Looking back two days before the conference, Great Wall Motor released its February production and sales report, and its sales in February reached 68,209 vehicles, down 3.65% year-on-year. In the first two months of this year, the cumulative sales volume was 65,438+029,728 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 28.94%. Its brands are Harvard, WEY, Euler and so on. There are different degrees of decline. At present, Great Wall Motor, which has fallen behind in the transformation of new energy, is in urgent need of measures to save the market decline and restore the confidence of consumers and investors.
What is Hi4?
Hi4 adopts P2+P4 configuration. The biggest highlight is the realization of four-wheel drive without increasing the number of motors, which can control the overall cost, realize the standard four-wheel drive+front and rear axle kinetic energy recovery, and provide the possibility for the popularization of four-wheel drive technology. Compared with the previous generation DHT technology, the comprehensive fuel consumption of Hi4 intelligent four-wheel drive electric hybrid technology is reduced by 15% under all working conditions, and greater user value is realized in terms of cost. In a word, it is "to get the experience of four-wheel drive with the price of two-wheel drive, and to realize the fuel consumption of two-wheel drive with the performance of four-wheel drive".
The configuration of Hi4 intelligent control electric drive electric hybrid technology includes hybrid engine, hybrid two-speed DHT transmission, high-power and high-efficiency electric rear axle and low internal resistance power battery. Under this configuration mode, Great Wall Motor will launch 1.5L+DHT+P4 and 1.5T+DHT+P4 powertrains in the future. The maximum system power of the powertrain can reach 340kW, the engineering thermal efficiency can reach 4 1.5%, and the fuel consumption can be reduced by 6%-7%.
At the same time, the two-speed DHT gearbox is directly linked with the output end of the engine. When the engine is in the high speed range, it can be transmitted to the front axle at a relatively low speed, and then the driving motor is still purely electric. According to the official, models equipped with Hi4 technology will cover multi-style models from A-class to C-class. Judging from the appearance of the product schematic diagram displayed by Great Wall at this conference, the first model equipped with Hi4 electric four-wheel drive system will be Lanshan DHT-PHEV, which will be listed in April, which makes the author look forward to the price and actual driving experience of the new car.
In the era of intelligent electric drive, the upgrade of software level is also worthy of attention. Hi4 intelligent four-wheel drive electric hybrid technology is based on intelligent energy management and intelligent torque vector control system, which can dynamically switch between "three machines and nine modes" according to the characteristics and requirements of different working conditions, and can realize nine modes: electric two-wheel drive mode, pure electric four-wheel drive mode, series mode, 1 gear direct drive, second gear direct drive, parallel two-wheel drive, parallel four-wheel drive, single-axis energy recovery and dual-axis energy recovery.
What benefits does Hi4 bring?
Specifically, according to the user's daily use scenarios, it can be divided into six daily use conditions to represent the working mode with the best comprehensive efficiency of this Hi4 intelligent four-wheel drive electric hybrid technology.
1. Urban road driving: Urban road driving often encounters traffic lights and traffic jams, and vehicles stop and go. At this time, when the battery is fully charged, the 2-drive mode can be used to reduce fuel consumption. When the power is insufficient, the vehicle can start the series mode. On the urban expressway, the system intelligently switches to 1 gear direct drive mode, which can avoid the low power running space of the engine and directly switch to the optimal speed range, thus achieving the purpose of energy saving and consumption reduction.
Second, the city's rapid acceleration/climbing: Compared with the north, this situation mostly occurs in cities with large mountain roads and terrain changes. This situation takes a short time to mobilize the power request. This is a pure electric four-wheel drive mode with motor, which can maximize the power as soon as possible, and 1 direct drive can also provide more efficient power for vehicles;
3. High-speed cruising condition: under high-speed condition, the vehicle switches this to the second-speed direct-drive mode, and the engine is in an efficient operation range, and the second-speed intelligent adjustment is combined with the efficient kinetic energy recovery mode to further reduce the fuel consumption performance;
4. High-speed acceleration/climbing conditions: parallel two-wheel drive and parallel four-wheel drive modes, the power in the high-efficiency operation area of the engine is maximized, and the remaining power is provided by the motor;
5. Deceleration braking condition: Compared with the traditional double-motor series-parallel architecture, the advantage of Hi4 architecture lies in the addition of double-motor double-shaft energy recovery mode, and the comprehensive efficiency of energy recovery is higher.
6. Curves and unpaved roads: A set of iTVC intelligent torque vector control system is designed based on Hi4 architecture, which uses the advantages of double motors on the front and rear axles to control the torque of the front and rear wheels of the vehicle. In the starting and accelerating stages, the power can be evenly distributed to the front and rear axles to improve the adhesion of the four wheels. At the same time, on the cornered and unpaved roads, Hi4 architecture can improve the wheel turning tracking and wheel passability through torque adjustment.
Focus on the main track of new energy competition
At this conference, Great Wall Motor did not mention the pricing range of new products. According to the insider of the manufacturer, the new model will be priced according to the "market" principle, and there will be some surprises in terms of price. At the same time, Great Wall executives have always mentioned that Great Wall Motor is the leader in SUV manufacturing in China. Up to now, its products are mainly SUV products, which have unparalleled system capabilities and technical advantages in SUV manufacturing.
All along, it has been mentioned that four-wheel drive is often equipped with high or top models. Compared with the two-wheel drive, the price premium of four-wheel drive is more than 8 thousand to 10 thousand yuan, and the high fuel consumption of four-wheel drive SUV makes many consumers hesitate. To this end, Great Wall Motor used its professional SUV manufacturing capability and four-wheel drive technology to tackle key problems, and finally launched a brand-new intelligent four-wheel drive electric hybrid technology Hi4. Next, Great Wall Motor is expected to become the first automobile brand in the world to announce the popularization of electric intelligent four-wheel drive.
At the beginning of 2023, Geely Automobile released the Galaxy technology brand, and Chery launched the Mars super architecture. With the release of Hi4 technology of Great Wall Motor, facing the transformation of new energy, the three independent brands began to speed up in an all-round way. In fact, the internal high-level of Great Wall Motor is very active in the transformation of new energy and intelligence. The overall layout began many years ago, and there are many technical patents for technical routes such as hybrid, pure electricity and hydrogen energy.
For example, the well-known "lemon hybrid DHT" technology actually requires BYD's DMi super hybrid technology to be released and promoted earlier, but in the past two years, it has been obsessed with category innovation and multi-brand management, making the new energy transformation strategy not focused enough, so that it has not achieved eye-catching results in the market. In view of the important layout of BYD, Geely, Changan, Chery and many joint venture brands in the hybrid technology route, 2023 will be the year of plug-in hybrid products.
The reshuffle of traditional fuel vehicles is accelerating, and the trial and error costs of fuel vehicles such as Great Wall Motor are piling up due to fierce competition and changes in market structure. From the anxiety of Wei Jianjun, the head of the company, to the expectation of investors, from the pressure of dealers and partners, and even the doubts in the public opinion field, all relevant people are worried about Great Wall Motor, and countless pairs of eyes are keeping an eye on every move of the Great Wall.
Can the Great Wall survive 2023? Perhaps with the landing of Hi4 technology, we can see some clues, but the take-off of Great Wall Motor has just begun. As everyone expected, Great Wall Motor urgently needs to usher in a new outbreak in the field of new energy vehicles.
Text/Bai Yong
This article is from New Energy Vehicle Network, written by Che Yi, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.