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

Introduction:

On October 12, the ideal Automobile 2023 Global Partnership Conference was successfully held in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. More than 400 partners from all over the world gathered in Changzhou.

Not long ago, the ideal car achieved 500000 deliveries, becoming the first new power car company in China to achieve this result. From the initial bumping into the wall to the present full of friends, the supply chain of ideal car has formed its own strong magnetic field after many iterations and transformation, attracting more and more suppliers to go hand in hand.

Along the way, TA went with us on the "life transport line" of the ideal car. From scratch, from childishness to maturity, in a world where the automobile industry continues to evolve and reshape, we are closely linked to make more Chinese families enjoy top luxury configurations and make made in China synonymous with luxury quality.

01 from obscurity to the leader of the industry (Kong Hui)

"We see it because we believe, not because we believe it. Because we believe, we will try every means to achieve it." Liu Liguo, vice president of electric vehicles, said at the ideal Magic blanket Air suspension ™Technology IP in July this year.

In this sentence, perhaps many start-up entrepreneurs will be particularly sympathetic, believing in the power that makes us dare to face ourselves who are not strong enough, but also dare to challenge the reality that is not good enough.

The cooperation between Conghui Technology and ideal Automobile stems from this force. In October 2018, Zhejiang Conghui was transformed from a technical service company in Changchun. When Kong Hui first contacted the ideal automobile supply chain and introduced air suspension products, he had supplied air suspension systems for other models for two months, but the supply volume was small, so it was difficult to say that he had rich experience in mass production.

This cooperation is a "big bet" for both sides. For ideal cars, there are not many mass-produced models, and we are willing to support the development of local suppliers, giving Konghui a fixed point for two models; for Kong Hui, this means a great deal of investment, but they are optimistic about the hot sales of ideal cars and are more duty-bound.

Suppose that at that time, even if one side only considered the risk, the other side must show 100% certainty before he was willing to cooperate. I am afraid that either Conghui would not have the current sales and market share so soon. or the guarantee capacity of foreign suppliers will seriously affect the sales of L-series models of ideal cars, and consumers may choose other brands because they "can't afford to wait" even if they have the intention to buy L-series.

Soon after Konghui got the L-series air suspension, the ideal automobile supply chain team held a "military writ" signing ceremony at the Konghui site, which read, Konghui promised, "go all out to ensure the development of the ideal air spring without making any excuses." overcome all difficulties and ensure that the goal is achieved on schedule. " The military writ is still on the bookshelf of general manager Guo Chuan's office, with his signature on it.

At the beginning of last year, it was a critical stage of adjustment and locking. Shanghai was already in a semi-closed state of epidemic prevention and control. Huzhou and Shanghai had different epidemic prevention policies, resulting in Kong Hui's personnel having to send a piece to Shanghai and come back to be quarantined for 15 days. In order to ensure that the adjustment will not be delayed, our adjustment staff will eat and live in the workplace, and Kong Hui's engineers will deliver items one after another. At the peak, 10 people will be quarantined and then delivered. Finally, with the joint efforts of everyone, the data locking is completed on schedule, which ensures the SOP node.

The top glue also had the problem of durable car failure. Zhao Liang, the person in charge of the ideal automobile chassis platform, personally led Kong Hui, the training staff and rubber experts to Zhongding to solve the problem, worked out the plan on the spot, trial-produced, and confirmed the performance. Zhao Liang also personally coordinated the supplier, from trial production to trial all the way green light, after a week of sleepless attempt, and finally locked in not only does not affect performance, but also greatly improve the reliability of the technical solution.

To solve the problem-oriented, all people devote themselves to solving the problem in this process, and do everything possible to ensure the quality of parts and the smooth mass production of the model. This incident also deeply touched Kong Hui's team and "has a far-reaching and significant impact on our follow-up implementation and efficiency improvement." Guo Chuan said.

China's automobile industry is moving towards the high end with the automotive technology revolution. With the delivery of a large number of ideal L-series empty suspension models, Konghui Technology has seized the opportunity and its market share has exceeded that of overseas suppliers. From January to August this year, Kong Hui and Baolong (ideal car L-series air suspension supplier) ranked first and third in China's air spring market, respectively, with a total share of 62.8%, according to Gesco's public data. The situation of foreign suppliers "taking the top spot" has been reversed.

02 combination of strong and strong: 1: 1 > 2 (Baolong + Wan'an)

Shanghai Baolong Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in 1997 and listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2017. At the beginning of 2021, ideal Automobile judged that foreign suppliers could not meet the demand of L series models in terms of production capacity, and was determined to break through technical barriers, touch row and actively adopt domestic air spring suppliers. Baolong had experience in mass production project development of passenger car air spring products, which stood out in this process, and the two sides cooperated closely in the development process of more than a year to ensure the timely listing and rapid production of the ideal L8.

The pursuit of the ultimate performance and delivery rhythm of the ideal car poses the greatest challenge to Baolong.

In order to improve the comfort of the air suspension, the driving evaluation team of the ideal car was deeply involved and, together with the Baolong team, adjusted and evaluated the shape of the vibration isolation block and piston section of the air spring in nearly 100 states. and tried more than ten kinds of skin structure and rubber formula combination, and finally achieved a very high comfort effect.

For the delivery rhythm on the market, the requirement of the ideal car is to go public, that is, full production delivery, and there is no production capacity climbing process that is common in the industry. To this end, Baolong and the ideal automobile supply chain team work together to go deep into Tier2 and even Tier4 to check capacity and solve all process bottlenecks affecting capacity ahead of time.

Through technology co-creation, in the ideal L8 model, Baolong is the first supplier of air spring with plastic hot gas welding air chamber in China, and the weight loss of a single air spring exceeds that of 0.5kg. At the same time of weight loss, the structural strength is also strengthened, and the standard of destructive force value of abuse test is raised from foreign 65KN to 100KN, which is more suitable for the needs of electrification and large-scale automobile market in China.

In the end, the ideal L8 delivered 1500 show cars in the first half month of mass production and 10000 users in the second month.

Zhejiang Wanan Science and Technology Co., Ltd. was founded in 1999 and has been committed to the research and development of automobile braking system with profound qualifications and solid business. From the beginning of the establishment of ideal car, Wanan Science and Technology and ideal Automobile have witnessed each other's rapid development with the mind pattern of "Chinese Autobots".

Wanan Technology mainly supplies auto parts-- aluminum subframe-- to ideal cars, which is one of the key components in building a car. It connects the front and rear axles of a car like a bridge. In terms of the development trend of the industry, the lightweight development of new energy vehicles has become the mainstream, while the aluminum subframe directly acts on the lightweight of the whole vehicle, which will bring users a better driving experience.

The supply of aluminum subframe is relatively special, it is not produced by a single supplier, and it needs to be transferred between different suppliers to ensure the integrity of the production line; finally, the yield of aluminum subframe is in the climbing stage, and our demand is too high. it is difficult to achieve the higher rate of quality products we require in a short period of time.

As a strategic supplier that ideal car depends on, Chen Feng, chairman of Wanan Technology, recalled at the ideal Automobile 2023 Global partner Conference that Wanan Technology did everything possible to purchase all kinds of equipment for high quality. With the help of the ideal team, Wanan Technology worked 24 hours a day to install and debug new equipment to ensure the fastest production. In response to the epidemic emergency purchase of all kinds of anti-epidemic materials, more than 2000 employees and the ideal team eat and live in the factory, "shop on the floor, sleep in the workshop" has become the norm.

Brother Jie, head of the ideal automobile chassis supply, recalled that during the period when production was most tight, the ideal automobile manufacturing base and the supply chain supported more than 100 partners and set up a floor shop in the workshop, and the bed picked up was a wooden tray for factory consignment parts. Quilts and other daily necessities are urgently purchased, each person less than 1 meter apart, daily washing will be picked up with a bucket. A color stripe cloth that separates the work area and the rest area is the only bright color in the open workshop, which is also hung with wire and looks shaky, but it also lasted for three days.

This is known as the "800 ping luxury hotel suite".

Although the conditions are difficult, in order to get the new car into the hands of thousands of families in time, no matter how difficult it is, there is no turning back. With the joint efforts of both sides, Wanan Technology has achieved a rapid increase in output from 5000 per month to 10000 per month and 15000 per month, and will reach an annual production capacity of 1 million aluminum subframes and 3 million steel subframes by the end of this year.

Digital miracles are unfolding in these already powerful suppliers. We all work together towards a common goal, grow together, with less game and internal friction, and both sides devote their energies to product innovation, quality improvement, cost control, and ultimately bring more value to users.

03 pursue the extreme and meet new challenges (Wesai + future cool techs)

On April 18 this year, the ideal car "dual-energy strategy" was released, marking that the ideal car has entered the era of intelligent driving represented by the urban NOA.

As Li Xiang said: "electrification and intelligence will bring sustained business growth and greater economies of scale", intelligent driving is highly expected, in today's vigorous "Kaesong" war, the importance of lidar as the "eye" role of smart cars is self-evident.

The cooperation between ideal car and Hesai Technology is no accident. At the Global Partnership Conference of ideal Automobile 2023, Li Yifan, co-founder and CEO of Hosai Technology, recalled that as early as 2020, the intelligent driving research and development team of ideal car was looking for lidar as the core sensor of its next generation intelligent driving system. Hosai's existing prototype product at that time was the best 64-line lidar on the market, and naturally, the teams of the two sides who also pursued the ultimate began to contact and cooperate.

However, 64-line lidar is not enough. after many rounds of discussions, the two sides have reached the same goal: not only to achieve the best performance in the market, but also to ensure that the model remains ahead of the market for two or three years after it is put into production. Therefore, Hesai needs to develop a double wire harness lidar product in a very short time. This means that both sides need to face the rising cost of doubling the wiring harness and the tight verification cycle and other development challenges.

On the basis of joint efforts, Wesai gives full play to the integration technology of transceiver modules accumulated for many years, which significantly improves the performance and achieves cost control while keeping the volume unchanged. In August 2022, the delivery of the ideal L9 officially began, and the forward vehicle gauge class 128line lidar is the Wesai AT128 semi-solid lidar with amazing sensing accuracy.

"Today, AT128 is still the most competitive and only mass-produced 'true 128line' vehicle-mounted semi-solid lidar on the market." Li Yifan said. It is also on the ideal car this "flywheel", in February this year, Shanghai Hesai Technology Co., Ltd. officially landed on NASDAQ, becoming the first unit of Chinese lidar. Also in the first quarter of this year, Wesai Technology released financial results and officially made a profit, with total revenue of 430 million yuan, an increase of 73.0% over the same period last year, a record high.

As Li Yifan said, "We are lucky to be able to train troops on a stronger and faster battlefield." As the 'Chinese table tennis team' in the global lidar field, it can lead the global market with more confidence when going overseas. Our cooperation with ideal cars is not only limited to the innovative research and development of products and technologies, but also to promote the large-scale popularization and application of intelligent driving technology, so that more people can enjoy the convenience and safety brought by intelligent driving. "

There are many unicorns like Hosai Technology, such as FUTURUS (cool techs of the Future), which provides oversized HD HUD hardware to the ideal car, replacing the traditional dashboard and the stunning launch of the ideal L9. "this will definitely be the best designed HUD interface you've ever seen," Li said at the press conference.

The realization process of its mass production is a concrete portrayal of the pursuit of the four words "extreme".

First of all, the high requirements from beginning to end, this HUD experience must fully surpass European and American luxury brands, as Li Xiang said: "you haven't seen what a designed HD HUD (standard) looks like." European and American luxury brands are no longer ceilings, but just passing lines, and we want to do our best.

Therefore, the HUD should be large enough that in order to be transparent and directly in front of the windshield, the HUD must be reflected once on the front windshield of the car, which is an irregular arc similar to a mirror, and the HUD is not large enough, which can easily lead to discomfort for users to use for a long time. FUTURUS practices a lot and innovates algorithms to overcome this industry problem that runs counter to user experience.

The HUD should also be black enough. Black paint is a special anti-reflective coating used to reduce HUD glare. The darker the paint, the better the light absorption effect, the less the external light reflection, the better the user's visual experience. Li Xiang put forward a seemingly unreasonable request in the process of research and development: the paint used by HUD is "not black enough". This reminds FUTURUS founder and CEO Xu Junfeng that soon, FUTURUS found the world's top ink factory to create the "world's darkest" HUD special paint.

The pursuit of the ultimate is reflected in every detail of the cooperation between the two sides, and each iteration of product performance is not only the unremitting pursuit of product performance and quality by both teams, but also brings more high-end car experience for users.

Nowadays, with the steady growth of the sales volume of the ideal car, the "flywheel effect" of the ideal car is gradually formed. The transformation from excellence to excellence has never been achieved overnight. This result stems from the brand mission of the ideal car to create a mobile home and a happy home, and the moment of breakthrough is inseparable from every supplier on this flywheel. Let's challenge the limits of growth and meet new challenges together.

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