Variable valve timing technology (VVT)
In 2007, the engine is still the most competitive focus in the technical upgrading competition of automobile products. In particular, the local independent brand enterprises that came from behind have made great progress in engine technology upgrading. "Variable valve timing technology" (VVT), which can only be seen in high-end models of imported brands such as Toyota and Honda, has become a hot word in this year's auto market. Not only many middle and low-grade joint venture vehicles have started to use this technology, but also many independent brand enterprises have begun to use this kind of products. Using VVT technology can effectively solve the different requirements of the engine for opening and closing the intake and exhaust valves at low, medium and high speeds, so that the engine can achieve the best working condition in the whole speed range, thus outputting more powerful power and effectively reducing fuel consumption.
Changan Suzuki Tianyu SX4 and Geely's flagship models launched in 2007 are all equipped with engines with VVT technology. Among them, the power of Yuanjing 1.8L engine reaches 57.2kW, which is not inferior to the joint venture brand engine. Independent brand rookie Lifan also announced the newly-developed 1.8L VVT engine before the end of the year, with a power increase of 55.5kW. As the main engine product of Lifan, it will appear in Lifan's mid-level cars and various follow-up models.
Direct injection technology of engine gasoline in cylinder
In 2007, while VVT technology was gradually popularized to the low-end market, Volkswagen, which had the courage to set a technical benchmark in China, began to use gasoline direct injection technology (FSI) on the main models. As one of the latest gasoline engine technologies in the world, Volkswagen's in-cylinder direct injection technology can realize stratified fuel injection and better organize in-cylinder combustion, thus effectively improving engine power and reducing fuel consumption. Compared with the same displacement engine, gasoline direct injection technology can reduce fuel consumption by about 15% and obtain obvious power improvement. The maximum power of 1.8L gasoline direct injection engine (TSI) with turbocharging technology is the same as that of 2.4L port injection naturally aspirated engine.
Volkswagen's Ming Rui, Sagitar, Magotan, A4, A6 and other models all benefit from this technology.
Transmission upgrade is in progress.
Manual transmission moves to 6th gear.
Back to 10, at that time, there were only Jetta, Santana and Fukang in the domestic market, and most of these carburetor cars were equipped with 4-speed manual gearboxes. Nowadays, not only are there more and more gears in the transmission, but also the models equipped with automatic transmission have occupied half of the country.
In 2007, the 6-speed manual gearbox, which used to be seen only on sports cars, has appeared on many domestic models. Carola, Pentium and Magotan are all members of the 6MT club. Due to the increase in the number of gears, compared with the ordinary 5-speed manual gearbox, the 6-speed manual gearbox can make the power connection more tight when accelerating, so that the vehicle can get better acceleration. At the same time, because of the advantage of the number of gears, the 6-speed manual gearbox can have more space to set the overdrive gear, thus providing better economy for high-speed driving. Another point that can't be ignored is that the 6-speed manual transmission can bring more driving pleasure to car owners who are willing to experience the mechanical texture of manual transmission.
Automatic transmission has developed by leaps and bounds.
Compared with the upgrade of manual transmission, the upgrade of automatic transmission in 2007 was faster. From automatic 4th gear to automatic 6th gear, it seems to be completed overnight, and those models in the middle seem to be just a transition. Perhaps this statement is a bit exaggerated, but as long as you look at the 6-speed automatic manual transmission equipped with the 65,438+10,000 yuan car POLO, you can't help but sigh the rapid development of technology. Because automatic transmission has inherent defects in transmission efficiency compared with manual transmission, it is the best way to make up for this deficiency by choosing a 6-speed automatic transmission with more gears than the general 5-speed manual transmission. That's true. The fuel consumption performance of vehicles equipped with 6-speed automatic transmission is very close to that of manual transmission. Moreover, the general 6-speed automatic gearbox is equipped with manual sequential shift function, which also takes into account the needs of some drivers for driving pleasure to some extent.
Advanced lighting technology is becoming more and more popular.
HID xenon headlights
Xenon headlights, as the high-end configuration of automobile lights, have been gradually familiar to people. Xenon headlights have higher color temperature and emit light closer to natural light, which can effectively improve the ability of human eyes to identify the outline of objects at night and is conducive to driving safety at night. Compared with the traditional halogen light source, the brightness of xenon headlights can reach three times, but the power consumption is reduced by about 36%. In addition, the xenon lamp emits light by the arc generated by high-voltage discharge, and there is no direct contact between the two electrodes, so there will be no problem that the filament of the traditional halogen lamp gradually evaporates and becomes thinner and eventually melts with the extension of working time. For ordinary private users, if there is no collision damage, there is no need to replace the light bulb during the whole life of the car.
This configuration, which used to be seen only in luxury brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, gradually expanded to middle and high-end or even mid-range cars in the automobile market in 2007, and more and more consumers can share the convenience and safety brought by automobile progress.
Light emitting diode (LED) turn signal lamp
As a new efficient light source, LED is widely used in automobiles. In the past, we mainly saw it in indoor lighting, instrument indication and other parts. However, with the maturity and popularization of high-brightness LED technology, it is increasingly used in external lighting fields such as turn signals and brake indicator lights. Compared with traditional light bulbs, LED has no filament structure, excellent anti-vibration performance and long service life. Moreover, LED light source has high photoelectric conversion efficiency, low power consumption and low calorific value, and does not require high heat resistance of lamp materials. Moreover, there is almost no delay when the LED lights up, and the response speed is faster, which is especially suitable for brake lights and can minimize the occurrence of rear-end collisions.
Although there are not many new cars using LED as brake lights and turn signals in 2007, we can clearly feel that this will be a trend, and it won't be long before we forget the history of using light bulbs as brake lights.
Intelligent lighting technology
Driving at night, the lighting effect is directly related to the safety of people on board and other traffic participants. The traditional automobile headlamp system is mainly composed of low beam, high beam and fog lamp. These lights only have a fixed lighting range set by the factory and cannot be adjusted according to the specific situation. This situation has caused many blind spots in actual driving.
The application of automobile intelligent lighting technology can automatically adjust the illumination range of drivers or vehicles according to different situations, so as to adapt to more complicated situations and provide better vision for drivers. Common technologies include headlight height adjustment function, intelligent curve auxiliary lighting system and headlight automatic cleaning device.
For vehicles with headlight height adjustment function, the driver can adjust the lighting height through the control buttons on the dashboard, thus controlling the lighting range. The highly intelligent system can automatically adjust according to the fluctuation of the road surface, so that the illumination distance of the light is always the same.
This configuration can be seen in many models launched in 2007, especially in middle and low-end cars. For example, Chery's new A 1 has this function.
Intelligent curve auxiliary lighting system is designed to solve the problem of insufficient lighting inside the curve when turning at night. The system mainly monitors the lateral acceleration of the vehicle or the steering angle of the steering wheel through sensors, so as to turn on the auxiliary lighting or adjust the direction of the headlight light source, and realize the lighting of the inner corner of the curve.
This configuration has already appeared in the triumph of listing last year. This year's S-MAX, Mondeo Zhisheng and Magotan have similar configurations. I believe that more models will have this configuration soon.
Automatic headlight cleaning device
In fact, it is a configuration with xenon headlights. When driving in rain and snow, the headlights of the car are easily stained by the muddy water splashed by the front car. Xenon headlights, however, are particularly vulnerable to the scattering and weakening of light sources because of their different properties from traditional halogen headlights, which can not only ensure the lighting requirements of vehicles themselves, but also produce dazzling scattered light to other vehicles. The automatic headlight cleaning device can clean the lampshade surface with high-pressure water flow every once in a while when the wiper is turned on to ensure good lighting effect.
Rich electronic configuration
Make driving safer without knowing it.
With the in-depth application of electronic control technology in automobiles, electronic control safety assistance system has become more and more concerned by people when buying cars. The abbreviations ABS, EBD, BA, TCS, ASR, ESP…… are remembered by many consumers. Among them, ESP electronic stability program, as an integrator of many electronic control technologies, can improve the active safety of automobile driving to the greatest extent, especially in continuous turning sections or rainy and snowy weather, the safety of vehicles equipped with ESP will be greatly improved.
Such good equipment used to be the patent of high-end cars, and occasionally it only appeared in some middle and high-end cars as a unique configuration of top cars. However, in 2007, this situation changed obviously. ESP has stepped down from the altar of exclusive luxury cars and entered the configuration table of many mid-to high-end cars, and even some cars have adopted this life-saving technology as the standard configuration of all models.