New opportunities for the development of automotive parts technology

Guofa 2009/5 “Regulation of the Adjustment and Revitalization of the Automotive Industry” is a comprehensive action plan specifically designed by the Chinese government to deal with the impact of the international financial crisis. It is not only a simple emergency policy measure, but more focused on the long-term development plan after 3 years. In particular, it is related to the "support for enterprise independent innovation", "the implementation of special technical transformation", "implementation of new energy vehicle strategy" and other content, are related to the core technology of the car, or the key parts of the car technology transformation and progress. Although the "planning" states that in the next three years in the new central government investment, 10 billion yuan will be allocated as technical progress and technological transformation funds, and key support will be given to automakers to upgrade their products, improve key technologies such as energy conservation, environmental protection, and safety; To develop key assembly products that fill the gaps in the country; build a common technology development and inspection platform for automobiles and parts; develop new energy vehicles and special components and parts. However, these projects cannot be completed within three years. Therefore, the implementation of this "planning" and its impact will be far-reaching. However, how to allocate fairness for a special fund of 10 billion yuan is a big issue. It requires a fair, open and transparent list of rules and allocations. I hope no more "running money".

About supporting enterprise independent innovation

This content is arranged in the third part of the "main task" of "planning". The first two items are "cultivating the automotive consumer market" and "advancing the auto industry restructuring."

Among the so-called "independent innovation", one of them mainly involves "the establishment of a vehicle design and development process, the mastery of body and chassis development technologies, and the matching technologies for complete vehicles, engines and transmissions, and exhaust purification technologies; breakthrough collisions. Key technologies such as safety, NVH (vibration, noise, ride comfort); control of design and manufacturing costs for new energy vehicles." This part of the content currently China's vehicle companies, including mainstream independent brand companies, as well as large-scale design and development companies, have basically established and improved the construction of this system, but there may be differences in the level. China’s mainstream self-owned brand enterprises are chasing after the lack of foreign technology support from joint ventures and have achieved remarkable results. The current market share of autonomous brand cars is a testimony.

At the same time, in the area of ​​new energy vehicles, such as BYD's F3DM plug-in dual-mode, heavy-duty hybrid vehicles, they are already ahead of the domestic market regardless of their price positioning, demonstration of charging devices (charging stations, charging piles), etc. Various other capital types of auto companies. Of course, at present, it is only at the beginning. Due to the size of the market, its manufacturing costs are unlikely to drop significantly in the short term. This requires the country's subsidy program to expand from "public services" to ordinary consumer groups, until after a certain market size.
The second part of “independent innovation” is to improve the energy saving, environmental protection and safety technology of traditional passenger vehicles. The focus is on the development of diesel direct injection gasoline engines with a displacement of less than 1.5L and meeting the national IV emission standards and diesel engines with a displacement of up to 3 kilowatts and a power output of 45 kilowatts or higher. Break through the integration of key technologies of heavy-duty commercial vehicle chassis to improve the driving comfort and handling stability of the vehicle. It mainly supports the development of key technologies such as high-power diesel engines, high-pressure fuel injection electronic control systems, post-processing systems, and automatic shifting mechanical transmissions (AMTs) for commercial vehicles. The powertrain including the engine, especially the direct injection technology of the gasoline engine, the high-pressure common rail of the diesel engine, the fuel technology such as the unit pump or the pump nozzle, and the post-processing system are the weak links of the engine manufacturing enterprises in China. Although the company's products are equipped with these technologies and equipment, these key components are from multinational companies in China, or directly to foreign companies. Only a very small number of companies can develop their own, but the matching test project of the electronic control management system takes a long time, has a large investment, and is difficult to find customers. In order to meet the needs of emission upgrades and market competition, the main engine plant often “does not wait for me”. So this is a major bottleneck.

As for the third part, "establish a strategic alliance for the automotive industry and form a long-term cooperation mechanism for production, learning and research." In this respect, it is often a product that is more of a form than actual content, has more false names than results, and has more results than applied to the market. Therefore, to make substantial progress, more should rely on market-based mechanisms.

On the implementation of technical renovation projects

There are 112 items in the category of "Electric Vehicles and Components" in the "Technology Progress and Technical Renovation Project and Product Catalog of the Automotive Industry";

There are 16 items that belong to the "engine." Including the electronically controlled gasoline engine emissions and power upgrades, electronic control diesel engine high-pressure injection of a number of injection capabilities and post-processing technology upgrades. This also includes DPF, SCR, EGR technology and OBD diagnostics to support the achievement of national IV emission standards;

There are 8 transmission parts, among which the passenger car should focus on dual-clutch automatic transmission with both driving comfort and fuel economy as well as the original manual transmission manufacturing equipment and small investment. The other 6-speed manual transmission and CVT are also in the "catalogue." In the commercial vehicle segment, the automatic transmission of mechanical transmissions is included in the “catalogue”. The shift and clutch actuators are pneumatic components controlled by solenoid valves. There are also hydraulic and eddy-current retarders.

There are 13 items in the "Automobile Electronic Control System". Some of these contents have been independently developed by domestic companies, such as tire pressure monitoring systems, on-board fault diagnostic equipment, automotive LED headlights, and so on.

Other electronic control systems have already been supplied by domestic joint ventures, but the key technology is controlled by the foreign joint venture. For the needs of market competition, the upgrading of these technologies, such as the chassis security system ABS, TCS, EBD, ESP and other technical versions have been basically synchronized with foreign markets. According to a person in charge of an auto plant that can supply its own equipment, the price of the electric control devices of these chassis is still very low. It is even lower than the domestic self-developed products that can be independently developed by domestic independent companies. Freely responsible for matching debugging work. Therefore, this has greatly increased the threshold of self-development for national enterprises in China.

However, it also raises the question of whether any technology and products need independent research. This also led to a problem, what the development of capital nature of the enterprise can be called independent development. The products developed in China's Sino-foreign joint ventures are not independently developed. Foreign-funded enterprises in China count as Chinese companies. If these issues are related to the self-development of Shanghai Volkswagen, which is often said in the industry, and Guangzhou Honda has established an engineering design institute to develop its own brand cars, it will be more complicated. Therefore, talking about these issues requires a clear and authoritative definition. At the same time, all of these research and development cannot be "independent" and "independent", but also need to take the road of marketization. Everything should be judged by whether or not the market can accept it. The intellectual property market is set up to trade each other. Independent development should cooperate with the intellectual property market transactions. Both should not be neglected.

There are six other items involving technology development. Most of them involve commercial vehicles. Such as low-floor coaches special axles, air suspension, inverter air conditioning systems and high-strength steel wheels. In addition, there are energy-absorbing steering systems and electric power steering systems.

About implementation of new energy vehicle strategy

This is a possible breakthrough for China's auto industry to catch up with advanced foreign standards, but this is only part of the powertrain. Although the chassis part will bring about some revolutionary changes, but overall, it is still a car, but the driving method changes. Moreover, the life of traditional fuel vehicles is still several decades. Therefore, we must not relax the technological development and innovation of traditional cars.