Cao Li: The number of orders for the Chinese luxury car Leapmotor C01 has exceeded 45,000

On May 28, the world's first electric vehicle equipped with CTC technology without a battery pack, Leapmotor C01, was unveiled at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Auto Show.

The new car has been pre-sale before, and the pre-sale price range is 180,000-270,000.Since the pre-sale was released on May 10, the order volume of Leapmotor C01 has exceeded 45,000 units so far.

Source of this article: Leapmotor

"Developing CTC technology at the same time as Tesla"

The reason why Leapmotor C01 has attracted a lot of attention is first of all thanks to the world's first battery-free CTC technology.

Leaprun CTC technology cancels the battery pack box and upper cover, leaving only the lower tray, without the concept of battery pack.The lower battery tray has a closer and firmer connection with the body sill and beam, and forms a highly rigid cavity structure with the body battery compartment, which greatly enhances the rigidity of Leapmotor C01, of which the body torsional rigidity is increased by 25%.In addition, the application of CTC technology frees up 10mm in the vertical direction of the body, which is beneficial to the riding space; the battery system components are reduced by 20%, thelightweightcoefficient reaches 2.4, which is increased by 20%, and the comprehensive operating conditions are increased by 10%, reaching 717km ultra-long battery life (CLTC comprehensive condition).

Cao Li, vice president of Leapmotor Technology, said that the difficulty of CTC technology is not in the materials or the use of advanced processes, but in the cooperation of positive joint development, because this requires the team of the body, chassis and battery to be able to work together in a positive direction. development.

It was Tesla who first proposed the concept of CTC in the industry. Jiang Tao, general manager of Leapmotor’s technology strategy and product planning department, revealed that in fact, Leapmotor’s technology development time for CTC is about the same as Tesla, because the development cycle takes 2-3 years.

"You can understand it as 'heroes see the same thing'. It's just that the technical route chosen by everyone during the development process may be different. Tesla directly cut off the beam installed on the seat and installed it on the battery pack cover. Domestic friends The commercial beam is still on the body, but the floor is removed, and the upper cover of the battery pack is used as the floor. We completely cancel the structure of the battery pack, and directly use the structure of the body or the chassis to become the structure of the battery pack. The concept of integrating the earth into one is the biggest difference between us and our friends.”

He also said that the zero-run CTC technology has increased the difficulty of manufacturing, increased the cost of research and development and the cost of transformation of the production line, but in the long run, the cost will be lower than before, and the torsional stiffness and bending stiffness of the body will be improved.

"LeapRun has not had any fire accidents caused by battery problems so far"

Under the CTC technology, there is only one floor as isolation between the battery and the passenger compartment. How to ensure the safety of the battery?

Three solutions have been taken to solve this: the body chassis is composed of a steel sheet metal structure; more thermal insulation and fireproof materials are laid between the chassis and the battery; the AI ​​BMS intelligent battery management system.

Jiang Tao introduced that the AI ​​BMS intelligent battery management system enables Leaprun to achieve active battery safety. It can collect data in real time according to the status of each battery cell, and will alarm in real time if there is any abnormality in the data.It will also predict whether the battery may have a problem based on the algorithm of big data."Finding a problem before it happens basically prevents a thermal runaway from a bad car battery."

Currently, AI BMS has been used on C11 and T03.Jiang Tao said to himself: "There is no basis for words. From the data, we have sold cars for several years without running. We can say that up to now, there have been no fire accidents caused by battery problems."

Self-developed and self-made to bring compressive toughness

In March this year, Leapcar’s delivery volume broke into the 10,000-unit club. In April, it won the single-month delivery champion of the new car-making force, becoming the new car-making force with the smallest decline rate under the influence of the epidemic.It depends on the characteristics of Leapmotor: self-developed and self-made.

Leapmotor researches and manufactureskey software and hardware in the core system and electronic components of smart electric vehicles, and realizes the "three new items" of smart electric vehicles: battery packs, motors, and electronic control systems.Build a global self-developed research and development system around intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and intelligent power.This allows Leaprun to choose multiple combinations, which is more flexible.

Cao Li said frankly that theproduction capacitywas indeed affected by the epidemic from the first half of last year to this year, mainly affecting cells and chips.However, Leapmotor did a very good job last year in combination with CTC's technical planning and standardization of technical solutions. At present, all cars and models of the three product lines in the future basically meet two standards for the types of batteries.Suppliers supply according to this standard, which has strong substitution and flexibility.In terms of chips, Leapmotor and Dahua jointly developed the intelligent driving chip "Lingxin 01"."Our business dealings with chip manufacturers, including self-developed alternatives, are relatively flexible."

He revealed that starting from the second half of the year, after planning these plans next year, the chip and production capacity problems will be greatly alleviated.

"CTC technology is more suitable for home use than battery replacement"

Leapmotor CEO Zhu Jiangming once said that Leapmotor's CTC technology was inspired by the change of mobile phone battery structure from separate to body integration.

This also means that CTC technology and the battery swapping mode of some car manufacturers have embarked on the opposite path.How does ZeroRun view these two modes?

Cao Li believes that the current hardware cost of a replacement car is much higher than the CTC or fixed battery pack mode, because it has a large number of detachable structures.The cost of replacing the power station is also very large.It cannot be denied that the current usage scenarios have a considerable part of the convenience, but in the long run, as long as the basic charging facilities are relatively popular, the current battery life of a family car of more than 500 kilometers can fully satisfy most of the usage scenarios.Therefore, it is necessary to judge which direction is better according to the applicable scenario.At present, it is more suitable for the high integration of CTC for domestic models, while the shared models are more suitable for battery replacement.

In addition, most manufacturers are deploying or mass-producing high-voltage fast charging technology, and the zero-run D platform will also mass-produce 800V high-voltage platforms. The fast charging time is similar to that of battery replacement, and it may take 5 minutes to charge 200 kilometers. Continue.

Epilogue

From the beginning, it was not optimistic, and now the delivery volume has advanced to the first camp of the new forces.The launch of Leapmotor C01 will undoubtedly further improve the product matrix of Leapmotor and help it accelerate its development.

At the press conference, Cao Li once again mentioned Leapmotor's product strategy of "manufacturing luxury cars for the country", and said that "Leapmotor C01 defines the new value of 5-meter-class medium and large sedans".

How to understand "manufacturing luxury cars for the country"?Jiang Tao said that this means that the product should be compared with luxury cars, but the price should be at a price that mainstream users can afford.Leapmotor C01 is a medium-to-large pure electric sedan positioned in the price range of mainstream B-class fuel vehicles. "From this car, you can see what we mean by making a luxury car for the country."