Lightweight is an old-fashioned issue in the pure electric vehicle industry, and it frequently appears in people’s field of vision in the form of forward-looking technologies or new technology applications. Although it is not as easy to create “topics” as the development of intelligence, networking and sharing, the attempt of pure electric light weight is still often talked about. BYD’s upcoming e2 is a pure electric vehicle that has successfully reduced its weight to 1250kg. Everyone is curious about this first model with a curb weight comparable to that of a fuel vehicle. How can a pure electric vehicle with a battery life of 400 kilometers do it? So “light”?
But for new things, there will always be people who are prejudiced. Some “keyboard car gods” roughly equate lightweight with simple weight reduction. In other words, lightweight means cutting corners. In their cognition, Is it true that a car with a lighter curb weight is less safe?
Lightweight ≠ simple weight loss
Since the day when pure electric vehicles were born, lightweight has been a problem for generations of R&D engineers scratching their heads. Whether it is the era of fuel vehicles or the coming pure electric era, the benefits of lightweight are beyond words. Better Control, lower energy consumption and higher cruising range, every aspect makes pure electric car companies covet.
The lightweight of automobiles does not mean blindly reducing weight or body thickness, which cannot be simply equated with the concept of “weight reduction”. Automobile lightweight is to achieve the “trinity” goal of weight reduction, structural optimization, and safety performance as much as possible within a limited cost on the basis of improving or improving the overall performance of the automobile.
The functionality of early cars was relatively single, but now smart air conditioners, audio, leather seats with heating and ventilation, and various electronic control systems are all standard equipment and rigid requirements for pure electric vehicles, so the road of reducing equipment will definitely not work. The problem of wanting to have a higher mileage and improve vehicle performance has plagued pure electric vehicle companies for many years. After years of technical precipitation, the R&D team of BYD e2 has given their solution.
E2’s body “evolution”
Thanks to the powerful integration features of the “e platform”, the motor, motor control and reducer are integrated into one, which makes the number of car-related components more streamlined and smaller. Data is the only criterion for testing truth: the integrated volume is reduced by 30% compared with split products; among them, the weight is reduced by 25%, but the power density can be increased by 20%, making the curb weight of e2 only astonishingly 1250kg, compared with the geometry of competing products of the same level A (curb weight 1650kg) is 400kg lighter, 35kg lighter than the Golf (curb weight 1285kg). Not only is it ahead of pure electric vehicles of the same level, it is even comparable to fuel vehicles of the same level that are good at handling.
It is obvious that the overall lightweight cannot be achieved overnight, and BYD’s R&D team has also made new breakthroughs in the body of the e2. The e2 adopts a 3H high-strength body structure, and the amount of high-strength steel used in the body has reached more than 50%. The amount of high-strength steel used has become an important indicator for evaluating the passive safety of cars. Usually, the greater the amount of use, the better the passive safety of the car .
It is worth mentioning that the key safety parts of the e2 vehicle use 11 hot-formed parts with a strength of 1500Mpa. This steel is formed once after being heated at a high temperature of 950°C, and then rapidly cooled and formed, which not only improves the strength in an all-round way, And effectively reduce the weight of the steel plate. Studies have shown that the yield of general hot-formed steel is above 1000Mpa, and it can withstand more than 10 tons of pressure per square centimeter. What is the concept of 1500Mpa? We must know that the steel strength of the Japanese “Cangryu” class AIP submarine is 1000MPa, while the steel strength of the latest Columbia-class nuclear submarine in the United States is 1200MPa. The application of new technologies such as laser brazing technology makes the e2 body lightweight, while its bearing capacity is increased by 30% compared with the traditional steel body, and the safety is beyond doubt.
On the other hand, lighter body weight also means that the car’s inertia is smaller. When the car brakes at the same speed, the lighter the body weight, the shorter the braking distance, and the better the active safety of the car. Moreover, when the car collides, because the body weight is light, the deformation of the body structure, the amount of intrusion and the impact acceleration received by the occupant will be smaller, so the protection performance of the occupant will be better and safer. So far, the theory of “the lighter the car, the less safe” circulated among the “keyboard car gods” is obviously untenable.
After performing a set of lightweight “combination punches”, the weight of the e2 vehicle is lighter, and the efficiency is naturally improved. Therefore, e2 also has better handling performance and cruising range than similar models. Due to the inherent advantages of pure electric vehicles, the handling experience of e2 is not inferior to that of fuel vehicles such as Golf and Focus, which are good at handling. In terms of comprehensive driving range (NEDC), the e2 has reached a leading 402km in its class, but its energy consumption is only 11.3kwh/100km, which truly achieves the perfect combination of good control and low power consumption.
Great beginnings start with one small step
The accumulation of all technologies will eventually be transformed into products. e2 is the practitioner of BYD’s R&D team to explore lightweight. Every small step taken by pure electric vehicle companies on the road to lightweight is worthy of encouragement. With a light body and inherent driving experience and safety level, e2 is bound to be able to refresh consumers’ experience of a new generation of pure electric vehicles. The most direct beneficiaries of this lightweight crossover product are non-users none other than.
