At the two-day press conference, BMW Brilliance intensively introduced the technical characteristics of new products, R&D center, power battery factory, charging, sales and service network and other related layouts, showing a complete electrification system. This means that it is more difficult to upgrade the competition in the new energy industry, not only to look at product performance, but also to test the system capability of enterprises.
Electric BMW or BMW?
IX3 (New Car Graphical Portal) is based on BMW compatible platform, which can produce pure electric vehicles, internal combustion engine vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Although BMW's R&D strength is there, it also includes a variety of power platforms, which means that there must be a trade-off. Abandoning the pure electric platform of correct public opinion, can iX3 be competitive in terms of battery life, space and energy consumption?
The key to the answer lies in BMW's fifth-generation eDrive electric drive system, and the three core technologies of battery, motor and electronic control have obviously evolved. The motor, inverter and transmission are integrated in a driving unit, which greatly reduces the weight and required installation space while ensuring the performance; The driving unit and the rear axle are integrated into a whole, which further improves the driving efficiency.
"BMW iX3 Model Architecture and Battery Structure"
The fifth generation system undertakes part of the chassis structure, and reserves part of the floor space for installing and expanding the battery pack, so as to obtain a longer cruising range and ensure a lower center of gravity. IX3 is the first vehicle equipped with this system, and this system will become the standard for BMW electric vehicles in the future.
Compared with Mercedes-Benz EQC and Audi e-tron, BMW iX3 can achieve 500km battery life, 74kWh of electricity and 100 km energy consumption 16.7 kWh, which is more competitive. According to BMW Brilliance executives, the group attaches great importance to Sandian Technology and insists on taking research and development capabilities into its own hands. For example, iX3 is equipped with 8 1 1 ternary lithium battery of contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd., and 8 1 1 high nickel battery has been frequently involved in safety disputes recently. BMW Brilliance customized the battery according to its own standards, and made many layers of protection in structure, testing and software monitoring, so it is very confident in its safety.
The words of a BMW Brilliance executive are impressive: think like a new automobile manufacturer and deliver like a mature automobile manufacturer. This can also explain why iX3 didn't come earlier. Although it can compete with Mercedes-Benz and Audi, compared with Tesla and some domestic brands, the battery life is quite satisfactory. BMW's thinking is still slow and steady, taking new energy competition as a protracted war.
In terms of intelligence, BMW Brilliance comes standard with the latest BMW automatic driving assistance system PRO for iX3, which provides functions including assisted driving, traffic jam assistance, lane change assistance, etc. It can also be equipped with all-round automatic parking assistance system functions including automatic parking, BMW driving recorder, tracking and reversing assistance, and remote 3D parking images.
The pre-sale price of the new car is 470-565,438+0,000 yuan, which is far lower than the starting price of 579,800 yuan when Mercedes-Benz EQC was first listed. Gao Le, President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, stressed that the pricing of electric vehicles should be reasonable first, and the pre-sale price of iX3 should fall within the upper limit of X3. After the old rivals Mercedes-Benz and Audi launched the first pure electric vehicles last year, the monthly sales of several hundred vehicles seem to have lost the consistent level of BBA. BMW doesn't want to "repeat the same mistakes" and sum up the gains and losses of its opponents. It has spent a lot of thoughts on iX3, and it can also get a glimpse of its marketing efforts.
X3 is the second model contributed by BMW after the 5 Series, and it is also the model with the highest sales growth rate (197.21%2019 year-on-year). The heat of X3 itself will also be beneficial to pure electric vehicles. In terms of sales channels, BMW Brilliance plans that by the end of 2020, BMW? 1. The number of authorized dealers will reach nearly 200, accounting for about 1/3 of the current BMW distribution network, covering about 60 cities.
Based on the production strategy of * * * line, BMW puts more emphasis on "iX3 is an original BMW" and emphasizes driving pleasure and quality. Whether this strategy can be transformed into the characteristics and advantages of iX3 deserves further attention.
Qi Puce, Chairman of BMW Group, expressed his views on the future product trend at this year's financial report meeting: customers' needs are increasingly diversified, thousands of cars have become history, and different drive systems will coexist, so the industry will not be artificially divided into two different parts: electric cars and diesel locomotives. If you want to become a global automobile enterprise, you must have such flexibility. According to the plan, BMW will reduce the powertrain research and development by 50% from 202 1, and at the same time streamline the vehicle series to achieve * * * line production, and the vehicle architecture and power system will be more compatible.
Compatible platform and * * * line production have also played an obvious role in reducing costs and improving efficiency. Udo Henle (Udo? Haenle) calculated that a new factory needs about 65.438+0 billion euros, while the investment in producing electric vehicles in the current facilities is only 3 million euros, less than the former 1%.
The popularity of BMW 5 Series PHEV in China market is an example. The production of * * * line reduces the high-cost input and is conducive to the rapid popularization of products. The price of the 5-series plug-in version and the fuel version is basically the same, and the cost performance even exceeds the fuel version, which also contributed to the BMW 5-series PHEV reaching the top in the plug-in market.
Coincidentally, the new generation of Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which was listed not long ago, also demonstrated the concept of flexible production. In the future, S-class plug-in version and pure electric version will be produced on the same line. Flexibility and efficiency are still the key elements for car companies to consider strategic deployment.
System layout
BMW has completed the trademark registration of i 1 to i9 and iX 1 to I9, and its products cover pure electric vehicles and crossover vehicles. The future electrification product lineup will be very rich. Behind innovation, a perfect production system is needed to support it.
Since 2009, BMW Brilliance has invested more than 64 billion yuan in China. In Shenyang, two complete vehicle factories and one powertrain factory have been built in Dadong and Tiexi, with a comprehensive production capacity of 520,000 vehicles/year, making it one of the largest production bases of BMW Group in the world. Both automakers can realize flexible production of new energy vehicles and traditional power vehicles. In the next few years, BMW Brilliance will also rebuild and expand two automakers to realize the production of more new energy vehicles.
In terms of supporting R&D, BMW Brilliance opened a new R&D center and a power battery center in 20 17, focusing on new energy vehicles, realizing the whole process development from design concept to mass production delivery in China. The Power Battery Center not only produces battery systems, but also covers functions such as R&D, quality, laboratory, procurement and supply chain management.
About half a year after the first phase was put into production, BMW Brilliance quickly started the construction of the second phase of the power battery center, which officially opened in September this year, producing BMW's brand-new fifth-generation power battery and supporting iX3 models. The capacity of the second phase of the power battery center has more than doubled, which also reserves space for future output growth.
According to the official introduction, the production mode of BMW Brilliance battery system has two advantages: first, the standardized module ensures the unified quality standard in production, which lays the foundation for widely adapting to BMW's new energy vehicles, and the modular concept can also quickly respond to customer needs; Secondly, the size, shape and quantity of the modules used in the aluminum shell can be adapted to various BMW models as required.
In addition to strengthening the offensive in terms of products, in terms of charging infrastructure, BMW Brilliance is also accelerating the previous self-built charging pile strategy and uniting the charging pile giants. In June this year, BMW Brilliance announced the signing of a cooperation agreement with State Grid. By the end of 2020, 270,000 charging piles will be provided nationwide, including 80,000 fast-charging DC charging piles, that is, 80% of the charging piles in the State Grid can be used by car owners.
From June 5438 to July 2020, BMW ranked fourth in global new energy sales. In the China market, the cumulative sales volume of BMW's new energy vehicles has exceeded 75,000, and the sales volume in China in the first half of the year increased by 49% year-on-year, of which 65,438+00,650 vehicles were delivered for the 5-Series PHEV model. BMW aims to sell one million new energy vehicles in 20021year and provide 25 new energy vehicles worldwide in 2023.
In the pioneering era of new energy, I series has verified the technology for BMW. Entering the next step of comprehensive electrification strategy, BMW, as an old car manufacturer, is still very cautious and has been repeatedly verified. Starting from iX3, BMW once again endowed its new energy vehicle with the prefix "I", which has far-reaching significance. As Weilander, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance, said, "It shows the electrification process from design and production to the whole value chain, and a complete new energy ecosystem built with customers as the center." (Text/car home? Du Junyi)