Strengthen ecological design and evaluation of the automotive industry urgently "green" up

As the automobile industry grows up, it also brings a series of environmental problems. How to make automotive products “green” in the life cycle becomes an important issue. People in the industry pointed out that the automobile industry chain must pay full attention to green development, and the green evaluation system also needs to be improved, and eco-design methods must be strengthened.

Strengthen ecological design and evaluation of the automotive industry urgently "green" up

As an important pillar industry of the national economy, the rapid growth of China's automobile industry has also brought with it energy and resource consumption, environmental pollution, and traffic congestion. With the concept of green development leading the development of the automotive industry, China has successively implemented the "Management Requirements for Automobile Hazardous Substances and Recyclable Utilization Ratio," "Mid-term and Long-term Development Plan for the Automotive Industry," and achieved remarkable results. At present, China has initiated the study of China's Ecological Car Evaluation (C-ECAP) regulations and improved the green evaluation system in order to allow automotive products to "green" throughout the life cycle.

In the first 10 months of this year, China's auto production and sales respectively completed 22.397 million vehicles and 22.927 million vehicles, which was a year-on-year increase of 4.3% and 4.1% respectively. According to the estimation of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, this year's annual production and sales of automobiles is expected to reach 29.4 million, ranking the first in the world for nine consecutive years.

However, as an important pillar industry of the national economy, China’s automobile industry has grown rapidly in scale, bringing huge GDP and employment to various places, but also brought about problems such as energy and resource consumption, environmental pollution, and traffic congestion. It is imperative to crack down on the level of green development. High puzzles.

"Closing Supply Crisis" Reflects Industrial Dilemma

Not long ago, a German company named Schaeffler made headlines. The cause was that the CEO of Zhonghua District had sent a letter to the local government in Shanghai, saying that its supplier of needle roller raw materials was “deactivated due to environmental protection” and dismantled the relevant production equipment, which would lead to more than 200 of 49 automobile manufacturers. A total number of models have been successively discontinued, and the supply gap will likely result in “a reduction in the output of more than 3 million vehicles in China, equivalent to a loss in output value of 300 billion yuan.”

In response, the Ministry of Environmental Protection pointed out that in the face of the severe situation of air, water, and soil pollution, large-scale governance has already begun in China. Strengthening environmental supervision is an irreversible trend, but the real source of risk is not the strengthening of supervision, but the industrial chain. It has long been ignoring the problem of pollution. It is recommended that all major automotive brands use this as a lesson to thoroughly investigate the environmental risks in the supply chain, effectively solve the pollution problems caused by the industrial production process, and move toward environmental protection, energy conservation, and low-carbon green development. the road.

"Schoeffler off crisis for supply and demand" reflects the dilemma of industrial pollution from one side, revealing that the green development level of China's auto industry is not high. "The automobile industry is mainly engaged in R&D, manufacturing, and sales of complete vehicle products. It covers all areas such as raw materials, machinery, electronics, energy, finance, services, and infrastructure. It involves many elements such as talent, management, technology, branding, etc. All aspects of the modern civil industry are linked to a three-dimensional industrial network.” Zhao Fuquan, dean of the Institute of Automobile Industry and Technology at Tsinghua University, said that the huge driving effect of the automobile industry not only covers the entire manufacturing industry, but also extends to the manufacturing industry. In addition to related industries, the importance of green and low-carbon development is self-evident.

"In the product design and development stage, it is necessary to systematically consider the impact that the entire life cycle of raw material selection, manufacturing, sales, use, and recycling may have on the environment and consumers," said Yu Kai, party secretary of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center. According to a research report, "unpleasant odor" has become the most serious problem with the quality of new cars in China for two consecutive years in 2015 and 2016.

According to the data provided by the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, in the automobile manufacturing and manufacturing sector, although some auto companies in China have made some progress in the construction of green factories through adoption of advanced equipment, due to factors such as process, equipment, and production efficiency, most Enterprises in the energy conservation, pollutant emissions, resource consumption and other aspects than the foreign automobile industry developed countries still have a big gap. “In the aspect of product use and recycling, although China has established a management system for harmful substances and recyclable utilization rate of M1 passenger vehicles, it has achieved certain results in reducing the use of harmful substances and improving the recycling efficiency. However, in shock absorbers and electrical appliances, There is still a big gap between the control of components and their solders and the control of N1 automobiles compared with developed countries, said Zheng Jihu, director of the Data Resource Center of China Automobile Industry Center.

Lack of green evaluation system

"Most companies have achieved product price advantages by reducing production costs. In the process, they may be at the expense of the ecological performance of the product," said Yu Kai.

Wu Song, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Group, said that the rapid rise of the brand-name cars in recent years has caused some joint venture brands to feel tremendous pressure. To seize market share, many joint-venture car companies have to cut prices to survive, but do not want to lose profits, so they have "reduction", which to a certain extent affect the quality of the product.

In recent years, although the concept of green development of automobile companies has been greatly enhanced, the concept of product life cycle management has not been deeply rooted in people's minds. “The carbon emissions caused by energy consumption in the automotive use phase account for the largest proportion of carbon emissions in the entire life cycle of a vehicle. Therefore, the reduction of carbon emissions in the automotive use segment is generally valued by the industry.” Zheng Jihu, Director of the Data Resource Center of China Automobile Industry Center, said, but partially Some measures do not achieve true low carbon, but only shift carbon emissions from one link to another. He cited an example. Many companies introduced lightweight materials to reduce the weight of automobiles and achieved low carbonization by reducing the fuel consumption during the use phase. However, they neglected that the production of lightweight materials would consume a lot of energy and generate large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, the carbon emissions of some lighter materials during the production phase are greater than the carbon emissions that are reduced by weight loss during the use phase."

“Current Chinese consumers have turned their attention to car odors from the past when they were buying cars, and they have turned to attention to car odors. The demand for quality has undergone a transition from 'static quality' to 'sensory quality'.” Jundi China Senior Research Director Xie Juan said that at present, the auto industry still lacks a scientifically sound green evaluation system, and it is still not possible to assess the level of ecological performance of a certain model from the whole life cycle.

Urgent need to strengthen ecological design and evaluation

With the increasingly mature and relatively saturated market, automobile production competition is more dependent on product performance and technical connotation, and strengthening product green management throughout the life cycle is crucial for enhancing the competitiveness of the company. It is understood that the major car companies in Europe and the United States are actively carrying out automotive life cycle assessment (LCA) research, respectively formulated their own ecological design methods and indicators system.

“85% of the impact on the environment during the entire life cycle of automotive products depends on the product design stage.” Yu Kai said that in order to effectively avoid pollution transfer and secondary pollution caused by traditional environmental improvements such as end-of-pipe management and mid-stage improvement, it is truly To address both the symptoms and the root causes, we must intervene from the design and development stage to carry out "ecological design."

What is ecological design? He explained that it is in accordance with the concept of the whole life cycle to reduce environmental pollution from the source, systematically consider the impact of raw materials selection, manufacturing, production, use, processing and other links on the environment in the product design and development stage, and strive to product throughout the life cycle Minimize resource consumption, minimize or eliminate the use of raw materials containing toxic and hazardous substances, thereby reducing the generation and emission of pollutants and achieving environmental protection.

Liu Bo, vice president of Changan Automobile, said that Changan Automobile has continuously improved the product's ecological design capability from R&D, procurement, manufacturing, and logistics. Currently, it has established an ecological design enterprise covering 15 research areas of “research, production, supply, and sales”. Technical standards system and achieved certain results. For example, after researching the carbon footprint of a certain product of Changan Automobile, it was found that the fuel use carbon footprint is the largest during the automobile use; the carbon footprint of the raw material production process during the automobile production process is the largest; the stamping, welding, injection molding, and other processes in the automobile production process. The energy consumption is second only. This has led to ways to reduce carbon emissions: lower fuel consumption; structural topology optimization, reduction of raw material use, selection of lower carbon production materials; optimization of stamping, welding, injection molding and other processes, saving production energy consumption.

It is understood that under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the CNCA, in July 2015, the China Automotive Technology and Research Center launched the China Ecological Vehicle Evaluation (C-ECAP) Regulations, which have been used by many companies such as Changan Automobile, Geely Automobile, and Chery Automobile. As a basis for positive development, it has become an important guide for many companies to develop green models, effectively promoting the upgrading of the green building technology in the automotive industry. “But C-ECAP really needs to be an important reference for consumers to purchase a car, and we need to increase its influence.” Yu Kai suggested that the country must adopt the certification mark to visualize the ecological performance of the model, making it easy for car consumers to accept it. And understanding, promote automotive green design, green production and green consumption.

According to Liu Bo, letting the car “green” in its entire life cycle requires the joint efforts of the government, consumers, companies, and the industry. The government needs to formulate a complete regulatory and restrictive mechanism and supportive policies, and strengthen the research and development support for basic technologies. Consumers must increase their awareness of green consumption. Enterprises must carry out ecological design research from the whole life cycle to promote sustainable development, and jointly develop with other companies. Basic components, basic processes, and basic materials research; the entire industry must build a comprehensive database of basic eco-design database for automotive products and basic material databases, promote the development of industry evaluation standards and regulatory systems, and “jointly promote the global competitiveness of the automotive industry to lead the world in the future. Car industry lays a solid foundation for green development."