With the tightening of energy-saving and emission-reduction policies in the world, especially in China, major automobile enterprises have taken automobile lightweight as one of the important breakthroughs, and carbon fiber composite materials are considered as automobile lightweight materials with great development potential because of their excellent properties such as lightweight, high strength and plasticity. Although carbon fiber has long been used cautiously by car companies because of its relatively high cost, the situation has changed now.

Gu, president of China Hengrui Co., Ltd., said in an interview with Geshi Automobile recently: "In 20 14 years, when we communicated with major domestic OEMs, we felt that the scheme of carbon fiber composite materials was very good, and they also had related ideas, but the real layout began in 20 16 years, and all major enterprises were equipped with relevant personnel or experts of composite materials, and they were consciously promoting lightweight. Now most OEMs have their own lightweight departments and composite engineers, which is very beneficial to the whole industry. "

According to its disclosure, the current value of carbon fiber composite bicycles in mid-range models is around several thousand yuan, and high-performance cars are even as high as several hundred thousand yuan. "I firmly believe that the automotive carbon fiber composite market will become a billion-dollar market." It is understood that at present, Hengrui has R&D or mass production cases from exterior decoration parts, body-in-white to some structural parts. In terms of quantity, most domestic OEMs are cooperating with them in the pre-research or fixed-point projects of lightweight composite parts.

It is worth noting that the cold winter of China automobile market lasted from 20 18 to the beginning of 20 19, and enterprises in the automobile field were inevitably affected, and carbon fiber parts enterprises were no exception. But from the actual situation, the impact does not seem obvious, at least for Hengrui. On the one hand, despite the decline of the overall automobile market, the growth of luxury car market and new energy market is still considerable, and the demand for carbon fiber composites in these two markets is also growing rapidly; On the other hand, although China's automobile market has quietly bid farewell to the era of high growth, considering the low level of 1,000 people, the industry generally believes that China's automobile consumption still has great development potential.

In other words, for enterprises in the carbon fiber field, the cake in China automobile market is still very big, which is why it is very important to seize the opportunity for the long-term development of composite materials enterprises. As mentioned above, there is a certain process for car companies to accept lightweight materials such as carbon fiber or related processes, but obviously related companies need to lay out in advance. Take Hengrui as an example. Although Hengrui didn't start early in the field of carbon fiber, as far as we know, Hengrui was one of the first enterprises to focus on industrial mass production of automobile composite parts. Gu said: "There are many enterprises that manufacture carbon fiber components in China. At the beginning, there were many vents, such as aerospace and wind energy. From the beginning, we aimed at the automobile industry and entered as an incision. We made efforts in this market earlier, so now we can say that both technical reserves and actual project experience have great advantages. "

Judging from the actions of Hengrui in recent years, it is to enhance product strength through acquisition and cooperation. For example, from 2065438 to August 2008, Hengrui wholly acquired Engenuity, a British professional composite design and analysis company, as a professional material analysis, design and engineering consulting business segment of Hengrui Group, and participated in the development of its domestic automobile projects. At the same time, Engenuity will also maintain its existing business and further explore the global market as an independent company to serve more different types of customers. In addition, in March this year, Hengrui officially joined the Lightweight Alliance of AZL Aachen University of Technology in Germany and became its partner. AZL Aachen University of Technology Lightweight Alliance focuses on the research and development of lightweight products, materials, production processes and systems, focusing on the integration and combination of various process chains and multi-material systems. Not long ago, we set up a joint venture with Austrian ALPEX, the world's leading supplier of composite parts manufacturing mold systems, in China, which is a strong combination of upstream and downstream industries, bringing international advanced supporting services and serving local customers in a combined form.

This shows that Hengrui attaches importance to the automobile market. It is not difficult to see that Hengrui's target market is not only the China automobile market, but also the whole world, which can be seen from its international team. Gu said: "Our genes are diverse and integrated from the beginning. On the one hand, in terms of technology, especially the mass production molding technology of composite parts, we need an international team, because most of these technologies originated in Europe, and we need these experienced foreign experts to bring them to China; On the other hand, the starting point of our market is China, but we plan to build factories in Europe and the United States in the future. Therefore, we need an international team to manage and promote, and our upstream and downstream are also internationally renowned companies. "

As for why carbon fiber parts should be made in China, Gu said that the reason is that China is a leader in new energy vehicles, but at present, the demand for carbon fiber in new energy vehicles is greater than that in traditional fuel vehicles, and there is also a lack of domestic enterprises with relevant technical and technological background.

It can be seen that in the current market environment, Hengrui has its own layout ideas. So what does Hengrui think about the changes in the current auto market? What practices are worth learning? As one of the practitioners of automobile lightweight, how does it view the future development and technical trend in this field? In view of the above problems, in the recent series of high-end interviews of "C Talk about Struggle 20 19", Gu and Gaspar had in-depth exchanges. The following is the interview record.

| China Auto Market: The medium and long-term situation is optimistic, and the luxury car market will not be too bad.

Geshi Automobile: The negative growth of China automobile market continued to the first quarter of 20 19. What do you think of this?

Gu: There must be a long period and a recession in the automobile market. Small-scale fluctuations are normal, as are other markets, not just the automobile market. Specifically, in recent years, China's automobile industry has stimulated the growth of this market through various policies, but there is always a saturation period, especially for low-end consumer groups, whose car change frequency is not very high, which will lead to a little difficulty in growth. In addition, this is also related to the general environment, and the Sino-US trade war will also affect the consumption behavior of some enterprises and individuals.

Gaspar: What do you think will happen in the medium and long term?

Gu: I think it is optimistic in the medium and long term. It may not be as big as the original increase, but it will not fall badly.

Geshi Automobile: From 20 18 to the beginning of 20 19, the overall situation of China automobile market was not good, but the sales volume of luxury car market was still growing steadily. What do you think of this?

C: I don't think this market will be too bad. In addition, luxury cars have done a lot of price reduction and discount activities recently. The development of this market should be very stable.

Gaishi Automobile: At present, many products of Hengrui are mainly high-end cars, right?

Yes, for the time being, we are only in the high-end car market, because the cost of carbon fiber is relatively high, and the application of low-end cars is still relatively small.

Geshi Automobile: In order to stimulate the growth of the automobile market, the government introduced the 20 19 policy of going to the countryside. What do you think of the impact of this policy on the automobile market? In addition, how do you view the policy of reducing the VAT rate?

Gu: Cars going to the countryside should drive relatively low-end consumption. I think people with economic strength and car demand in rural areas should buy cars, and its pulling effect will not be too great. I think reducing the value-added tax is a good thing and a very good measure to stimulate the industry.

| New Energy Auto Market: Subsidize climbing and accelerate the survival of the fittest.

Gaishi Automobile: In fact, since 20 18, the performance of new energy vehicles has been very eye-catching, and it is much higher than other traditional vehicles in terms of growth rate, but the decline in subsidies is also an impact for many car companies. Do you think the development of new energy vehicles is policy-driven or market-driven?

C: Both. At the beginning, the development of the new energy vehicle market must be policy-driven, so that everyone has invested in this industry. After that, I believe that many people still attach importance to environmental protection and energy conservation, and new energy vehicles are of great benefit to energy conservation and environmental protection. After the subsidy is withdrawn or even cancelled, it depends on the real strength of each OEM, and some enterprises with weak ability can be eliminated. I think this is a good thing, which is conducive to promoting the emergence of more efficient and better quality products.

Geshi Automobile: The development of the new energy market has always been the coexistence of various technical routes. In recent years, the technical path of new energy vehicles such as extended-range electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells has also become the focus of controversy in the industry. What do you think of the development prospects of different technology paths?

Gu: For the whole industry, the emergence of more choices, such as pure electric, hybrid and hydrogen energy, is a good thing. The specific development path is related to the national grand strategy. For example, hydrogen-powered vehicles are a particularly environmentally-friendly product in theory, but whether this field can be developed depends on whether the country is determined to invest in hydrogen-powered infrastructure construction.

Geshi Automobile: Recently, the fire incidents of electric vehicles have appeared one after another. What do you think of this?

Gu: Because of the rapid development of new energy vehicles in China, there may be some omissions in details, which is normal. According to the current trend, the state will gradually raise the subsidy threshold or even cancel the subsidy policy, and a number of outstanding enterprises will be screened out. Through these practices, given enough time and patience, they will make new energy vehicles better.

| Lightweight of automobiles: Carbon fiber is not only light in weight, but also high in strength.

Geshi Automobile: How to treat the importance of carbon fiber composites to the automobile industry?

Gu: When we talk about carbon fiber, we will talk about lightweight, but carbon fiber involves more than lightweight. On the one hand, lightweight is good and positive for all cars. For electric vehicles, lightweight can improve the cruising range. For fuel vehicles, it helps to save energy and reduce emissions, which is one of the important reasons why carbon fiber or other lightweight materials are increasingly adopted.

On the other hand, carbon fiber is light in weight and high in strength, so people may pay attention to light in weight, ignoring that one of its more competitive advantages is high in strength. For example, Engenuity, a British composite engineering design and analysis company we acquired, has a project to improve the torsional stiffness of large SUVs. After research and analysis, they found that there are two points where the torsional stiffness is weak. They adopted the technology of recycled plastic and unidirectional carbon fiber local reinforcement, and finally improved the torsional stiffness of the whole vehicle by 7.5% without increasing the cost, and each of these two parts was less than two kilograms.

Geshi Automobile: So Hengrui has a saying called "Beyond Lightweight"?

Gu: From 2065438 to the beginning of 2008, we upgraded the overall corporate image brand again. At that time, we put forward the slogan of "beyond lightweight", because carbon fiber is equivalent to lightweight, which is beyond doubt. But in our view, the OEM should not only be light, but also have performance, or seek a balance point of cost, which is actually what we are looking for.

Geshi Automobile: From what aspects does carbon fiber promote the lightweight of the whole vehicle? Can you give me an example?

Gu: If we don't consider the cost, everything can be lightweight. Of course, we should consider the safety issue. Specifically, a heavier car is either a battery or a power system. Now, some new composite materials of batteries are applied to the casing, which is also due to the characteristics of light weight, high strength and corrosion resistance. Composite materials have great potential for mass application in chassis and white body. Interior decoration is generally due to some special effects of its appearance texture, and related applications, like outer covers, should be regarded as luxury goods.

Take the automobile chassis as an example, we have a project, that is, it replaces the heaviest part of the chassis with carbon fiber, which turned out to be a 18 welded rivet. After many times of scheme optimization with customers, the final scheme is to turn it into two parts, which not only reduces the weight of the chassis by 55%, but also reduces the whole process by more than a dozen. In this case, although carbon fiber is more expensive than metal material, the overall automobile manufacturing cost has not increased much because of the simplification of working procedures.

Geshi Automobile: Just now you mentioned the lightweight of batteries. Do you think new energy vehicles have special requirements on carbon fiber materials?

Gu: New energy vehicles have a greater demand for carbon fiber. We have a customer of electric cars, because their electric cars have more than 200 kilograms of batteries on them, and the batteries are very heavy. So in order to reduce more than 200 kilograms, they used a lot of carbon fiber to reduce the original white body or some parts by more than 200 kilograms, so as to make a balance. Of course, this requires a high design, which is generally dominated by car companies. We will participate in the design of carbon fiber components in the early stage of the project.

Geshi Automobile: How to treat the relationship between carbon fiber and other lightweight materials?

Gu: In my opinion, it is impossible for composite materials to replace metals in the short to medium term. The emphasis is on how to cooperate with metals and use their advantages to improve vehicle performance.

| Carbon fiber mass production: multi-dimensional improvement of R&D and design capabilities and optimization of manufacturing costs.

Geshi Automobile: How has Hengrui developed in recent years?

C: Very fast. 20 14 just returned to China. Since the establishment of the team, there are now about 300 people, especially 20 17 and 20 18, and the enterprise has grown very rapidly. At present, most carbon fiber mass production projects on the market have some participation, and the momentum is still good, especially from next year, we will enter a period of rapid growth. Now this market is not big, but we can see from some projects we are participating in now that next year and the year after will be a very big market leap, and our enterprises will develop at a faster speed.

Geshi Automobile: Does the fluctuation of the automobile market have a great influence on Hengrui?

Gu: The impact is not obvious, which has a lot to do with our earlier layout. In addition, our characteristic is that we manufacture a large number of carbon fiber composites in China. At first, there were many ways out, such as wind energy, aerospace and so on. From the beginning, we aimed at the mass production facilities in the automobile industry as a cut, and we made efforts in this market earlier, so now we have many projects with the OEM, whether it is the pre-developed models or the actual fixed-point mass production projects.

Geshi Automobile: What are the advantages of Hengrui?

Gu: Team, now our team can be said to be the best in the world and at home. We have a group of people who know about composite materials of automobiles. During the training and running-in process of so many projects, we integrated resources on 20 17-20 18 to build a team. Although it is a small start-up company, our team is not inferior to any European team in the application of composite materials in automobiles, which we are very proud of.

Geshi Automobile: It is understood that the elements of Hengrui's internationalization are obvious. What are the considerations behind this?

Gu: Our genes are diverse and integrated from the beginning. On the one hand, in terms of technology, especially the mass production molding technology of composite parts, we need an international team, because most of these technologies originated in Europe, and we need these experienced foreign experts to bring them to China; On the other hand, our market started in China, but we plan to build factories in Europe and the United States in the future, so we need an international team to manage and promote it. Our upstream and downstream companies are also internationally renowned companies. "

Geshi Automobile: In the carbon fiber module, design and development is a very important part. What measures does Hengrui take to strengthen this ability?

Gu: Why should we buy Youneng? Why should we establish the largest composite technology research and development center ACTC (Advanced Composite Technology Center) in Asia? Why should we establish a joint venture with ALPEX, the world's leading supplier of composite parts manufacturing mold systems? It is because the ability of design and research and development is very important. Engenuity is very professional in material selection, design and simulation, and designs carbon fiber parts in the most reasonable way, which I think is lacking in Asia. Besides, why should we do ACTC? We also consider optimizing costs through research and development. The two biggest costs of mass production of carbon fiber are the cost of the material itself, on the other hand, the manufacturing cost. We also manufacture by hand, and many parts may take several hours or even longer, but we also apply new technology, which can shorten the cycle from several hours or even longer to several minutes or even tens of seconds. This solves two problems, one is mass production, you can't produce auto parts by sea tactics, and the other is cost, because the cost of carbon fiber parts will decrease after the quantity comes up, which is one of our directions.

Geshi Automobile: Can you introduce ACTC?

Gu: ACTC was built by China Hengrui Co., Ltd. with the full support of Hof Institute of Chemical Technology in Flawn. It is the first composite material technology center in China with automobile lightweight as its main research direction. It has a high-performance composite research and development platform focusing on production technology, and is committed to serving the local automobile industry in China, and exploring comprehensive solutions for composite materials in combination with upstream and downstream research and development projects in the industrial chain.

In short, ACTC is an open platform. With the help of our R&D equipment, OEMs can develop their own composite parts and explore which route is correct, which will promote the application of composite materials in the whole automobile industry. Our goal is to introduce foreign good experience into domestic OEMs, so that everyone can understand and have confidence, and then this industry can be promoted and we can develop. The center officially broke ground in the second half of last year and is expected to be put into operation by the end of 20 19.

Geshi Automobile: I dare to invest because I am optimistic about the prospect of this market. What is the current bicycle value of carbon fiber? How big do you think the carbon fiber market may be in the future?

Gu: The value of mid-range carbon fiber bicycles is probably several thousand dollars, even hundreds of thousands of high-performance cars. I firmly believe that the automobile carbon fiber composite market will be a billion-dollar market. 20 14 when we communicated with major domestic OEMs, they thought that the scheme of carbon fiber composite materials was very good and they also had related ideas. The real start of layout should be from 20 16, and all major enterprises are equipped with related personnel or experts of composite materials, and they are consciously promoting lightweight. At present, most OEMs have their own lightweight departments, at least one engineer who knows composite materials, which is very beneficial to the whole industry.

Interview with the high-end series of "C Talk about Struggle 20 19"

20 18 automobile market continues to decline or even negative growth, which makes the whole industry into anxiety. 20 19, this state will continue. What are the views of first-line enterprises in the face of the turning point of automobile market growth? In addition, what adjustments will be made to the strategy in the face of the resulting development and profitability problems? At the same time, the automobile industry is in a period of deep change, and enterprises are also facing many tests such as technology upgrading and supply chain optimization. How will they handle this matter? In order to solve the above problems, gaston Automobile launched a series of high-level interviews with the theme of "C Talk about Struggle 20 19", focusing on the chess game of industry leaders and discussing the future development of the automobile market.