Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
The author | Yu Yue
Edit the | Xiao Han
Can your electric car withstand extreme cold weather in the bitter winter?
Recently, the minimum temperature in the Beijing-Tianjin area has often been more than -10 degrees, and even short-term outdoor activities are trembling. In the face of extremely cold weather, most people are wrapped in thick down jackets, but for electric vehicle owners, winter cars give many people headaches.
In the morning, I went to the side of the car to see, the windshield frosted, and I was in a hurry to go to the company meeting but could not go, so I could only sit in the car to turn on the heating and defrost. In this way, electric vehicles that only have 60% or 70% of the standard endurance in winter will drop the power faster.
If it is an electric vehicle with relatively backward technology, under the temperature of minus ten or twenty degrees, the vehicle cannot be started at all, and the car family can only travel by taxi.
Seeing this, you may think that electric cars are "not saved" in winter, but they really are not.
Today, technological advances have made electric vehicles smarter, such as the Xiaopeng P5, which just opened for delivery not long ago, and there are many tricks to solve the problem of winter travel.
First, -23 °C extreme cold test 20 minutes to achieve front window defrosting 99.8%
Two days ago, Xiaopeng Motors conducted an extremely cold test on the Xiaopeng P5 at the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (the national standard test requires -18 °C, this experiment -23 °C).
Put a P5 into the cryogenic chamber and freeze for a full 8 hours until the temperature inside and outside the car drops to -23 °C. Under such temperature conditions, what kind of Xiaopeng P5 has frozen?
▲Xiaopeng P5 extreme cold test
From the outside, the car was frozen with a handful of snot and a handful of tears, and the entire body and windshield were already covered with frost.
Then the focus came, the staff pressed the remote start button on the mobile phone, and the Xiaopeng P5 was successfully started instantly, faster than the 7 seconds required by the national standard. At the same time, Xiaopeng P5 immediately entered the defrosting working state.
The test results show that Xiaopeng P5 can remove 99.8% of the frost from the front windshield within 20 minutes and 100% defrost of the whole vehicle in 40 minutes.
▲ Defrosting the windows after the extreme cold test
With reference to national standards, the car is required to be tested in an environment of -18 ° C, and it must be started within 7 seconds under extremely cold conditions. At the same time, the national standard requires that the defrosting of the window before the 20 minutes of electric vehicles ≥ 80%, and the defrosting of the whole vehicle in 40 minutes ≥ 90%. Judging from this result, the actual performance of Xiaopeng P5 is higher than the national standard.
In the actual car environment, Xiaopeng P5 can be opened in an environment above -30 °C, and more than 90% of cities in China can be used normally.
Nowadays, driving an electric car in winter, you no longer have to worry about not being able to start, nor do you have to watch the car defrost slowly dry and anxious.
Second, the comprehensive endurance of 430km and heat pump air conditioning to help save electricity
Relying on laboratory tests alone is far from enough, Xiaopeng P5 can last in extremely cold weather, and it is necessary to run a lap on the road to test.
▲Xiaopeng P5
The test car for this car is the P5's secondary top model 550P, which is equipped with a 71.4kWh power battery and has a 550km NEDC endurance. What is more surprising is that the actual performance of neDC can reach 570km.
In terms of power, the Xiaopeng P5 has a 155kW (211 horsepower) power motor, front-wheel drive, 100 km/h acceleration time of 7.5 seconds, more than enough to meet daily family travel.
P5 This owner plays a "smart home car" and can carry a family out together. If you are tired of playing, this car can also be turned into a large room and a movie theater in seconds. So we are going to drive this P5 from downtown Beijing to the Bulaotun Observatory in Miyun District, ready to watch a movie under the stars.
When we set off, we looked at the endurance, and the meter showed 516 kilometers, almost fully charged. On the day of departure, we may have had the coldest day in Beijing since the beginning of winter this year, with outdoor temperatures reaching -3°C during the day. We set the air conditioner to 27 degrees, the air volume was three gears, and stepped on the electric door and went straight to the Bulaotun Observatory.
The journey to Miyun is a bit far, but it is easier to use Xiaopeng's L2 level automatic driving system. When the vehicle is on the ring road and highway, the vehicle is driving on its own, and the driver only needs to hold the steering wheel. The Xiaopeng P5 tested this time is also equipped with two lidars, which means that its perception performance is the strongest in the entire Series of Xiaopeng models.
▲Xiaopeng P5 lidar
This Xiaopeng P5 can realize highway NGP intelligent navigation assisted driving and VPA parking lot memory parking, in the future, will also update the city NGP intelligent navigation assisted driving and VPA-L cross-floor parking lot memory parking and other L2 automatic driving functions.
More than two hours later, Xiaopeng P5 took us to our destination.
When we arrived at the Bulaotun Observatory, the vehicle traveled a total of 115 km, and the table showed that it consumed 153 km of endurance. In conversion, it can be found that this Xiaopeng P5 can run 430 kilometers when fully charged, which is equivalent to 75% of the END life of NEDC. Compared with many electric vehicles, the actual winter endurance is only 50% to 60% of the NEDC's endurance, which is much better, which is worthy of praise.
▲Xiaopeng P5 arrived at the Bulaotun Observatory
So why is it performing so well? One of the main reasons is that the P5 is equipped with a rare heat pump air conditioner in the same class, which can turn on the air conditioner for heating and defrosting in winter.
When the temperature is not lower than -10 °C, the heat pump air conditioner equipped with Xiaopeng P5 can use the heat pump air conditioner for heating. Heat pump air conditioners are able to absorb heat from the outside through the evaporation of the refrigerant. That's right! Even if the outside world is -10 ° C, there is still heat that can be absorbed.
When the refrigerant has absorbed the heat, it enters the cockpit to liquefy and release the heat. In this way, the heat is carried from the outside of the car to the inside of the car.
▲Heat pump air conditioning principle
Therefore, the heating efficiency of heat pump air conditioners is higher than that of traditional PTC resistance wire heating. For example, you light a match, but you can bring in nearly two matches of heat at the same time.
Converted into endurance, that is, the model equipped with a heat pump is 15% higher than the ordinary model, that is, it can increase the endurance of tens of kilometers.
When it comes to the principle of heat pump air conditioning, it is the same as your home air conditioner, but the order is reversed. Because the air conditioner in your home is to bring the heat in the house to the outside to release, and the heat pump is to bring the heat outside to the car to release.
After measuring the endurance in extremely cold weather, it is time to focus on our day, Xiaopeng P5 can also change the cinema in seconds.
Sleep mode can be turned on through the voice assistant, the front seats will be flattened, and the vehicle's intelligent fragrance system and sleep music will also be played synchronously. Combined with the sleep kit (air cushions, sun blinds, sheets, pillows and quilts) provided by Xiaopeng, as well as a projector and curtain, you can enjoy a cinema-like audiovisual experience in the car.
▲Xiaopeng P5 seconds to become home theater
After this test, we have a comprehensive understanding of Xiaopeng P5. P5 with a price range of 157,900 yuan ~ 223,900 yuan to enter the market, medium and low-end models in the home car market within 200,000 have a strong competitiveness, in the pure electric car this category has more space and comfort advantages.
At the same time, with better endurance and intelligent functions, high-end models can even compete with the sales king of this price segment- Tesla Model 3 rear-wheel drive version, and may also steal away some potential users of Model 3 models.