Faced with possible changes, this time car companies are thinking about the possibility of innovation from the perspective of pure electric vehicles-"Zero-run innovation must be based on the differences between electric vehicles and fuel vehicles." Zhu, chairman of Zero Run Automobile, said at the launch conference of zero run CTC battery chassis integration technology.
On April 25th, Zero Run released the integrated technology of intelligent electric CTC battery chassis. Zero Run C0 1 equipped with CTC technology will become the first electric vehicle without independent battery pack in the world.
Lightweight car body is an eternal topic in the automobile industry, and it is an eternal topic for electric vehicles to install more electricity per unit volume and gradually improve their cruising range.
When the two goals coincide, the demand is clear: the power battery must be slimmed down!
At present, the slimming plan of new energy vehicles has two breakthrough directions. On the one hand, from the material route, mainly through the study of different cathode materials, such as various lithium iron phosphate batteries, ternary lithium batteries and so on. And the energy density and the battery life are improved. On the other hand, from the engineering route, from the aspects of improving battery volume and lightweight design of battery pack, the endurance is improved.
At present, new materials such as solid-state batteries and carbon-silicon negative electrodes are far from large-scale application. At present, the material innovation of ternary lithium battery seems to be caught in the impossible trinity of safety, energy density and economy.
If one road is impassable, we must make a breakthrough on the other road. In recent years, battery innovation mostly appears in structural optimization and iteration.
The latest development in this direction is CTC, in which battery cells are directly integrated into the chassis.
Before the emergence of CTC technology, the power battery changed from the standardized modular structure of "cell-module-battery pack" to CTP (modular-free battery) structure, which further reduced the number of parts of the electric module, improved the space utilization rate and realized cost reduction and efficiency increase.
CTC directly installs the battery cells on the chassis, and the battery skeleton structure and chassis body structure are integrated. In short, the integration of car body, battery and chassis greatly improves the volume density of battery pack.
Zero Run is the earliest enterprise in China to publish CTC scheme. According to the published data of zero run, CTC technology can increase the vertical space of zero run C0 1 vehicle 10mm, and increase the battery layout space 14.5%. At the same time, with the AI BMS big data battery management system, the vehicle cruising range can be increased by 10%.
This is the advantage of CTC structure: by reducing the redundant structure and lightweight design of the number of parts, the battery life is improved, the cost is reduced, and higher structural efficiency is achieved.
With these advantages, CTC has basically become the development "* * * knowledge" in the field of new energy. In addition to zero running, Tesla, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. and BYD also have relevant layouts of CTC technology.
In September 2020, Tesla released 4680 battery, CTC technology and integrated die casting technology on Battery Day, and announced that its Berlin factory will use CTC technology to produce Model Y.
On the other hand, power battery suppliers are also developing CTC technology. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. plans to realize integrated CTC technology in 2025, and LG New Energy has also disclosed the patents related to CTC technology.
But obviously, CTC technology is not difficult to land. Tesla's patent shows that after adopting CTC scheme, the rigidity and thermal runaway management of battery pack as a structural member have higher requirements.
In other words, innovation in design and engineering is needed to ensure the airtightness of the battery pack, the chassis collision safety after CTC and effectively prevent heat diffusion.
In addition, the maintenance problem is also a threshold that car companies must cross. The traditional battery pack is mainly connected with the car body through bolts, but in the CTC structure, if the battery is worn out and needs maintenance, the car body needs to be removed and replaced. Whether this will affect the body structure is unknown, which means that the passenger compartment may face the risk of re-sealing during maintenance.
These difficulties are the reasons why CTC technology has been difficult to achieve mass production, and only a few car companies have begun to apply it until today. So, in the face of these problems, how do Zero Run and Tesla perform?
From the realization of battery sealing structure, Tesla and zero-run CTC technology are very different. Simply put, the former scheme is "body without bottom plate+sealed battery", which gives priority to ensuring the sealing performance of the battery itself; The latter scheme is "complete body+battery tray", which removes the upper cover of the battery pack and gives priority to ensuring the tightness of the passenger compartment.
According to the information released by Tesla before, Tesla's plan is to arrange the battery directly on the chassis, cancel the cockpit floor and install the seat directly on the battery cover. The whole battery structure is integrated with the car body, which is more thorough in battery integration and meets the sealing requirements of the battery system.
In order to enhance the rigidity of the vehicle chassis against side impact, Tesla also added a layer of laterally arranged structural members between the load-bearing members of the seat and the battery cover.
In addition, the lateral heat dissipation mode and rubber filling structure of Tesla battery also play a certain role in blocking heat conduction.
According to the information released by Zero Run, Zero Run directly puts the battery module on the chassis, keeps the complete body frame, and seals the battery with the lower body frame.
At present, the zero-run C0 1 adopts the longitudinal beam and cross beam of the car body to form a complete sealing structure, which is complementary to the structure of the car body and the battery, thus improving the impact resistance of the battery and the torsional rigidity of the car body.
The safety of CTC technology needs to consider the engineering assembly structure to a great extent. From this point of view, the structural assembly technology of Tesla and Zero Run is the same. If the sealing performance of the battery is considered, Tesla's closed battery scheme may make the risk more controllable.
Zero Run indicates that it will open its CTC technology, and we look forward to seeing more details disclosed.
However, before CTC became a technical outlet, another technology was developed at the same time or even earlier with CTC technology-power exchange technology.
It is reported that zero-run CTC technology is compatible with 800V high-voltage platform and 400kW fast charging, which can realize home charging. Because the battery structure is also a part of the body chassis structure, it may become difficult to disassemble the battery, so it is difficult to apply the power exchange technology to this model. To some extent, power exchange technology is the opposite of CTC technology.
Although the power exchange technology and CTC technology are incompatible in the same car, it does not mean that there is no room for these two technologies in the same market, nor is it the relationship between them that the latter replaces the former. On the contrary, in the dynamic new energy market, both power exchange and CTC technology have great development potential and value.
The biggest advantage of the power exchange mode is that the energy consumption is very short, and the whole process only takes a few minutes. In addition, the mode of electric separation between vehicles also makes this technology have great advantages in battery loss management and battery repeatability.
However, there is still a long way to go to formally form a unified national power exchange standard. In addition, in addition to Weilai, the current power exchange mode is mainly aimed at operating vehicles that are extremely sensitive to charging time and consume a lot of batteries, such as network cars and taxis.
A person close to contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. said, "When the popularity of electric vehicles increases, the application scenarios will increase and the demand will be diversified. It will not be a situation in which the technical route dominates the world. As a leader, there must be a variety of technologies and product layouts to adapt to this diversified market. "
CTC is not only a technological innovation, but also has a great impact on the industry. 202 1, 1 1, the New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (202 1-2035) issued by the State Council, proposes to develop a new generation of modular high-performance automobile platform, and tackle the problems of chassis integration design of pure electric vehicles and multi-energy power system integration technology.
Attracted by the advantages of cost reduction, long battery life and light weight, more and more car companies will be willing to start deploying CTC technology in the future, which may be more obvious in new energy passenger cars. Therefore, CTC battery technology is undoubtedly an important development trend of new energy automobile industry in the future.
Technological changes must be tested by the market. The actual performance of CTC technology needs to be confirmed after the vehicle equipped with this technology goes on the market.
However, when technology is still in the conceptual stage, it often looks far away; But when the technology begins to land, the progress often exceeds expectations. Zero Run takes the lead in mass production of CTC technology, which shows that China brand has every chance to "overtake" on the new energy track.
At the press conference, Zero Run announced: "Zero Run will be open to CTC technology for free." This may drive the new energy vehicles in China to go up together and go further together.