At the beginning of this year, major automakers were full of enthusiasm and released new models.
Among them, the all-new ZEEKR 001 has become the strongest pure electric model on the surface with a 000 acceleration of only 2.02 seconds, with more than 30,000 units in the first month.
The reason why such a fast acceleration can be achieved is due to the role of the electric drive system, and ZEEKR 001 is equipped with the world's first mass-produced four-motor distributed electric drive.
With the development of new energy vehicles in recent years, the domestic electric drive system has achieved technological breakthroughs again and again. Today we're going to talk about what an electric drive system is all about.
Motor and controller technology has blossomed in an all-round way, and all-in-one systems have become the mainstream trend
The electric drive system can be said to be the "heart" of electric vehicles, which is generally composed of motors, controllers and reducers, which are responsible for converting electrical energy into mechanical energy, providing forward power for the car, and also exerting a significant impact on the performance of new energy vehicles, such as power and economy.
From the perspective of the entire electric drive system, the electric drive system has experienced the development process from discrete to functional integration, and then to mechatronics.
At present, the three-in-one electric drive system is the mainstream product in the market, in addition, there are manufacturers who combine the "big three-electric" and "small three-electric" (on-board charger, DC-DC converter and high-voltage power distribution unit) to launch seven-in-one, eight-in-one and other electric drive systems, realizing another iterative upgrade of technology.
Like the BYD Yuan plus eight-in-one, it integrates eight major components such as DC-DC, MCU, motor, and reducer, and the comprehensive efficiency of the system is as high as 89%, and the volume is reduced by 20% and the weight is reduced by 15% under the same power. In addition, Huawei, SAIC, etc. have also successively launched seven-in-one electric drive systems.
The highly integrated electric drive system greatly improves the space utilization rate of new energy vehicles, reduces the overall production cost, and improves the overall power density of the electric drive system, which is conducive to enhancing the endurance performance and price competitiveness of new energy vehicles.
The electric drive system accounts for about 10%-20% of the cost of new energy vehicles, while in the entire electric drive system, the cost of motors and controllers accounts for a large proportion, accounting for 27% and 60% respectively, and the proportion of reducers is relatively small.
As the price war of new energy vehicles intensifies, the market has put forward higher requirements for cost control and performance improvement of electric drive systems. According to the cost proportion of each part of the electric drive system, the motor and controller have become the key breakthrough to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
In terms of motors, flat wire motors have gradually become the mainstream, with a penetration rate of 60.8% in 2023, which greatly improves the power density and reduces the total copper consumption significantly compared with traditional round wire motors, reducing the effective material cost by 8-12% and making the performance advantage more obvious.
In addition, the development of oil cooling technology and the application of flat wire motors complement each other, which solves the pain points of flat wire motors in heat dissipation.
In terms of controllers, with the continuous improvement of the power density of electric drive systems, the use of silicon carbide power devices has gradually become a market consensus. Under the same voltage, silicon carbide devices are lighter, have lower on-resistance, and smaller energy loss, which can effectively improve the endurance and shorten the charging time of new energy vehicles.
The market space is gradually opening up, and the head forces have obvious advantages
In 2023, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles will reach 7.249 million units, a year-on-year increase of 38%, and the cumulative number of new energy passenger vehicle electric drive systems in the same year will be 8.3 million units, a year-on-year increase of 44.15%. Among them, the cumulative number of three-in-one electric drive systems was 5,454,400 units, an increase of 51% year-on-year.
Because the electric drive system market has a high entry threshold in terms of capital and technology, the R&D investment of a project can reach billions or even tens of billions, so that most of the market share is occupied by a small number of leading enterprises, such as BYD, Tesla, etc. The other share is occupied by some professional third-party suppliers, such as Founder Motor and JEE Technology.
In 2023, BYD, Tesla, and United Electronics will lead the electric drive system market, with a cumulative share of 48.39%. The market share of the top 10 electric drive system companies exceeds 78.8%.
Generally speaking, mid-to-high-end models of OEMs have higher requirements for product performance, and are more inclined to produce and use themselves, such as Tesla, BYD and other car companies B and C class vehicles mainly adopt the self-supply model.
The third party has a multi-platform solution and a strong ability to control costs, and for some small manufacturers, self-production is not cost-effective, so the third party has a high market share in the low-end market. With the increase in the number of models of automakers, more low-end models may be delegated to third parties in the future, and third-party companies are expected to receive more orders.
The industrial chain as a whole is greatly affected by the supply of raw materials, and the technical and financial barriers of midstream enterprises are high
The upstream of the electric drive system industry chain is raw material suppliers and parts suppliers. The cost of raw materials can account for up to 60% of the total cost.
Among them, permanent magnet materials, as the core raw materials of motor rotors, are the decisive factor of motor power density, and China's rare earth reserves are the first in the world, which provides a good foundation for the supply of permanent magnet materials.
Representatives of raw material suppliers include Jinli Permanent Magnet, Zhenghai Magnetic, etc., and manufacturers of stator, rotor and other parts include Zhejiang Baojie, Xusheng Co., Ltd., Zhongke Sanhuan, etc.
The midstream of the industrial chain is the supplier of electric drive system assembly, which is mainly composed of automakers and third-party manufacturers. Since electric drive system suppliers have no bargaining power over downstream new energy vehicle manufacturers, they are extremely sensitive to the price of upstream raw materials.
At the same time, midstream enterprises have a high investment in the research and development of the system, and the competition in technology is more fierce, so the head enterprises with strong funds have obvious advantages.
OEMs are represented by BYD and Tesla, and third-party manufacturers are represented by JEE Technology, Jingjin Electric, Founder Motor, etc.
The downstream of the industrial chain are new energy vehicle manufacturers, such as passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Many tram manufacturers, such as BYD, Tesla and Yutong Bus, have realized their own production and use of electric drive systems.
Among many third-party manufacturers, Inovance Technology has firmly established the first position by virtue of its own production capacity and technical advantages.
Among the top five electronic control companies in 2023, Inovance Technology ranked second with 848,000 shipments, second only to BYD's Fodi Power, with a year-on-year increase of 113.1% and a market share of 10.2%, further improving its position in the industry.
In 2023, Inovance achieved total revenue of 30.42 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.21%. In the same year, it achieved an operating profit of 5.002 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.92%, and the performance growth was mainly affected by the increase in sales of downstream customers Xiaopeng and Ideal.
Inovance has always been on the road of high-performance electric drive system, and has successively launched two core products, high-speed motor and 800V electric drive, in recent years.
At present, there are four electric drive systems that have been mass-produced on the market, with a speed of 20,000 rpm or more, and Inovance Technology is one of them, and the supporting model is Hechuang V09. At the end of last year, Inovance also participated in the research and development of Xiaomi Super Motor V6s.
Its 800V electric drive has also won the favor of many manufacturers, such as the inverter used in Xpeng's new 800V XPower electric drive assembly is from Inovance technology.
The electric drive assembly adopts 8-layer HairPin flat wire, high-efficiency electromagnetic solution, ultra-high power density SiC advanced packaging technology, ultra-low viscosity and active lubrication control technology, etc., so that the maximum efficiency of the motor reaches 97.5%, and the comprehensive working efficiency of the electric drive system reaches 92%.
In addition to China, Inovance has also adopted a strategy of going overseas, not only providing long-term supply of electric drive systems to European car companies such as Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo, but also following domestic car companies to explore foreign markets, such as Chery and Great Wall.
In general, the market demand for electric drive systems has been expanded in depth with the upgrading and development of mid-to-high-end new energy vehicles, and the market is also looking forward to the emergence of new technologies for electric drive systems to lead new energy vehicles to a higher performance future.
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