Subvert the old thinking of electric vehicles put forward three battery solutions

Concerns about the chaos and stagnation of the current development of electric vehicles in China and the resulting negative remarks on it, Professor of the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Doctoral supervisor, Assistant to the president of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Dean of Automotive Engineering Research Institute, Xu Min Worried.

In the summer of 2011, when he was interviewed by “Automotive Business Review” in Shanghai, he used his new thinking to refute the misunderstanding of electric vehicles in the outside world.

As an expert in the field of engine combustion and long-term commitment to automotive R&D, he proposed the cutting-edge modular design concept and business model of electric vehicles, providing innovative ideas for the future development of the electric vehicle industry and predicting electric vehicles. The constant innovation of technology will bring about a complete revolution in the automotive industry.

Structural changes and new modes of operation of the car body

"Automotive Business Review": From the electric cars we see now, these cars do not seem to have much difference with the traditional cars, and our future electric car design will continue the traditional car design and manufacturing ideas?

Xu Min: My idea is revolutionary. The traditional four major automotive processes, stamping, welding, painting, assembly, the highest cost of the first three, the final assembly is mainly done manually. The first three processes are all related to the white body of the car. The actual electric car does not necessarily need a white body. The frame structure can be used. The traditional white car has no advantage.

The traditional white body welding process is fixed and cannot be flexibly changed. Several hundred stamping parts are welded together and soldered seamlessly. Once welded, your model is difficult to change, only three. A small change in the year, a big change in five years. Such a car body does not have any softness and variable degree at all. The car weighs more than 1 ton. When you drive one person, you have to carry a heavy body, which is very energy-consuming.

Without white body, how to ensure safety?

Does the body in white is the only safety guarantee? No. Isn't it safe to have a F1 car without a white body? With such fast speeds and general collisions, there will be no major casualties for race drivers. This is because the F1 cars are all frame structures. Do you know extruded aluminum bars? The thing is light, rigid and perfectly rectangular. It can be assembled by hand using standard connectors. The kind of frame structure is much stronger than the body-in-white.

There is no body in white, but it has a body, but it is not safe. It's like a dress, it's a cover. You put the lid inside and it's all shelves. This kind of shelf is actually light and simple. The body of a high-end sports car is all carbon fiber. Why? In this way, you can make a variety of beautiful appearances. Are you unsafe? It's safer than the average car because there's a frame inside!

And if the road is full of electric cars, it can be absolutely impossible to achieve collision between cars. You said that fish in the sea will never be encountered. They are constantly communicating with each other! Nowadays, all kinds of advanced sensors and controllers are technically completely capable of achieving collisions. But why not? Because the sensors are too expensive, the automotive electronics devices and systems are too expensive!

The ordinary people used these things at ordinary times are very cheap, and it is expensive to use the car. If the cost of vehicle sensors reaches the current cost of household appliances, all vehicles can realize low-cost installations such as radar, laser detection, and car networking. Then sensors communicate with each other with cars, cars, or objects. No collision will occur.

In the past, all the people driving the same car, the same number of years, and now people need to personalize; before the traditional car can not be changed, and now the new technology of electric vehicles can start a new train of thought.

This actually subverts the previous concept of automobile manufacturing.

The body design and production of electric vehicles will tend to be modular. The framework of the load-bearing aluminum profiles and the body of lightweight eco-friendly materials can be changed every day just like people's clothes. The shape and quality are the same as those of Apple products. They combine fine arts, machinery, and electronics. Then, all procurement and manufacturing are outsourced. Manufacturing and services are carried out in the same fashion as McDonald's.

Future design ideas for electric vehicles should adopt cheaper, energy-saving, flexible, new materials and modular design concepts. It does not have the concept of a production line, there is no big investment, software and hardware are fully open, application software can be developed on its own, and then the hardware can also be developed on its own and plugged in.

In this way, all industries can join, not the automobile industry, and other industries can enter. The automotive industry is no longer a closed industry with unique closures, and the cost of vehicle construction is greatly reduced. This is a new model of the automobile industry.

Three battery solutions

"Automotive Business Review": However, electric cars are too expensive nowadays.

Subvert the old thinking of electric vehicles

Xu Min: So we need to do the cost of low electric vehicles. The current high cost of electric vehicles is due to the fact that everyone is developing new electric vehicle suppliers while developing electric vehicles. Basically, they are looking for suppliers of electric vehicle parts and components cultivated by the 863 Program. In these five-year plans, these people only invested money and did not make money. They finally had a market, and they definitely tried to make money back. They could not be cheap. .

Moreover, at the beginning, the output will not be large, and one reason that cannot be neglected is that, as I said just now, most of the electric vehicles are now refitted on traditional cars, so heavy bodies, batteries and motors are definitely large, and the cost is Can't fall down.

Where is the low-cost way out for China's electric vehicles? On more than 20 million electric motorcycles each year. Electric motorcycles have motors and batteries, as well as control systems, and the market is fully competitive, and the prices are very cheap. How to improve its technical level, and thus improve its overall supporting capabilities and system, so that the use of electric vehicles is our main way to achieve low cost.

What should be done in addition to the modular structure you just envisaged?

Where is the difficulty in the world now? Batteries must have hundreds of unipolar batteries in groups to supply electric vehicles. Hundreds of batteries are too difficult to manage together. First, the consistency of the quality of the battery itself is demanding; second, the technical level of the group is very demanding, such as requiring cooling technology to follow up in time; and third, the level of systematic management and control is not acceptable. At present, as long as one battery is broken, the entire battery will not work.

We have new battery solutions. We still use battery modules on current electric motorcycles, and dozens of single battery cells have their own control system. Which manufacturers can use it, we put together these modules, and then we use a layer of control system to control them, which is good, let it work. If an individual battery is bad, the electronic control system will not use it.

In this way, adopting hierarchical control and distributed control solves the problem that hundreds of batteries are simultaneously controlled together. In this way, the current market low-cost batteries can be fully utilized, and the total cost is very low.

However, the fundamental problem of the battery is still not solved. For example, frequent battery charge and discharge may reduce the battery life.

The battery should not be used at the outset to directly drive the motor inside the car. This work should be replaced with a super capacitor. The battery principle is a chemical reaction, which can store energy, but the charging and discharging speed is limited by the chemical reaction rate. It is a good electrical storage device, just like the fuel tank is filled with oil, the battery is charged, it is not suitable for frequent rapid charging and discharging.

The operating conditions of automobiles vary greatly and require frequent acceleration and deceleration. Frequent and rapid charge and discharge should be the long term of the supercapacitor. The supercapacitor is a physical reaction, with high charge and discharge speed, high efficiency, and good reliability. It does not require high control systems. If the super capacitor is used as the frequent output input function of the electric energy, then the battery is placed behind the super capacitor for storage or absorption, so that the respective advantages of the super capacitor and the battery are brought into play, and the harsh requirements of the electric vehicle on the battery itself It can be avoided by all super capacitors.

If so, many problems with electric vehicles seem to be solved.

We believe that there is a big problem with batteries, super capacitors, and the fact that their energy density is far less than the gasoline and diesel currently used. The best lithium-ion battery has a power density that is more than ten times worse than gasoline. You have to store energy in the car, either the battery and the super capacitor are too heavy or too expensive, or the mileage is too short to open.

It is necessary to think about such a question: Why must the energy be stored in the car? If energy is not required to be placed in a vehicle, like a tram or EMU, power is taken from the line or from an external facility, and the demand for on-board power will be greatly reduced. This may be the ultimate outlet for electric vehicles.

For example, using wireless charging to solve this problem. The coil is buried under the ground and the car is charged while walking on it, thus solving the problem of high cost of energy storage in the car.

How far is this technology now?

Wireless charging, we can now achieve a distance of about one meter, 95% of the transmission effect, and is very fast, super capacitor is full of a few seconds, a car through this coil, as long as the two coils are closed, - Electricity rushed over. There are several lines and a charging line on the road. People see that their power is gone.

This thing has a much lower investment than the charging station, and it does not take up any extra land. Just lay the line under the driveway. It has a weak sensor, relying on it to achieve full intelligent operation of charging. When you start charging, when you leave, how much electricity you charge, you can use it to control, even where you know it, this is equal to you can also use smart traffic.

Wireless charging system investment is much lower than setting the charging station cost, so this will also become the most ideal way for charging electric vehicles. These are all very easy to implement technologies, but unfortunately everyone is now out in the dead end of traditional thinking.

Motor and engine revolution

"Automotive Business Review": For electric cars, it seems that only the motor is the most mature one?

Xu Min: Many people now think that the electric motors of Chinese electric vehicles are mature. In fact, the electric motors of Chinese industries are very mature, but the car-specific electric motors have not basically begun to do.

Future electric vehicle variable power motors will replace industrial motors. At present, the design of electric vehicle motors is based on the design of industrial motors. Actually, the motors should be the same as the engines. They need to be made highly efficient in the full load range, and they must be made into motors with variable magnetic flux.

The variable motor is like the variable displacement of the engine and can generate the corresponding shaft power as needed to maximize the efficiency of the full operating range. This kind of motor may be asymmetrical design, optimized in the forward direction, just like a conventional automotive powertrain, with 4-8 gears in the forward direction, but only one gear in reverse. The usual industrial motor design is symmetrical and does not optimize in one direction.

What else needs to be improved?

The development of electric vehicles in China has always followed people's buttocks and rarely carried out innovations. There is also an engine. We are now increasing the number of generators and using existing car engines to generate electricity. In fact, when it is really used to generate electricity, the engine should be greatly simplified because you only operate at one point. At this point, the fuel consumption requirements are All can be easily achieved, and the commonly-used automotive engines are designed for high efficiency within the full range of vehicle operating conditions, are very complex and costly.

So we developed a very small engine. The two pistons are horizontally opposed and the vibrations cancel each other out. The power is similar to that of the 1.2-liter three-cylinder, but the volume and weight are two or three times smaller, and the number of parts is much smaller, not to mention the cost. This article related recommended electric vehicle old battery latest offer 48v electric car battery offer Changsheng electric car battery price electric car battery price 48v20a sail electric car battery price electric car battery maintenance skills table bell electric car battery price electric car battery repair device price Fujitec electric car Battery price.