Lian Yubo: New energy vehicles shape the "three electrics" industrial chain

Lian Yubo: New energy vehicles shape the "three electrics" industrial chain

(Transferred from China Economic Lecture Hall by Automotive Metaverse Research Institute)

The initial stage of new energy vehicles, unlike fuel vehicles, fuel vehicles for more than 100 years, has been very mature, and the core technology is in the hands of some foreign traditional automobile powers, we have no way to catch up with the overseas power of these cars in a short period of time on the traditional fuel vehicles. So, in this new energy vehicle, we also encountered a lot of difficulties in starting, although there is no technology, there is no market recognition. But the products we have developed drive the core --- of our electric vehicles, motors, batteries, and electronic controls. This industrial chain has been slowly formed in China, what about at that time? I was also personally involved.

First of all, it is necessary to determine the technical route, because once the technical route deviates, then we may take a detour, and the expert group has proposed a technical path of three vertical and three horizontal.

The so-called three verticals are pure electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles. So what about the three horizontals, that is, the multi-energy powertrain control system, the motor and its control system, the battery and its management system. If there is a breakthrough in these three main components, then your new energy vehicle will occupy a commanding height. Therefore, the world has launched a fierce competition around the three electric technologies in new energy vehicles.

At the heart of electric vehicles, the first key component is the motor, and we think that the battery replaces the traditional fuel in this way of driving. Then the motor is the heart of our drive assembly. Before the development of electric vehicles, motors were usually used in some industrial equipment products, so its speed is not very high, the volume is relatively large, and the weight is relatively heavy. The motor of an electric vehicle should be efficient, high-speed, and lightweight. The advanced performance also determines the performance of the whole vehicle. So, what about this technical route of the motor? In fact, in the process of the development of electric vehicles, we have gradually clarified the performance of electric vehicle motors. What about its requirements? It is necessary to start the torque is large, and the area of constant power is required to be wide. In this way, its efficiency can be high, so to be efficient, to regulate the speed range to be large. We require acceleration from low speed, the maximum speed to reverse, these different working conditions need to be a large range of speed regulation, but also lightweight, the lighter the car the better, then but also reliability. We use a car for more than ten years. He has high reliability in the environment, high and low temperature, water and land, all kinds of harsh mountainous areas, various environments, and climbing. This is this requirement for the performance of the motor.

Then, in this process, the permanent magnet synchronous motor has become the mainstream, its structure is simple, cost-effective, good reliability, the above six technical indicators, he can be very satisfied, so in the technical route, we chose the permanent magnet synchronous motor. The permanent magnet synchronous motor is small in size and fast in speed, which was also said in textbooks in the past, but it has not been used in electric vehicles. Its manufacturing process is completely different from the traditional motor in all aspects, it is very, very difficult to achieve high speed, so we started the motor, the earliest we were 6000 rpm, our first generation of electric vehicles, and then we went to 10,000 rpm, now most of our 12,000 to 15,000 rpm after 20,000 rpm 30,000 rpm motor will have higher speed, the smaller the volume of the motor, the higher the energy, the more compact the motor is arranged, but the higher the speed, its centrifugal force, the more difficult it is to manufactureI remember that we found a motor factory, which asked us for tens of millions of development fees, first, we couldn't afford it, and second, I had tens of millions of development fees, and I could build a permanent magnet synchronous motor technology development myself. What about this innovation in key materials and components for electric motors? In fact, the process of its development is very similar to the process of the battery, and the mainstream steel mills have invested a lot of strength to develop this high-performance silicon steel sheet, this heavy rare earth permanent magnet. From this structure to regulate the production process, we make the motor, and then we do the test, after the test, we find that the speed of the motor or the heating up fast or torque control is not so, maybe in some places, but to strengthen its structure. Its shape will have a lot to do with it, it will be in different places this performance indicator is very different, then maybe a round, a round, a round may have to go through a dozen rounds of slow kind, and then finally he may start he sometimes do. I'll send one of five or six at a time, and then I'll combine them to experiment. After experimenting, we will pick out the best performance among them, and then optimize and optimize it. What about this, there is a theoretical science in it, it has a lot of new things, it doesn't have a very algorithm, it calculates something, it is a lot of materials. ingredients, it's just like when we stir-fry. The ingredients are like different things in a stir-fry, and the taste of the dish stir-fried by your different chefs may be different. According to your experience, what doesn't go well together and what goes well together, but in the end, it still depends on the taste of it, or in the end, someone has to taste it. What about our motors? After these materials come out, they still have to be tested by experimental data, so the key materials and components are the basis of high-performance motors. This linkage innovation of the industry, and the joint creation of high-performance electric drive systems such a group of enterprises have come out, according to my statistics, there should be thousands of such enterprises. Moreover, several mainstream enterprises have been formed, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Moreover, these key materials of the motor have also formed a pyramid in China, with the top and excellent. Then the following batch of this enterprise has formed the material of our motor and the progress of the motor. It makes me feel very emotional, because the motor is a traditional industry, controlled by the western industrial powers. We know that Germany, Japan, in terms of motors, have a lot of technology accumulation and patents, a lot of industrial precision motors are from these automobile powers, China used to only do some more industrial, or agricultural machinery, or some of the motors on a lot of industrial machinery. So in this kind of high-performance permanent magnet motor, we are still a blank, that is, in the vigorous development of new energy vehicles, and the support of the national technical project --- new energy vehicle project, I remember that the project of optical motor has been supported by more than a dozen projects before and after, and the development of the foundation has been supported from materials, to processes, to key core components! I think that the development process of our new energy vehicles, the support of the national key special project has such a systematic and structural arrangement is very good, and the efficient participation in the forward-looking research, then the enterprise participates in the process of industrialization implementation. Many scientific research institutes participate in technical support, and there are some third-party testing institutions and some evaluation institutions to participate in the development process of key components of new energy vehicles, and participate in this special project of the country, so as to form a strong technical research and development team, talents in all aspects, so it is difficult for an enterprise, a school, a scientific research institute to form such a concentrated advantage, so it is vividly reflected in the motor, and the motor is now generation after generation. We are from a country where the motor is lagging behind, but in the new energy vehicle, we have actually been ahead of the world in terms of motor, high speed, high safety, long life and reliability. I have a very strong feeling that we have walked in the first echelon of the world.

A key component of the core of electric vehicles is the power battery, we began to develop new energy vehicles, all the battery factories in the country, the battery factories with low energy density use some ways to cut corners or some simplified methods, simplify some of the protection of this device, sacrifice safety to improve energy density. There is a skeptical voice about the development of electric vehicles. Then, after the expert group and various ministries and commissions discussed a technological innovation that puts high safety, long life, health promotion and sustainable development in the first place, and uses the national scientific research plan to support the special project to tackle key problems. In order for the sustainable, reliable and healthy development of electric vehicles must have a long life and long battery life, the world's problems are high active materials and high energy density. But the high reactive material, the safety is poor, but it is high safety, so it is safe and long battery life. For a long time, you can't have both fish and bear's paws, so. How do we solve this, we have come up with a way to insist on the safety of the material of the lithium iron phosphate battery itself. On this basis, how to improve the energy density? So after three to five years of technical research, then we want the blade battery to make the battery blade, so we will make the battery into a long blade of one meter to one meter and two meters long, and this form of the blade is arranged and combined to form a structure without a bus sandwich, and the battery cell and the vehicle are directly integrated into the design. In this way, the energy density of the battery pack is greatly improved. Moreover, the integration of battery body has brought a weight reduction to the whole vehicle, of course. After the development of this blade battery, the density has been increased in terms of advantages, but it is difficult to manufacture this blade battery. The energy density of this one we made at the beginning is very low, and you can see that this blade battery is very long, and it is a shell with an extruded form, extruded with this aluminum plate. Didn't go to soldering, try to prevent this leakage of electrolyte. So what about this, thin and light. This manufacturing process is a big problem, one meter and two long batteries, its internal resistance caused by heat, life pressure, how to reduce its internal resistance? It's also a big basic problem, in order to overcome this problem? All the personnel have thought of a lot of ways, but also took a lot of detours, scrapped a lot of some products in the process, the equipment has been improved for three generations, because it is a brand new battery, this system and its manufacturing equipment, there is no precedent to follow, so the entire battery manufacturing production line? You have to design and manufacture it yourself. BYD has built a department with 10,000 people to manufacture battery equipment, specializing in researching and conquering the production line of blade batteries, of course, now blade batteries can make a production line in six months. Therefore, we cooperate with these chemical materials companies, sometimes in order to improve a performance index, we have to do a lot of experimental research, the formula should be improved, and there will be experiments after improvement, as well as experiments at different temperatures, experiments at different speeds, and experiments on different vibration platforms. This is placed at room temperature, high temperature and low temperature will also go through vibration, after a large number of tests, I think about half of the materials in the battery are developed by us after secondary development, there are more than 1,000 battery suppliers, and now all the cars of BYD are blade batteries. In the world, there are actually two of the top three battery factories. It is China's CATL and BYD. So the supply of battery materials in the world, now 70% to 80% of the supply of materials, are from Chinese enterprises, even if a few foreign large electronics factories, their material system supply chain, is also from China, the development of China's new energy vehicles has driven the development of batteries, batteries have driven the development of our upstream and downstream materials. So from the share of the global cathode material market, you can see that China's share, then the global anode material market share is almost occupied by China, so the share of the global electrolyte market, let's look at this proportion of China, that is, it accounts for the absolute mainstream, so battery materials, China's share of the market supply has exceeded 80%, and the latest statistics have reached 85% close to 90%, so the upstream and downstream industrial chain of batteries, Through these 20 years, China has formed an absolute advantage. There are technical advantages, the advantages of manufacturing technology, the advantages of manufacturing equipment, the advantages of manufacturing costs, the development of new energy vehicles is the only way for us to become an automobile power, under the guidance of this policy, leading our technological innovation, driving the development of our battery industry. In the future, our semi-solid-state batteries and solid-state batteries are also being developed and innovated.

One of the most critical parts of new energy vehicles is electronic control. You have the battery as the source of energy, you have the motor as the drive, so how do you control these systems. Then our electronic control plays a big role, then electronic control is our weak link in China for many years. Then its main device is power semiconductors, so it requires high power density, high output, high efficiency, and high reliability. How does the motor turn? It is controlled by the chip of power semiconductors, which will drive the motor through this switch and through a high-current switch. The motor has a precise control of torque and speed. At that time, the world's power semiconductors were made of Infining, and several companies in Japan? How many companies in the United States? China didn't have it at the time. At that time, power semiconductors were mainly used for some industrial products for some power grids, high-speed railways, and power transmission and transformation. So the power semiconductors suitable for the use of electric vehicles, IGBT at that time was not available in China, and there were almost no in the world, so it was used to transform other industrial products. Because, at that time, electric vehicles had not yet risen, and there was basically no industrial chain, all of which were controlled by foreign countries, so foreign countries invested some small ones in China, and this factory was losing money, and they had to sell it. In 08 years, we bought a power semiconductor factory in Ningbo, which we called the motor controller, since the new energy vehicle is the direction of our technical route development. Then the battery should be invested, the motor should be invested, and the electronic control power and semiconductors must also be invested. So, what about the domestic market demand-oriented situation? It is also a batch of upstream and downstream industrial chains, a large number of investment in this power semiconductor, of course, this power semiconductor is more difficult than the motor, because it belongs to the chip. Chip design, process manufacturing, packaging and testing, etc., these processes were serious gaps in China before, of course, there are a number of enterprises and universities combined with industry, education and research, including our capital market investment to form a batch of research and development from materials, chip design, vehicle application modular design and manufacturing, this series of this process, probably in our country from 2018 to 2023, it took five years, and gradually formed in IGBT to form China's own, Now it is probably that there should be dozens of enterprises in China to put this industrial chain, and then it will drive the development of our new energy vehicles. Power semiconductor IGBT is actually from scratch, which can solve the problem of pinching the neck and fill a gap, but the real electric vehicle should give full play to its high power, high speed, fast acceleration, high temperature resistance, and at the same time, reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency, in fact, it is the next generation of power semiconductors we call silicon carbide. In 2020, BYD was the first to use an integrated silicon carbide packaging module, and Tesla used a monocrystalline silicon carbide module, which is not yet an integrated acceleration performance. The acceleration performance can be greatly improved in three seconds, and the high temperature resistance can be resisted to 1200 degrees. Otherwise, if it has a large impact of acceleration performance and uses IGB, it will burn to death and will be broken down. So, this silicon carbide is actually the next generation of power semiconductors, and the luxury model is a must for more high-performance models. Under the leadership of new energy vehicles, our silicon carbide power semiconductors have now gradually formed an industrialization, scale, a batch of this from the material, the entire process manufacturing process, and the business process have been made. So what about this breakthrough in this independent industrial chain? Then the formation of our new energy vehicle industry chain independent and controllable advantage is reflected.

We just talked about the first three electrics, batteries, motors, and electronic control are the three core technologies that constitute new energy vehicles. But how do these three nuclear power components fit together? How to form a whole vehicle? At the earliest, we brought foreign fuel vehicles? Convert oil to electricity on fuel vehicles. Just change the position of the engine of the fuel vehicle to a motor, remove the fuel tank and replace the battery, connect those wires, the engine occupies a large volume before the difference, our motor is very small, right? But what, such a large engine compartment is not needed, but what about us? We didn't get this full utilization, we didn't have the transmission part, we used a wire, from the battery to the motor next to the wheel above the wheel, we didn't have it after the transmission of the gearbox in the past. So what about these? We are also not making full use of the space. This price seriously restricts many of the inherent advantages of electric vehicles, and it has not been brought into play, so the first generation of electric vehicles is like this, so in the process of use, it is found that the first generation has many problems, so to the second generation is actually to give it an exclusive arrangement of the battery, fix the motor, and cancel the engine? The engine compartment has been turned into a trunk, and these batteries have been combined with this frame, so these places that have been saved by these transmission parts have not been very good, and the traditional steering automatic suspension of the car, the body control electronic and electrical architecture, and the driving system, these are all designed for us by the traditional automobile power from the architecture to the theory. We are only learning and tracking in the early stage, and we have not yet formed an in-depth understanding in this, because many of these core components are foreign. So electric vehicles are completely different, and there are no foreign countries, and we can also build according to the advantages of our mastery of the core components of electric vehicles, so we have come to the third generation of this pure electric platform, from 2018 onwards, especially after 2020, various companies have launched this exclusive platform. Then, the changes in the drive system brought about by the electrification of power, then the multi-power source arrangement of the electric drive system will make the design of the vehicle more flexible. Then our motor can be deployed in the back, or in the front, both front and rear. Then the high integration of the motor is really higher drive efficiency, lightweight layout is simpler, so that our vehicle battery is under the body floor, the motor is in front, it will be very flat, the design will be very flexible, and the structure looks simpler and smoother. Even some people call our exclusive electric vehicle platform skateboard chassis, if the new energy vehicle body is removed, its chassis platform, it feels like a skateboard. This is unimaginable in the era of fuel vehicles, coupled with our new electronic and electrical architecture, in the future, automatic assisted driving, intelligence will have a very innate advantage on this basis. Because after electrification, its control accuracy has been improved, its high degree of integration, efficiency has been improved, its electronic and electrical architecture has been improved, and it has been used by many pre-control central controllers, so we will come in, and the software of the car will also undergo great changes, and we will propose to define the car in the future. Gradually realize the decoupling of software and hardware, and put intelligent driving, intelligent vehicle control, scene mode, and networked service into this service model. After we have the software layer, we will have the execution layer, the new architecture of electronic motors, and the platform with high computing power. This platform of our hardware will form the decoupling of software and hardware in the future, and the continuous upgrading will form the direction of our intelligent car. Many connected industries have entered the ecology of new energy vehicles, which was unimaginable for traditional fuel vehicles in the past. So in the process of electrification, it has given birth to this foundation, we have brought the formation of a new ecology, there are so many new industries, into our ecological group, but also into our supply chain system, but also become the mainstream participants of our new energy vehicles. What about the new energy vehicle industry? It is necessary to form a new ecology of the whole industrial chain with cross-industry and multi-party participation. In the past, there were automakers who were responsible for designing, parts factories that were responsible for manufacturing parts, and automakers who were responsible for assembly, and everyone sold them. Now, this kind of ecological change, after the intellectualization is actually a multi-subject to participate in your new car, to create together, to create the core products. This is a new level of intelligence.

Our new energy vehicles in this industry. Now, there are some leading positions in the world. And it has also become the new three things for our exports, can we continue to develop steadily and healthily? Can we continue to occupy the commanding heights of our technology and drive collaborative innovation in the upstream and downstream of the industry? In the future, in the competition of intelligent new energy vehicles, we will further consolidate our advantages, drive the high-quality development of our industry, and promote the further improvement of our new quality productivity. I think through four chains:

The first is our technology chain, to further improve the platform for the transformation of our scientific research achievements, this is the combination of scientific research, on this point, we have gone very well in the direction of new energy and development in the early stage. Then it is mainly the support of this plan of combining production, education and research with major national scientific research projects.

What about the talent chain? I think we have a full range of full gradient to cultivate all aspects of talent, this, I think there is still a little lacking, so now, the car from fuel vehicles to electrification, from electrification to intelligence, we are in the process of electrification of electric vehicles, we have formed a team of some talents, then we are now moving towards intelligence, now in the process of intelligence, we now find that there is a serious lack of talents in the software and hardware of intelligence, so now the competition for talents in this area is very fierce.

There is also this industrial chain to break through us. The ratio of this technology ensures the safety and controllability of our industrial chain, and our upstream and downstream industrial chains still need to be improved in synergy. In the coordinated improvement and collaborative innovation of the vehicle and the upstream and downstream industrial chains, we will further learn from the experience of an advantage in the early development of our new energy vehicles, and continue to adhere to this aspect in the direction of our next step of intelligence.

Then there is also a capital chain, and we use our combination of technology and finance to promote our innovation and promote the formation of our industrial chain. I think that with this four-chain integration, we will accelerate the formation of a new qualitative productivity of the new energy automobile industry and promote the value of the industry. On the one hand, we will continue to innovate and develop, carry forward our advantages in the first half and continue to carry forward our intelligent electric vehicles.