Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Have you noticed that the word "integration" has been mentioned in many recent leading automotive technology news.

For example, a few days ago, Naha Automobile released a high-efficiency three-in-one add-on, which has the advantages of small size, high cost, high efficiency and good static performance. Tesla's integrated rear frame design also has a "domino effect". For example, this year, Lulai ES7 has begun to apply the new integrated die-casting technology. Xiaopeng Automobile said that in the future, a new integrated die-casting process workshop will be established in the Wuhan factory, and super-large die-casting islands and automatic production lines will be introduced at the same time.

But at the same time, throughout the development of automobile history, many parts are gradually split into multiple sub-components from a whole. For example, the popular concept of "skateboard chassis + detachable body" in recent years aims to change the traditional car body model and give everyone a more brand-new car experience.

It is difficult to decide whether the car should be disassembled or integrated.

"turning parts into whole" will be a major trend in the industry. the technical term "integration" is "integration", which aims to turn many scattered parts into a whole.

We have already met it in our lives. The new era of housing and furniture is taking an integrated route, which can bring us lower costs, less time to build and more space to use.

For example, modular housing is already on the rise. It is to disassemble the house according to the functional module, first complete the processing in the factory, and then transport it to the site for assembly. Houses that can only be completed in the past few months have been reduced to a few days in the blink of an eye.

The same is true of cars. Even the extremely large and complex parts of cars, body-in-white, Tesla is also trying to find ways to integrate them. The earliest model to adopt integrated die-casting technology is Tesla's Model Y, whose rear frame should be spliced by more than 70 parts by welding, but with the 6000-ton Yidra Giga Press die-casting machine, the rear frame is directly integrated into a super-large part, and the manufacturing process and time are greatly shortened.

The welding workshop of the mainstream automobile factory needs 200,300 workers, while the integrated die-casting workshop only needs 20-30 workers. Tesla officially said that the integrated die-casting technology will save Model Y about 20% in manufacturing costs. Now the latest battery pack system is also considering using CTP (Cell To PACK), which integrates the battery directly into the battery package, thus eliminating the intermediate module structure, simplifying the battery package structure and improving space utilization. Mobile phone products are a similar trend, and now they are basically battery body integration, which can make the battery and motherboard fit better.

Tesla's CTC plan is similar, except that it uses the body floor as the top cover of the battery pack. Under this operation, the MIT version of 4680 CTC Model Y battery pack (80kWh) + center console + seat + carpet total weight only 544kg, to know a well-known traditional luxury pure electric SUV, the single 80kWh battery pack weight reached 650kg.

In short, whether in the automobile industry or the construction industry, integrated design can simplify the assembly process, improve the qualified rate of products, and achieve the purpose of lightweight and cost saving.

In cars, integration can also play a special role in special parts. The integrated design of the electric drive system can lighten the weight of the drive system and improve the space utilization. The integrated drive assembly and high voltage assembly of BYD reduce the weight of 40kg and save the space of a large capacity suitcase (37L) than the distributed structure of e platform.

Moreover, the drive motor and the inverter are integrated, and the inverter is arranged next to the drive motor, so that the wire harness connecting the motor and the inverter can be shortened or replaced, and the power consumption caused by heating can be reduced and the details can be properly controlled.

"break up into parts" and de-integration can also be done. Since there are many advantages of "breaking parts into parts", why do they still have to do so? This is because human beings do not pursue the highest efficiency as the only goal, but also consider the actual needs. Integration and de-integration are like the yin and yang of Taiji gossip, and it is good to form a balance.

(1) although there are many advantages of de-integration and risk reduction, it is like putting eggs in one basket, taking higher risks and taking higher risks.

For example, the premium of new energy models with integrated aluminum alloy body in the industry will be higher. At the same time, the risk of failure caused by centralization will be higher, just as today's smartphones are much more difficult to repair.

There are also some voices in the auto industry about breaking it up. In the past two years, we are certainly no stranger to the chip industry. The computing power of the chip is like the horsepower of a car. It is the key to determine the performance and intelligence of a car.

The vehicle gauge-level chip has high requirements for its working environment, quality, reliability and consistency. In particular, there are high requirements for anti-interference performance, including anti-ESD static electricity, EFT group pulse, RS conducted radiation, EMC, EMI and so on. There are also higher requirements for the external working environment in which chips and components can work normally, such as working temperature, humidity, mildew, dust, saline-alkali natural environment, EMC, harmful gas erosion, high and low temperature alternation, vibration wind shock and high-speed movement.

The transformation of automotive architecture from distributed to domain control to centralized architecture will concentrate the computing power of hundreds of chips in a few chips. This is like a basket that bears all the eggs alone, to pay more attention to safety protection, corresponding to the car, is to require a higher level of functional safety of the chip.

The degree of integration of the chip is getting higher and higher, and the computing power is getting larger and larger, which is the basis for the development of intelligent vehicles to a centralized architecture. Predictions show that automobile main control chips are very hot in the next few years, in which high-performance control chips and SoC will become the main market growth points. However, under the current chip production crisis, the mass production pressure of high-performance chips is also very great. For example, the lack of chip production capacity in the mobile phone industry last year affected the supply to Samsung. Although for profit, Qualcomm proposed to give priority to high-end SoC production, but can only grab the share of large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises can only wait.

The advantages of the central centralized architecture in the future, at present, the two have not opened a significant gap in the user experience, so under these comprehensive factors, many manufacturers are hesitant to switch the architecture.

(2) de-integration to improve comfort and practicality compared with the models of the last century, the change of front seats is the most obvious.

In the early days, the front-row connected sofa seats were used, but now they are mostly freestanding seats. Independent seats are more enveloping, more supportive, and even safer. We must have had this feeling, taking a long-distance ride is more likely to take the copilot, and the back seat is not covered and supported enough, so it is easy to get tired.

It is similar to the modern sofa, L-style sofa was very popular 10 years ago, but now more and more families feel that chicken ribs are not as comfortable and practical as vertical sofas and independent sofas.

In addition to seats, there is now a bolder idea that split self-driving cars are considered a promising model. Mercedes-Benz Vision Urbanetic concept car, using a split self-driving car design. It has a separate "skateboard chassis" and can be equipped with two different body modules according to different settings.

(3) the advantage of the split style has become a new aesthetic trend, the advantage of the all-in-one lamp group is that the shape is simple and generous, at that time, the big mouth intake grille is not street car, the proportion of all parts of the front face is reasonable, this outfit is full of a standard figure of a gentleman in a suit. However, after the new energy vehicle lacks the intake grille, the whole front face looks very plain.

The split headlamp is like putting more pen and ink on a "drawing board", which will enrich the front face. From an aesthetic point of view, split headlamp design is becoming popular for new energy vehicles. This is the case with Weilai ET7. The whole front face is a collection of aesthetic and functional requirements. The front face split headlamp, the upper part is the flat daily running lamp, the lower part is the headlamp group. In the closed middle net, the intake grille is very small, so the wind resistance can be reduced.

The typical arrangement pattern of the split headlight group is: turn signal (on the external rearview mirror) + daytime driving lights (close to the upper edge of the intake grille) + integrated light (middle of the front bumper) + fog lights (lower part of the front bumper or not necessarily) the ideal L9 also uses a split headlight group. The ideal ONE already has the sign of separating the daytime driving lights from the headlights, to the L9, the distance between the two is completely pulled apart, the through LED daytime driving lights are retained, and the other lights are moved to the middle of the front face.

To sum up, the result of the zero-sum game is that one side gains and the other loses, and the gain of one side is the loss of the other. The integration and de-integration of cars is really like a "zero-sum game".

Of course, people prefer a "win-win" situation, but for car companies, cars are too complex, such a large and high-tech products, in order to meet different needs, we have to make a choice. Fortunately, from the consumer's point of view, the existence of integration and de-integration is a "win-win", which combines cost, efficiency, time, performance, experience and aesthetic needs. It can be predicted that these two features will exist in the car at the same time until the car evolves to the most perfect version.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly), article: No. 7-Song

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