Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

A nationwide blockade of the vast majority of public transport, coupled with many stories of long-distance attacks and calls for help from other places, must have made many people begin to think about the importance of buying private cars.

Just at this time, the public opinion on electric cars began to rise again.

Not long ago, "Silicon Valley Iron Man" Musk issued another "warning" in an interview, thinking that the residual value of gasoline cars will plummet in the next few years.

There are also many car commentators have encouraged Volkswagen to sell while gasoline cars can still sell at a good price. Guazi really wants to applaud, and Youxin will cry.

In fact, this kind of news about the wave of electric cars will come out from time to time to brush a wave of eyeballs, this time excited by the situation of emergency cars, it is as if the market is about to be ignited. But when I think about it, there are always a few "bonus buff" of electric cars back and forth. Today, it is time to poke out the truth and lies behind it.

One of the lie buff of electric cars: performance

At the beginning of the industry, the primary bug of electric cars to persuade consumers to quit was the comminuted fracture of battery life.

This has not only led to a mess in which low-end brands piled up to cheat subsidies, but also curbed the popularity of electric vehicles. However, in the PR drafts of many electric car companies in the past two years, it is not difficult to see words such as "range promotion" and "charging protection" that have re-attracted the attention of consumers.

But has mileage anxiety (range anxiety) really been alleviated?

At present, the answer is still no.

On the one hand, the battery that determines the battery life occupies most of the cost of the pure electric vehicle. With the current battery technology, the most simple and direct way is to increase the battery capacity, which means that the mileage improvement is also accompanied by the increase in cost.

For example, the main model of Tesla

Model S (parameters | Pictures) can travel 265 miles on a single charge, which does meet daily commuting needs, but gasoline cars are already in the luxury gear compared to the price.

As a result, Tesla sold 50, 000 cars last year, which is only equivalent to Ford's output in a week, and even Musk said he plans to build a super factory in each state to boost the growth of electric vehicle capacity and rely on economies of scale to improve performance-to-price ratio.

In addition to battery technology, performance improvement also requires innovation on many technical details of the vehicle. For example, optimize the thermal management system, improve the PTC, electric compressors, etc., in order to reduce the energy occupied by the comfort system, which also means a lot of research and development costs.

A previous survey by UBS showed that in price-sensitive markets such as china, 50 per cent of users said they would consider electric cars only if they were more than 20 per cent cheaper than fuel cars. This inevitably falls into a three-lose situation of "it is difficult for car companies to cut costs, the government spends money on subsidies, and customers pay for the low end."

The improvement of the whole machine is not overnight, so how about relying on external security? At present, Tesla and Weilai have all invested in the construction of security systems such as urban charging piles and high-speed power stations. However, there are still many problems, such as difficult facility maintenance and high depletion costs, and it is not uncommon for Tesla owners to complain about insufficient supercharging stations even in the United States, which has the world's largest supercharging network.

Thus it can be seen that the actual experience of electric vehicles is difficult to meet the emergency needs of families.

The lie of electric cars buff II: environmental protection

Since the real experience of electric cars can not meet the needs of "free driving", why can it be so meticulous so far?

Policy support, such as making it easier to get an account, is clearly one of the core supports. And make the country make such a strong endorsement, obviously with the "environmental protection" value of electric vehicles are inseparable.

With the general trend of clean and renewable energy replacing fossil fuels, governments do not hesitate to adhere to the "electrification" route as the best way to save the earth's environment.

But are electric cars really environmentally friendly?

We know that electric vehicles with larger battery capacity will lead to greater phase-out and recycling of lithium batteries. at the same time, rare earth mining during production and coal-fired power generation relied on during charging have all brought potential crises to the environment. it has also become the "dark side of the moon" for the environmental protection of electric vehicles.

More importantly, even car companies like Tesla have not given a reasonable solution to this, but continue to promote the transformation of car companies through various marketing means and government public relations, so that consumers are "forced" to choose electric cars.

As Singapore's Minister of Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said, electric cars are a lifestyle promoted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and are not an effective solution to climate and environmental problems. Singapore is not interested in the topic of lifestyle.

The choice of this "garden country" does not satirize the distance between the ideal and reality of environmental protection of electric vehicles.

More crucially, even if the reduction in emissions protects the environment to some extent, it is less protective of habeas corpus than traditional car companies.

From the average claim cost data of last year, the American Automobile Association (AAA) found that Tesla's car model has a higher claim frequency and a high claim amount, which is directly related to the frequent safety accidents caused by its technical restrictions.

That's why German giants such as BMW, Volkswagen and Daimler all announced that they would focus on electric vehicles in 2019. As a result, after mass "suicides" of spontaneous combustion of electric cars, they also began to change direction and focus on other environmentally friendly fuels. For example, foreign media reported that BMW will enter the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle market.

It is difficult to come to a definite conclusion whether electric cars are environmental protection programs or capital games, but there is no doubt that consumers have to start to "pay for their feelings".

The third lie of electric car buff: autopilot

The rise of the electric car industry has spawned a lot of "door savages" who have an impact on traditional car companies, and what they have in common is bound to appear four big characters-self-driving.

Not only do many artificial intelligence technology companies, such as Google, Baidu and Amazon, build self-driving cars that are electric; many traditional car companies are also buying AI startups in order to keep up with the smart technology trend.

Among them, there are inherent geographical advantages of technology, such as the power system of electric vehicles is simpler than that of fuel vehicles, so it is more convenient for electronic system modules to control the actions of cars; it can not be ignored that the media and start-ups are better at guiding public opinion, so that self-driving systems and electric cars are hyped into a pair of natural cp, turning intelligence into the exclusive advantage of electric vehicles.

In fact, it is not the emergence of electric cars that activates self-driving technology, but self-driving that magnifies the capabilities of electric vehicles themselves.

Still, we can find the bottleneck of electric cars under the dome of AI technology.

On the one hand, limited to the requirements of the current laws and regulations of various countries, the real self-driving technology can not be fully put on the market, more or appear in the closed road test or test site. Even Google, the pioneer of self-driving cars, has had hundreds of accidents involving a variety of components, including incorrect sensor readings and problems with steering or braking systems.

As a result, Tang Shikai, chairman and CEO of Daimler China (Parameter | Picture) Investment Co., Ltd., even believes that driverless cars will still face the practical problem of not being commercialized in the next 30 years.

In addition to the limitations and maturity of technology, electric vehicles will also face cost problems in terms of self-driving.

The cost of chips for traditional cars is about $350. the cost of bicycle chips for pure electric vehicles is $1000, while the price of Tesla's on-board AI processor Drive PX 2 is $2500. This means that without the addition of smart modules, the driving advantage of electric vehicles will no longer exist, while with the increase of intelligent technology, electric vehicles will suffer a direct blow to cost and sales.

So BI predicts that only 10 million self-driving cars will be sold in 2020, and the size of the market for electric cars is self-evident.

Overall, the challenges and uncertainties about electric cars remain, and although practitioners give themselves a dazzling gain buff from time to time, the feast can hardly begin. If you want to go through customs, you'd better clean up the little geek in your own map.

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