LeTV, the future car, Tesla pure electric car, the battery is the key

At the bustling auto show, every car manufacturer is willing to show the best side to potential buyers. Seeing this scene, you will not think that this is an industry that has been in existence for a hundred years. The car practitioners in it, especially the emerging car startups in the past two years, are full of confidence in such a scene.

LeTV & Faraday Future

At the press conference, LeTV's co-founder Ding Lei showed the highlights of this concept car: autopilot, smart internet, dynamic seat... users can watch LeTV's content through four screens in the car, including sports, movies, TV series Live concerts, etc. Aston Martin, one of LeEco's key strategic partners, also exhibited the second-generation LeTV's Rapide S on the LeTV booth.

Another partner, Faraday Future (hereinafter referred to as FF), senior research and development and engineering vice president Nick Sampson, global design leader Richard Kim, chief representative in China Jason Wallace, global manufacturing vice president Dag Reckhorn and other core team members came to the conference An important development was announced on the spot – FF has been conducting Mule Car testing for nearly a year and will enter the fourth round of road testing in the near future.

The atmosphere of these two conferences was lively. The elements related to LeTV not only appeared on these two booths, but also appeared in the public display screen of the exhibition hall and other corners: Ding Lei’s speech at the press conference and the printing of FF were everywhere. Advertising poster. I have to admit that LeTV is undoubtedly the most powerful of all the car-making teams: it is big enough to attract attention.

An official unconfirmed news is that LeTV has raised more than $1 billion in the Pre A round of financing. In addition to easy access, LeTV has already invested about $400 million in the car. At present, the team is developing five models. LeSee, which was unveiled at the auto show, was developed by the domestic team and is ready to be sold in China. Later, SUVs and other models will be launched.

Future car

Compared to the high-profile and eye-catching of the former two, another stand in the W3 pavilion is much more subtle: only one roadster is parked on the rotating table. Passers-by will come and ask a few words: What brand is this? What price? Which joint venture car company does it? How many battery life... Li Yanwei, director of the Great Wall Huaguan project team, stood on the side of the booth and patiently answered the same questions they had thrown. In fact, this actually reflects a dilemma of domestic brands.

In fact, this roadster was designed and manufactured by the future car of Great Wall Huaguan Subsidiary. The Great Wall Huaguan was originally an automobile design company. It is one of the few transformational electric vehicles in the current car-making team. In the past ten years, this design company has provided “full process” vehicle development services for many domestic car companies: participated in product positioning, concept planning, car modeling, engineering design, performance integration, trial production, supplier management, platform Development, production and other services. In the process of cooperation with car companies, Great Wall Huaguan has accumulated a large number of industry resources.

The opportunity to decide to transform them is the decentralization of electric vehicle production qualifications by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2012. Despite this, the concept car has been working for nearly five years from the concept car to the quasi-production model. This can also be seen as a microcosm of all car startup teams building cars. In November last year, the prototype K50 engineering prototype successfully completed the 30,000-km durability test and C-NCAP crash test; at the beginning of this year, it signed a contract with Bosch, E-Chi and other global top automotive technology suppliers to become strategic partners; and its subsidiaries The Walter Electric Age offers battery and battery management solutions. Compared with most of the car-making teams, Great Wall Huaguan has invested heavily: it invested 2 billion yuan to build its own factory in Suzhou. If the application for relevant production qualifications goes smoothly, the factory will be completed on schedule. At the end of this year, its production line will enter the trial operation stage. It is expected that the production car will be officially launched in the second half of 2017, but the current price has not yet been determined.

Tesla

More low-profile than the future car is the benchmark for electric cars - Tesla. In addition to the Model X show in Asia on April 23, Tesla invited a group of car owners and a small number of media to participate in the test drive at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. The company did not hold a press conference at the auto show. At the E4 venue, Tesla's booth is almost half the size of the booth. But the people who came to the Tesla booth were still in a constant stream.

During this period, Lei Feng Net reporter met two Korean media friends from Motor Trend. Unexpectedly, they will also care about whether BAT has a lot of money in building a car, China's investment in the electric car market, and the Faraday Future concept car that has been fascinated by CES from the US to the Beijing Auto Show. One of the friends even showed us a photo of him and Ding Lei.

Listening to their description, in South Korea, people are not strongly willing to buy electric cars, and the electric cars sold in South Korea are compact and not comfortable enough. The reason why they are far away from electric vehicles is that the charging infrastructure is imperfect and the cruising range is small. On the other hand, unlike China, the government has not guided and encouraged this. Local car companies such as Hyundai have not launched plans for pure electric vehicles.

It can be said that South Korea also encountered the stage that China experienced two or three years ago: no car company took the lead in educating this emerging market, and electric vehicles were basically untouched. In the exchange, Lei Feng.com received a message: Tesla will open an office and experience store in South Korea next year or the following year. It is foreseeable that Tesla will also assume the task of the education market, similar to the problems encountered in China two years ago.

Other car factories

Undoubtedly, new energy vehicles are the development direction of the future car. But in the face of a variety of new energy vehicle technology: pure electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, hydrogen-powered cars ... car manufacturers have their own choices. In China, the government has clearly focused on developing pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Judging from the 147 new energy vehicles exhibited at this year's Beijing Auto Show, hybrid vehicles are still the main force of promotion. This is because it is difficult for pure electric vehicles to pick up consumers' desire to buy compared to fuel vehicles.

In order to promote new energy vehicles, some manufacturers have established new energy sub-brands. The joint venture brand of BYD and Daimler is an example. Regarding the mileage of electric vehicles and the way of travel, Tengshi announced on the first day of the auto show that it will cooperate with Daimler's Mercedes-Benz brand to provide Mercedes-Benz service for owners with long-distance travel needs. Tengshi owners will be able to rent a Mercedes-Benz C-Class at a 50% discount to meet occasional long-distance travel needs. In order to promote the sales of electric vehicles, this has become a way to attract users to buy cars. The BMW i-Series, a new energy sub-brand launched by BMW last year, has released the pure electric BMW i3 and the plug-in hybrid i8. These two products are still in this year's booth; the BYD Pavilion is linked to the “new energy leader”. The logo is very eye-catching. The models displayed include BYD's "Dynasty Series", Qin Tang, Song and Yuan hybrid vehicles, etc. Volkswagen will shift its focus to the development of hybrid vehicles in the next decade. It is expected to be all models in 2018. They are all equipped with hybrids; in Honda and Audi's pavilions, they show more about their engine technology.

At the Volvo Arena, a Volvo engineer said that Volvo has already reserved the technology for pure electric vehicles. The reason why the pure electric vehicle was not introduced is because the hybrid vehicle at this stage is the best solution for the transition to the fuel vehicle. Accepted by the mass consumer.

LMC (LMC-AutomoTIve), a car consultancy, predicted four years ago that by 2020, more than 98% of vehicles will still use some form of internal combustion engine. Of the new cars sold in 2020, about 72% of the new cars will use only gasoline, which is only a small drop compared to the present. Under this data, fuel vehicles are still the choice of most people, and the driving force of automakers can be imagined. The solution to this dilemma: Unless battery technology is more breakthrough and charging is more convenient, the market share of pure electric vehicles that are mainly promoted by startups including Tesla and other manufacturers is only 1%. However, according to the current development of the product, it is at least two years to wait for the mass production of these car startups.