Will the skateboard chassis be another revolution in electric vehicles? | reporter observes

Only 9 months after its establishment, China's first skateboard chassis company, Yo-Run Technology, has completed 3 rounds of financing, with a valuation of more than 1 billion yuan. In the Pre-A+ round of financing, Boyuan Capital, a subsidiary of Bosch China, has also become a shareholder of Yo-Run Technology. Skateboard chassis is the hottest concept in the automotive industry recently, Bosch China President Chen Yudong and Chinese Academy of Sciences academician Ouyang Minggao believe that skateboard chassis is one of the core trends in the future development of vehicles.

Known as Tesla's killer, Rivian's core weapon is the skateboard chassis. On November 10 last year, Rivian was listed on the NASDAQ, and the IPO opened about 37% high on the first day, rising by more than 53% at one point, with a maximum price of $119.4 per share, and a market value of more than $100 billion at one point, surpassing the market capitalization of GM, Ford and the current Weilai, Ideal and Xiaopeng with a history of 100 years, setting a record for the largest IPO of the US stock since 2014.

Rivian is favored by investors in the capital market, in addition to the prospective U.S. pickup truck market, access to Amazon investment and order support and other external factors, there is also a core weapon is the skateboard chassis platform.

The skateboard chassis is an integrated chassis architecture specifically designed for electric vehicles, which integrates batteries, electric drivetrains, suspensions, brakes, and almost all driving-related hardware and software into the car body like a skateboard. Based on this platform, the same chassis can develop any form of body, the upper and lower body can be separated development, and the operation of the vehicle relies on wire control technology to achieve coupling between the upper and lower body.

The benefits of the skateboard chassis are obvious, almost all the driving-related subsystems are integrated in a separate chassis structure, freeing up a large amount of upper space for car companies and users, and the upper body has greater design freedom and space layout scheme. And the development cycle of the whole vehicle can also be greatly reduced, just like the platform architecture of traditional fuel vehicles, the models developed on the same platform have a large number of common parts, and the development cycle can be shortened by 6 to 12 months.

Some car-making companies that do not have strong technical capabilities such as Sandian can focus on the development of body product modeling, intelligent cockpit and user experience, further reducing the threshold of the industry, and also becoming a breakthrough for more new car-making forces, giving entrepreneurs without car-making experience the opportunity to rise from the edge.

Globally, new car manufacturers such as Rivian, Canoo and REE in Israel have bet on skateboard chassis platforms, and Yo-Pao Technology is China's first skateboard chassis company.

Founded in April 2021, Yo-Run Technology has received angel investment in the weeks since, including Horizon founder and artificial intelligence expert Dr. Kai Yu, and Wang Lipu, president of Fuxing Automotive Technology Group. Less than two months after that, Youpao Technology completed the Pre-A round of financing led by Jingwei China, followed by CCV's founding partner and Zhen Fund. In October last year, Yo-Run Technology once again obtained the Pre-A+ round of financing from Boyuan Capital, and the market valuation has exceeded one billion.

Li Peng, founder of Yo-Pao Technology, said that Yo-Pao creates a super chassis that integrates software and hardware, integrates digitalization and modularization, and reduces the cost and cycle of car manufacturing, which can shorten the new car development cycle to 12 months and reduce the capital threshold to within 100 million US dollars, enabling new car companies to focus on brand building, user services and data closed-loop links with higher added value.

At present, Yo-Pao Technology has independently developed the first mass-produced full-line control chassis in China, and the world's first CTC battery system (Cell to Chassis) jointly developed with Jiewei Power has also landed. In addition, Yo-Pao Technology will also carry out in-depth cooperation with companies such as Jingxi Heavy Industry and Horizon in the field of intelligent car related fields and edge artificial intelligence chips.

According to the information provided by Yo-Pao Technology, the UP super chassis developed by the company has the ability to integrate the traditional body-in-white, and can arrange the components of the three electrics, suspension, braking, steering, battery, electric transmission system, suspension and other components in a chassis similar to a "skateboard", and at the same time realize the integrated design, it also has the ability to integrate intelligent software and hardware such as sensors, computing platforms and various service applications, and makes it an independent "skateboard structure", which can realize independent driving and continuous iteration of software and hardware.

In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the dispute between the soul and the shell inevitably becomes the soul torture of OEMs and suppliers. Are traditional car companies willing to deliver their core technical capabilities to third-party companies?

Li Peng believes that there must be some car companies in the market willing to cooperate with skateboard chassis companies, because the core value of consumers is migrating, which will lead to the migration of the core value of the so-called car factory that creates the core value of consumers. At the same time, he believes that the transformation of traditional car companies towards intelligent electrification is like an elephant turning around, and the process is challenged. Under such circumstances, some local traditional car companies are trying to spin off the electrification business independently, which gives technology companies such as Yo-Pao opportunities.