"Making the fuel tank bigger is the routine, and making the battery small is the technology."
"In terms of building engines, Toyota's profound skills will still come in handy in the new energy era."
"GAC Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid is stronger than plug-in hybrid."
Seeing the speech of Peng Baolin, deputy general manager of GAC Toyota, at the GAC Toyota Technology Open Day, perhaps your first feeling is that under the fierce market competition and involution, even Toyota "can't hold back" and begins to lift the table.
This may not be Toyota's past communication habits, but it is not the "urgency" that some people say.
Outside the venue, GAC Toyota used detailed data parameters to compare the hybrid technologies of various brands, and also used a large number of figures to show the value of GAC Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid dual engine.
In fact, compared with the "fight and kill" that the people like to see, GAC Toyota hopes to use data and facts to correct the market's perception of HEV hybrid, and use reason to tell users the value of HEV hybrid in this era, as well as the significance of the existence of traditional car companies such as Toyota.
Revisiting the optimal solution for hybrid vehicles
It is true that "technology is king" in car manufacturing, but all technology is ultimately to serve user value. And the "involution" of hybrid in the market today, in fact, it is difficult to say whether it is for marketing gimmicks or user experience.
Of course, you may say that longer battery life means less trips to gas stations or charging stations for users; At the same price, whoever gives more batteries and the larger the fuel tank, the more "kind".
But is this the "optimal solution"?
From the user's point of view, lower life-cycle costs, higher reliability and safety are what they need.
And larger batteries mean cost, weight, more safety risks and measures to eliminate them; Larger tanks likewise mean increased cost and footprint.
Just like BEVs, they don't simply pile up batteries to increase range, because the weight of more batteries will gradually offset the increased range brought about by increasing the battery.
As a commodity, the car essentially determines that it must find an optimal balance between cost, function and efficiency.
Although we can't ignore the longer pure electric range, purchase tax exemption and new energy license plate policy tilt of PHEV plug-in hybrid models, it does mean lower costs and better experience for users who own home charging piles and most of the car use scenarios in urban areas.
But for users who don't have a home charging pile, is PHEV plug-in hybrid still the best choice?
Hybrid vehicles, including EREV range extender and PHEV plug-in hybrid, are more based on the logic of "electricity" to design the entire hybrid system, which also means that in the case of power battery loss, its use experience will decline significantly, and even power will be limited in some extreme scenarios.
The GAC Toyota intelligent electric hybrid dual engine gets rid of the dependence on large batteries, large motors and large fuel tanks, and at the same time, it also solves the problems of power delay and high fuel consumption under high-speed working conditions from the working principle, so as to obtain an "extremely balanced" use experience.
If we put HEVs and PHEVs on a coordinate axis from gasoline vehicles to pure electric vehicles from the perspective of user experience, HEVs will be closer to fuel vehicles, and PHEVs will be closer to electric vehicles.
Of course, PHEVs can get longer all-electric driving range, but you may also have to worry about the change in battery life in different seasons, the safety of the battery after multiple fast charges, or even download a full screen app just to find the best charging time, or endure the crowded and dirty environment of public charging stations.
The HEV allows users to drive this car as a fuel vehicle without thinking about when to charge, because the intelligent electric hybrid dual engine system that has evolved after 5 generations can already handle the working logic of the system very exquisitely; There is no need to worry about battery safety and system reliability, the battery management strategy of 1.12 degree small battery and shallow charging and discharging greatly improves battery safety.
So far, 26 million Toyota hybrid vehicles in the world have a record of "0 fires, 0 explosions and 0 leaks", and there is also a record of 1.5 million kilometers of taxi travel without failure of the hybrid system.
In addition, the lighter power system also makes the space layout of the vehicle more flexible and the vehicle weight lower, which not only brings better energy consumption, but also reduces the load on tires, brakes and chassis, so as to achieve a better experience at a lower cost, and ultimately reduce the cost of car ownership for users.
The underlying logic of GAC Toyota's intelligent electric hybrid dual engine is "efficiency", which not only refers to the energy consumption performance of the power system itself, but also refers to the ultimate efficiency of the entire system in terms of cost, structural principle, reliability and final experience.
This is not the so-called "cutting corners", look at the many OEMs struggling in the involution today, which one does not choose to continuously optimize for lower costs? GAC Toyota, on the other hand, relies on Toyota's 26 million hybrid family through the intelligent electric hybrid dual-engine system to optimize the efficiency problem from the root.
Recently, authoritative media compared Toyota Hybrid with BYD's fifth-generation DM-i, and the results showed that Toyota Hybrid, which does not need to be charged and has a fuel tank volume 22L smaller, has a cruising range of more than 1300km, which is only 500km less than BYD's full fuel and full battery.
Of course, this may mean that BYD owners can go to the gas station one less time, but this is certainly not a cross-generational gap. Especially for users who do not have a home charging pile, instead of worrying about whether to charge, it is better to drive a "new energy vehicle" with peace of mind that is as worry-free as a fuel car.
In addition to hybrid, GAC Toyota's "rear hand"
At this point, you may say, "I admit that Toyota hybrids are great, but what else does Toyota have besides hybrids?" ”
At this GAC Toyota Technology Open Day, the first half of the time belongs to GAC Toyota, while the second half of the time belongs to Huawei, Tencent, Momenta and Pony.ai.
Under the technical cooperation between these local Chinese technology companies and autonomous driving companies, GAC Toyota's catch-up in the field of intelligence is rapidly approaching. With the continuous deepening of the localized R&D system, GAC Toyota plans to achieve a comprehensive leading joint venture by 2025 and keep up with the new forces; The goal is to be among the first echelon of the industry from 2026 to 2027.
The cooperation between Toyota and Momenta in the field of high-end intelligent driving has also made more concrete progress.
GAC Toyota's upcoming Bozhi 3X model will be the first to use the end-to-end high-end intelligent driving jointly created with Momenta, with NVIDIA's 254TOPS computing platform, 11 ultra-high-precision cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars and 1 lidar (126 lines) in the whole car.
This intelligent driving system will provide a full-scene high-end intelligent driving experience covering parking, highways, and urban NOA, realizing that "you can drive when there is a road, avoid obstacles, and stop when you have a position".
In terms of intelligent cockpits, GAC Toyota has upgraded its global models with intelligent cockpits that meet the needs and experience of Chinese users through the empowerment of top technology manufacturers such as Huawei and Tencent. This year, GAC Toyota's three flagship models, the 9th-generation Camry, the 2024 Seina and the Highlander, all use Huawei's HMS for Car in-vehicle solution to create human-vehicle-home full-scene interconnection, integrating Huawei's AI voice assistant, HarmonyOS intelligent connected car-home interconnection ecology and sports health capabilities, and integrating rich Tencent ecological services.
In the future, GAC Toyota and Huawei's more comprehensive intelligent cockpit products will be installed in the C-class pure electric car to be launched in 2025.
Looking to the further future, GAC Toyota and Pony.ai will continue to expand the scale of commercial operation of L4 driverless taxis, and gradually promote the large-scale mass production of high-level autonomous driving technology.
At present, the Saina unmanned Robotaxi equipped with Pony.ai's autonomous driving system has been running continuously for 1 year with zero accidents, and the joint venture company jointly funded by Toyota China, GAC Toyota and Pony.ai has also been officially established, and the first phase plans to launch 1,000 units of the Bozhi series L4 Robotaxi in first-tier cities to carry out large-scale operation.
Joint venture, stick to it in the chaos
In addition to the venue of the press conference, GAC Toyota also set up a display board of the same length as hybrid, intelligent cockpit, and autonomous driving technology, focusing on quality and quality.
For example, GAC Toyota's plant, which pursues a "zero defect rate", not only has a stamping workshop, a welding workshop and a painting workshop with an automation rate of 100%, but also an assembly workshop that leads the industry by 10 percentage points and has a one-time pass rate of 99.2%.
What's more, compared with the first-class robots and stamping machines that can be bought with money, Toyota's management system brought about by years of manufacturing experience is difficult for other new brands to copy.
The staff of GAC Toyota introduced a set of "change point management" system to us, in fact, it seems that the assembly line production plant is not stable and immutable, people, machines, things, (method) methods and environment are constantly changing, which requires a complete set of processes to verify the impact of these changes on production quality, and this requires the accumulation of experience.
Another example is Toyota's setting of supplier quality standards, if it is too high, it may cause cost waste or even supplier fraud; If it is too low, the quality requirements cannot be met. For enterprises that lack production experience, "copying ready-made" is a shortcut, but it is not necessarily suitable for themselves. The standard setting of GAC Toyota will be more balanced and scientific, not necessarily the best, but it must be the most applicable.
Although the competitive logic and technological development of the automotive industry are undergoing tremendous changes, the experience accumulated by the joint venture for many years still has great value, especially in the current "involution" environment, the joint venture needs to find its own advantages and value on the one hand, just like those mentioned at the GAC Toyota Technology Open Day; On the other hand, it is also necessary to stick to those "difficult but right" things and win the future with long-termism in the competition.
Of course, this also needs to be kept up with the times.
For example, GAC Toyota's new generation of plug-in hybrid technology is coming, and models equipped with plug-in hybrid technology that can be charged quickly will be launched in China in October, with a WLTC pure electric range of up to 90 kilometers and a comprehensive range of more than 1,200 kilometers.
In addition, in terms of battery technology, GAC Toyota also has a variety of types in reserve, and will continue to produce and install vehicles in the next few years.
This is the first time that GAC Toyota has held a science and technology open day since its establishment 20 years ago, and it is also the first time that the outside world can fully see GAC Toyota's experience accumulation and technical reserves. Compared with the past "lying to win", joint venture brands are also changing their thinking and speaking out more actively.
After all, the competition of diversified market technology is essentially to provide users with richer and more valuable products, rather than the involution and marketing voice of "life and death". And don't let the voice overshadow the product itself, which is the right track that the industry should return to.