of Naha Automotive Engineering Research Institute, also explained that unlike other chassis, skateboard chassis is an innovative design concept, its core lies in the separation of the lower body (chassis) and the upper body (body and cockpit).
This design concept enables the chassis to be developed and optimized as an independent module, thus greatly shortening the vehicle development cycle.
” Lu Jianbo stressed that a skateboard chassis can be used as the lower body of many models, as long as it is equipped with different bodies, so some people jokingly call it the “shared chassis”.
Of course, we also need to see the difference between skateboard chassis and wire chassis (X-by-wire).
According to the industry, the core difference between the skateboard chassis and the wire-controlled chassis is that the skateboard chassis can be defined by software, rather than linked only by electrical signals.
In other words, the skateboard chassis is the ultimate form of wire-controlled chassis.
In terms of architecture, it is generally believed that the skateboard chassis realizes the decoupling between the upper and lower car bodies, so that the two can evolve independently and can even be customized according to the requirements.
The design of this architecture brings great convenience for automobile manufacturing, maintenance and upgrading.
Photo source: the car was filmed on the spot.
Through sorting and summarizing, we learned the advantages of the skateboard chassis in seven aspects.
First, from the overall weight point of view, the skateboard chassis uses lightweight materials and technology, which can effectively reduce the weight of the chassis and the whole vehicle.
second, the skateboard chassis can greatly shorten the vehicle development cycle, generally speaking, it can be shortened to about 15 months.
third, effectively reduce development costs and manufacturing costs, which is the advantage of skateboard chassis modularization and platform.
Fourth, improved vehicle life, chassis and lightweight body, and larger battery pack design can lead to better battery life.
fifth, improved safety performance.
sixth, improved production efficiency, a small number of skateboard chassis parts, easy to match.
seventh, it can be compatible with commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles and other vehicles to achieve vehicle diversification.
Look at the Ningde era CIIC integrated intelligent chassis, it reflects the advantages of these aspects.
Its overall design takes the battery as the center and adopts CTC (Cell to chassis) technology.
The battery cell is directly integrated into the chassis, which can achieve a range of more than 1000 kilometers, or downgrade the battery chemical system under the same mileage, and can support different battery categories and power exchange schemes, such as Kirin battery and Shenxing battery.
In addition, in the overall product form, the chassis highly integrates the battery, electric drive, thermal management and other subsystems to the end, realizing the integration of the three electrical systems.
And through integrated design innovation, the CIIC integrated chassis can absorb 80% of the vehicle collision energy, reducing the correlation between styling design and safety.
The car’s skateboard chassis also reflects the above advantages.
Nashi Haozhi skateboard chassis uses integrated die casting plus CTC energy tank, reducing more than 100 parts and more than 1700 solder joints.
It increases the cell layout space by 14%, uses a new type of long-life, high-rate charge and discharge cell, and allows the range to reach 500-1000km.
At the same time, the Haozhi skateboard chassis supports 400V and 800V dual voltage platforms, is compatible with pure electric, extended range, two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive system layout, and can adapt to a variety of different models, such as cars, SUV, MPV, station wagons and pick-up trucks.
The integration of Haozhi skateboard chassis involves many aspects, such as structural integration, energy system integration, motion wire control integration, powertrain integration, electronic and electrical architecture and so on.
Is the new era of commercialization of skateboard chassis coming? Combing the history of development, we can find that the skateboard chassis is not new.
In 2002, General Motors put forward the concept of “skateboard”, which presented integrated chassis and wire control technology, and took the lead in integrating it into a concept car called Hy-wire.
During the period from 2015 to 2021, a large number of start-ups of skateboard chassis emerged in the industry, including Canoo in the United States, Arrival in the United Kingdom, REE in Israel, and domestic PIX Moving, Youyu Technology and so on.
In particular, the successful listing of Rivian, a new force of American car manufacturing, and its excellent performance in the capital market in 2021 not only caught fire with the concept of skateboard chassis, but also aroused more and more car companies to pay attention to skateboard chassis technology.
The layout of skateboard chassis began in Ningde era as early as 2018.
In 2018, Ningde time Group established a project for CTC technology (the battery is placed directly into the chassis).
In 2021, Ningde Times (Shanghai) Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd.Time Intelligence “) was officially established to establish an R & D center and testing base in Lingang, and at the same time began to lay out the mass production base.
In January 2023, Ningde era signed a contract with the Management Committee of Jiangxi Yichun Economic and technological Development Zone to build the first skateboard chassis production base in Yichun.
Now, to the 2024 Beijing Auto Show debut CIIC integrated intelligent chassis, Ningde era for the commercialization of skateboard chassis, prepared for nearly six years.
In March this year, Yang Hanbing, Managing Director of time Intelligence, said that Ningde’s first skateboard chassis based on lithium iron phosphate battery would be mass-produced in the second half of this year.
The skateboard chassis will have a range of more than 800 kilometers and carry electricity of 91.
2 degrees.
It is reported that among the current domestic and foreign car companies, Naha Automobile, Jiangqi Group and Vietnamese car company VinFast Automobile have reached the intention of cooperation with Ningde era skateboard chassis.
Yang Hanbing believes that in an era when the volume of cars is becoming more and more severe, it is all the more necessary to release scene-oriented and personalized creativity.
In the mechanical age, the replacement of cars takes 8-10 years.
in the electrified age, the cycle is shortened to 6-8 years.
in the electrified age, it is gradually shortened to 3-5 years.
Now, the car has entered the intelligent era, 1-2 years to update a model, is no longer a new thing, and is the trend of the industry.
Therefore, under this trend, the development concept of skateboard chassis is needed to support it.
Yang Hanbing stressed that the CIIC integrated intelligent chassis will not only improve the efficiency of vehicle development, but also provide unprecedented freedom for vehicle styling design and intelligent function definition.
Generally speaking, the skateboard chassis in Ningde era makes the parallel development of the upper and lower car body greatly shorten the whole vehicle development cycle.
in addition, after the integrated intelligent chassis becomes a standardized and platform component, the industry sharing a set of chassis architecture will bring huge cost advantages.
In addition, after the decoupling of the upper and lower car body, reducing the relationship between safety and styling, and opening the EE interface and mechanical interface, automobile designers and product managers can play more freely and release their creativity.
Especially in the aspect of cost reduction, Yang Hanbing made an in-depth exposition.
He said that after the skateboard chassis of the Ningde era became standard, platform parts and industry sharing would bring huge cost advantages.
On the one hand, it can reduce the initial cost of vehicle development, and multiple models of the car company share a platform.
on the other hand, it can reduce the BOM cost of the chassis itself.
It is reported that the skateboard chassis products of the Ningde era will only charge about 1×3 of the mainframe factory’s own development fees, so the mainframe factory can save 60-70% of the development cost.
the BOM cost of the Ningde era can also reduce the BOM cost of the mainframe factory by about 5%, so the cost savings of these two parts will bring discounts to the mainframe factory.
It may take time for car companies to place orders, starting with the appearance of the skateboard chassis in the Ningde era.
In the face of such a technology with multiple advantages, will the process of large-scale commercialization of the skateboard chassis be accelerated? Perhaps, this still needs to be observed.
Some people in the industry have put forward different perspectives on the promotion of skateboard chassis from a commercial point of view.
Ningde Times publicizes its skateboard chassis products to play an important role in reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises, and the fees will only be charged for enterprise development fees.
And this calculation model is only from the perspective of the Ningde era.
If you really use the skateboard chassis of the Ningde era, it means to build a new factory, and this investment is 5 or 6 billion yuan.
The investment in building a factory alone consumes a lot of money for enterprises.
In addition, is the mainframe factory, which has always attached importance to its “soul”, willing to hand over all the increasingly important chassis to suppliers such as Ningde era? The answer is still unknown.
After all, it has been restricted by “Ning Wang” in the battery field, and some car companies even complain about “working for the Ningde era.
” Today, despite the declining cost of power batteries, the chassis accounts for 70% of the cost of the vehicle.
Can companies that already have experience in the field of power batteries be subject to the Ningde era in the field of chassis? This may not be an easy thing to count.
It is precisely to see the future of the intelligent skateboard chassis, vehicle enterprises are also accelerating the pace of self-research.
According to Zhang Yu’s point of view, “if car companies want to really reduce costs and increase efficiency in the chassis field, they need to open the road of self-research.
” This is also the case, including Tesla, Zero run, BYD, Volkswagen, Volvo, Ford and other mainframe factories, are self-developed skateboard chassis related technology, and industrial layout.
Of course, in terms of technological maturity, the skateboard chassis has room for further improvement.
From a technical point of view, one of the advantages of skateboard chassis is the development of upper and lower parts, so it needs to be de-mechanized.
rely on line control technology, energy management, drive management, car body state management, electronic and electrical architecture and software platform packaging and docking and other technologies.
However, at present, the on-line steering technology only stays in EPS, and the mechanical connection is not completely removed, and the steering signal still comes from the driver’s operation, which can not really realize the decoupling between driver’s operation and vehicle control.
In addition, subject to high technical barriers and boarding costs, wire-controlled suspension, wire-controlled braking and so on have not yet achieved large-scale mass production.
The maturity of the technology may be an important consideration in vehicle safety.
According to the view of the engineer of the automobile company, after removing the mechanical parts, how to ensure the safety of the whole line control electronic system is very critical.
In the case of no mechanical connection, there will be no accident, and there will be an accident.
The negative effect of the promotion of line-controlled chassis will be huge.
In addition, for the consideration of the flatness of the chassis, the skateboard chassis usually uses hub motors, but at present, the mass-produced hub motors in the market are mostly used in buses and trucks, which are subject to the fact that the size of the wheels of passenger cars is too small.
The application of hub motors in passenger cars also needs a technological breakthrough.
It is undeniable that Ningde era launched advanced skateboard chassis technology to explore the mode of parallel car manufacturing, which makes the overall vehicle manufacturing process more flexible and will bring a good demonstration effect for the whole industry.
However, when it comes to commercialization and technological maturity, it may take time to tell whether it is possible to achieve large-scale promotion in the future.
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