For women, the most beautiful love words in the world are not “I love you”, but “You’ve lost weight”. Losing weight may be one of the most enthusiastic behaviors of modern people. After enduring the pain of dieting and exercising, if you finally lose weight successfully, you will get an enviable good figure. But in this world, not only people need to lose weight, cars, especially pure electric vehicles, also need to “lose weight”.
As we all know, due to the addition of battery packs, the “weight” of electric vehicles has been greatly increased. The overweight body not only reduces the performance and cruising range of electric vehicles, but also affects the dynamic flexibility of the vehicle body. Because of this, in recent years, “lightweight” has become a key word for new energy vehicle companies to build vehicles.
When it comes to lightweighting, BYD, the world’s new energy sales leader, has its own “weight loss” trick. After various “slimming” of its new car BYD e2, the curb weight is only an astonishing 1250kg. Compared with competitors such as the pure electric vehicle Geely Geometry A high-dimensional standard endurance square version (curb weight: 1650kg) and the 2019 SAIC Roewe Ei5 (curb weight: 1555kg), BYD e2 has obvious differences in body weight. Advantage. Obviously, the lightweight level of BYD e2 is far ahead of the pure electric models of the same level. So here comes the question, what is the coup for the successful lightweight BYD e2?
Coup 1: Losing weight starts with dieting
The main way for many girls to lose weight is to go on a diet. Can a pure electric car go on a diet if you want to “lose weight”? Of course, it is possible to reduce the weight of fuel vehicles in the past by reducing the weight of parts and drilling holes. Now, many models replace the original 4-cylinder engine with a 3-cylinder engine, which can also remove the “fat” of 1 cylinder and reduce the weight of the vehicle. Pure electric vehicles can also successfully reduce weight by reducing battery packs, but the problem is that if electric vehicles change the powertrain structure and reduce battery volume to reduce battery weight like traditional vehicles, it will inevitably lead to a reduction in the cruising range of electric vehicles and Reduced performance.
In fact, compared to simply reducing configuration or changing the body structure, more manufacturers will combine optimized structures to reduce weight, such as Volkswagen’s MQB modular platform, Toyota’s TNGA modular platform, etc., are typical lightweight structures technology.
BYD e2 goes a step further, relying on the strong technical strength of the self-developed e-platform to efficiently integrate the motor, electronic control, and transmission, thereby reducing the number of complex connections between components and the number of wiring harnesses, achieving a “diet” effect. Make the overall structure more compact, smaller and lighter. According to statistics, the volume of the integrated drive system is 30% lower than that of split products; the weight is reduced by 25%, but the power density can be increased by 20%. While reducing weight, it also brings an improvement in power performance.
Coup 2: Turn Fat into Muscle
In addition to controlling eating habits and achieving dieting effects, weight loss also requires exercising muscles in different positions to achieve the effect of shaping and slimming. The same is true for pure electric vehicles. If you want to reduce weight while ensuring strength, you must use “exercise and fitness” to reduce the weight of the car and make the muscles stronger.
In the case of reducing the weight of the vehicle, the safety standards are not reduced, and even the safety standards have to be improved. The engineers of BYD e2 did this: through the 3H high-strength body structure, a large number of high-strength steels, hot-formed steels, and laser brazing roofs and other technologies The application of high-strength steel reaches more than 50%, which reduces the weight of the e2’s body-in-white, but its safety standards are higher than those of ordinary bodies.
For example, everyone must have heard that the strength of hot-formed steel is 3-4 times that of ordinary steel. In fact, thermoformed steel plates above 1200MPa can be used as submarine hulls or tank armored vehicles. The HY-100 high-strength steel used in the strongest “Sea Wolf” class nuclear submarine in the United States is just thermoformed steel. The maximum diving depth can reach 610 meters, and the thermoformed rigidity applied to the key parts of the e2 body can reach more than 1500MPa. For example, a thermoformed steel equivalent to the size of your fingernail can withstand the weight of a whale. weight without plastic deformation.
The super rigidity and stable structure of the e2 body can effectively suppress the collision deformation of the body, and because the hot-formed steel makes the body lighter, the vehicle can obtain better braking response and shorten the braking distance. Multiple protections effectively guarantee The life safety of the occupants in the car. Therefore, the rumors that “the lighter the car, the less safe” circulating in the market can be self-defeating.
Automotive engineering design often affects the whole body. With a lightweight body, it will naturally bring better handling performance and cruising range to the e2. In terms of performance, thanks to the new-generation powertrain with lighter weight and higher efficiency, the handling feeling is comparable to that of many small steel guns; more importantly, the battery life is the most concerned issue for consumers at present. The successful creation has improved the cruising range of the e2 to a higher level. When the curb weight of the body is the same as that of fuel vehicles of the same level, the NEDC has reached an ultra-long 402km.
In addition, the light body of the e2 further reduces energy consumption, and the energy consumption per 100 kilometers is only 11.3kwh. At the moment when advocating environmental protection and reducing carbon emissions, this is the first pure electric vehicle in history that is comparable to fuel vehicles in terms of curb quality. The advantages are obvious.
light, enjoy freedom
How to conquer the technological fortress of lightweight vehicles has been a problem that has lingered for many years for car developers, especially for pure electric car companies. This is a barrier that must be broken, and it has almost become a problem of survival. The research and development team of BYD e2 took the lead and took an important step. Relying on BYD’s strong technical capabilities, the e2 perfectly interprets the importance of lightweight electric vehicles and brings consumers a completely different experience from traditional pure electric vehicles. One possibility, we are looking forward to the launch of e2, and believe that it will become a new choice for more consumers who are keen on manipulation, environmental protection and life.
