Summary:

The so-called skateboard chassis is to integrate the battery, electric drive system, suspension, brakes and other components on the chassis in advance, so as to realize the separation of the body and chassis and decouple the design. Based on this type of platform, car companies can greatly reduce the cost of early research and development and testing, and at the same time quickly respond to market demand to create different models. Especially in the era of unmanned driving, the layout of the car is no longer centered on driving, but will focus on space attributes. With a skateboard chassis, it can provide more possibilities for the development of the upper cabin.

1. What is a skateboard chassis

As shown in the picture above, of course, when we look at the skateboard chassis, don’t be framed by the first impression of “Oh, it’s just a non-carrying body”. Back then, there were no electric vehicles, so there were no battery packs weighing hundreds of kilograms, no wire-by-wire steering systems that could eliminate the steering column, no wire-by-wire braking systems, and no fashionable slogan of "software-defined cars." The skateboard chassis plan promoted by start-up companies and the capital market today is actually a product of the new environment and new elements of the new era of electric vehicles, steering mechanism innovation, automotive software, savages and capital entering the automotive industry. The next particularly simple and crude definition: Skateboard chassis = non-load-bearing body structure + wire-by-wire steering/braking system + integration of battery pack and chassis

The various technologies that lead to the emergence of skateboard chassis are listed below:

With the technical iteration of the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture, the centralization of computing units. The in-vehicle system interacts with the underlying data of the vehicle more and more frequently, and the integration with the vehicle is getting closer and closer. More customized designs and function optimizations will require "hardware upgrades". The intelligent chassis has gradually become the centralized computing unit of the whole vehicle, and the bodywork of the whole vehicle has gradually become an extended "application" based on the open interface of the chassis
Intelligent driving technology: The industry believes that unmanned driving will eventually come, so the "cockpit" based on "manual driving" will eventually disappear or become a "function". The future smart cockpit will gradually become polarized. "Carrying people" and "carrying objects". The polarized common technology is the smart electric chassis wire control technology.
Active suspension technology: The suspension system can dynamically and adaptively adjust the stiffness and damping of the suspension according to changes in the vehicle's motion state, road conditions, and loads, so that the suspension system is always in the best vibration reduction state. It is called an active suspension system. At present, there are mainly air suspension, hydraulic suspension, electromagnetic suspension and electronic hydraulic suspension.
High energy ratio battery BMS module and thermal management technology
Vehicle Control and Domain Controller Technology Based on Computing Power Iteration
Scalable (instantly plug-in) electronic and electrical architecture technology to achieve simplification, expansion, and sustainable optimization.

From the perspective of the entire cost structure of the chassis, more than 50% are batteries, and battery companies benefit more. Then combined with my industry information, I can roughly judge that the skateboard chassis may eventually benefit companies with strong software and hardware capabilities such as Huawei and Xiaomi, which is especially capable of engineering optimization; it is even more beneficial to CATL, BYD Blade, and Honeycomb Dagger, which are capable of CTC.

As mentioned above, the skateboard chassis has the advantages of high integration, high versatility, and high expandability. It is an important development direction under the trend of vehicle electrification and intelligence. It can reduce product development cycles, reduce R&D costs, enrich smart ecology, Improve the competitiveness of space utilization and other aspects.

2. Who are the players?

In fact, the concept of skateboard chassis was put forward by GM as early as 2002, but it was not until last year with the launch of Rivian that it officially became popular. In addition to Rivian, Canoo, REE and other foreign new car companies have gradually commercialized the skateboard chassis, and there is even news that Apple will also use this chassis structure in its cars.

Rivian is a self-built brand that builds its own cars, and has released a pickup, an SUV, and a Van van. It has been said that it will export skateboard chassis to Ford to make electric vehicles, but it has not yet come to fruition;

Canoo's model sounds the most complicated. They manufacture vehicles through third parties, then use their own brands to face end users, and provide innovative vehicle subscription services. Canoo’s design is very pioneering and has attracted the attention of many industries. It was reported that the chassis was exported to Hyundai to make cars, and it was acquired by Apple, but in the end there was no follow-up;

REE emphasizes a high degree of modularity and flexible combination. There is a configurator on the website, you can configure a vehicle chassis solution you want with a few clicks of the mouse, the concept is a bit magical.

In China, skateboard chassis players are also increasing. For example, Tuopu Group announced in February this year that it plans to establish a new wholly-owned subsidiary Tuopu Skateboard Chassis (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. (tentative name) in Hangzhou Bay New District, Ningbo City, to provide customers with skateboards with the best performance, quality and cost. Chassis products.

Bosch participated in the Pre-A+ round of financing of Yopao Technology through its subsidiary Boyuan Capital in September 2021. At the same time, Bosch also reached an in-depth cooperation with Yopao Technology, launching a series of technical cooperation in the field of integrated chassis, and fully promoting Development of "UP Super Chassis". It is reported that the UP super chassis was officially launched at the beginning of this year.

It is no secret that Ningde era laid out skateboard chassis. Although the market share of Ningde era is far ahead, market competition has increased, and the hidden worries of domestic power battery overcapacity have surfaced. Under such circumstances, the Ningde era has already launched a diversified strategic layout, including battery replacement, artificial intelligence, etc., as well as skateboard chassis.

At the end of October 2022, CATL signed a memorandum of understanding on global strategic cooperation with VinFast, a Vietnamese car company. The two parties will cooperate on CIIC (CATL Integrated Intelligent Chassis) skateboard chassis and other projects. According to the agreement, CATL and VinFast will explore various forms of cooperation on the CIIC skateboard chassis based on the existing CTP (High Efficiency Teaming) product supporting cooperation, helping VinFast quickly open up the global market.

In late November 2022, Motan Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Motan Technology") invested by Sangio Group, Times Xin'an and Leo Group was established in Shanghai. It is reported that the main business scope of Motan Technology is the research and development and application of special chassis for new energy extended range and smart cockpit. Motan Technology’s three-electric and integrated electric chassis (skateboard chassis) and other technologies are mainly derived from Times Xin’an, a holding subsidiary of Ningde Times. The first product will be a special chassis for high-end smart caravans, and then extended to new energy high-end commercial vehicles. , Commercial vehicles.

At about the same time, an announcement from Alter showed that the company, Ningde Times and Gecko Technology officially signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement on November 18, 2022. Cooperation. The agreement came into effect on that day and will end on December 31, 2026.

According to the announcement, the main content of the tripartite cooperation is the business cooperation between Ningde Times and its subsidiaries, Gecko Technology and Altec on new energy vehicles (including but not limited to scalable new energy vehicles based on skateboard chassis), of which Altec is based on Gecko Technology commissioned it to provide design services for the production of new energy vehicles. At the same time, Ningde Times will also cooperate with Gecko Technology and Alter in the new energy vehicle battery swap business, providing the latter two with a complete battery swap solution.

The stake means that Ningde Times and Gecko Technology will establish closer cooperation in the field of skateboard chassis, which is expected to speed up the related process.

Of course, this does not mean that the chances of winning a skateboard chassis are great. In fact, this field still faces many risks. Rivian, which was sought after by many stars, suddenly fell out of favor, which revealed that the skateboard chassis still faced problems such as immature technology. In addition, industry insiders also pointed out that how many companies will really buy into the skateboard chassis, especially whether the OEMs will be willing to outsource the core chassis, there is still a lot of uncertainty at present.

3. What problems exist?

1. Can the chassis be outsourced?

For electric vehicles, the chassis is a big deal. It integrates motors, batteries, smart driving chips, steering brakes, and chassis of running gear, and the BOM may account for about 60-70%. Such a high proportion of things are outsourced, and the OEM itself has changed from a fat man to a thin man, and its business has become thin. Do business, feasible? Car companies used to have their own chassis capabilities, so are these intellectual property rights no longer needed? Will most of the existing four-digit engineering and supply chain teams be abolished? In some car companies that need to talk about politics or brand face, if the chassis is purchased outside, does it mean that the company admits that it cannot make a better chassis?

2. Can you make the chassis well?

Could a third party make a better chassis? If such a thing can be easily made, does it mean that the century-old GM, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are quite incompetent?

Compared with the traditional load-bearing body structure made by car companies, does the skateboard chassis made by a third party have incremental value for the final car buyer? You can upload and control online, in fact, car companies can also upload. You can use CTC (Battery Pack Chassis Integration) technology, and it is not impossible for car companies. Also, if the difference is not obvious, why should the business be handed over to outsiders?

3. Can the chassis really be standardized?

Can cars with different product definitions and products with different pricing ranges be matched to a set of chassis?

Just like, can Nike design basketball shoes with the same sole for LeBron, Curry, Yao Ming and me? Everyone knows that I am a more tolerant person, and I don't mind. But I'm not sure if the three of them mind. If it is always necessary to customize different chassis for different vehicles, which will cost additional engineering development costs, then the necessity of the existence of professional chassis suppliers does not seem so high.

4. What are the benefits of the emergence of skateboard chassis?

Companies like skateboard chassis are a factor in the reorganization of the industrial chain in the new era. It is somewhat like a Tier 0.5, which helps some car companies take care of the complex chassis, but in fact the user experience is less and less direct. Let these car companies turn around faster and work hard on other more efficient and useful links in the industry chain to improve their user experience and win a place in the brutal competition in the market.

1. The "layman" travels lightly

Some things may not be impossible for oneself. It's because it's too late to do it by yourself, or it takes up too much of your energy, or it's not necessary to do it yourself.

For some car companies, such as Volkswagen General Motors, chassis technology is proficient, and automotive engineering monsters who have been practicing for a hundred years. It is too inappropriate for these companies to buy other people's chassis without using their own chassis.

But what about Didi, Meituan, Oppo, Pony.ai? If these non-car companies want to own the car business, they can build the chassis by themselves. But this requires a team of thousands of people, three years, a billion-level capital investment, and the valuable management resources of the big boss.

Buying a third-party chassis is an option to consider. If they win in the automotive field, it must not be because of the chassis, but the unique ability derived from their original track other than the chassis. For example, Didi’s travel business layout and its ability to face different users from the first-tier to the eighteenth-tier nationwide online, such as Pony.ai’s leading algorithm for autonomous driving, and Oppo’s ability to connect the ecology of cars and mobile phones, and leverage its hundreds of millions of mobile phone bases. disk advantage.

2. Let the whole industry avoid reinventing wheels on the chassis

From the perspective of a single mobile phone company, the emergence of Android may be a bad thing. Such as Nokia and Motorola. They were originally giants with leading product capabilities, but after the emergence of Android, it is equivalent to implementing "double reduction" + "property tax" in the global mobile phone industry. The two mobile phone giants with the most old assets and the most comprehensive business investment are very Almost dead. As a result, the mobile phone industry has achieved "common prosperity" in the new era, and a group of Android-based smartphone companies from China have emerged to fill the vacancy of the original giants.

From the perspective of the entire mobile phone industry, the emergence of Android is of positive significance. It reduces the threshold for developing smartphone operating systems and the cost of a single machine (double reduction). Although it also takes away some revenue (real estate tax) through its own system and core software, it objectively enables mobile phone brands to focus more on doing business. things outside the system.

From the perspective of a single successful car company, the emergence of a standard chassis company is not welcome. This may lower the knowledge barriers they have accumulated through hard work.

But from the perspective of the entire auto industry, especially from the perspective of new entrants in the industry, if a standardized chassis does appear, it will be positive. The road flight team chatted 1V1 with more than 100 electric vehicle users from all over the world this year, and only 2-3 people would share their chassis experience with us. The buttocks of most ordinary people are far less sensitive than those of car critics. Through long johns and jeans, they can insist that they can distinguish the layers brought to them by the seat, the body under the seat, the suspension under the body, and the wheels on the suspension. I feel at the bottom level, insisting that 8 seconds is enough for 0-100 acceleration, and 9 seconds is not enough, as if the user brings his own stopwatch while driving while pinching.

Every year on the car chassis, the entire industry spends tens of billions of dollars in research and development funds, and no black technology has been developed. From the perspective of ordinary people, the money was not spent wisely. It is far less efficient than the division of labor for mobile phone chips: Qualcomm supplies half of the industry's mobile phone chips, and the R&D expenses here are particularly worthwhile.

The good picture is:

Professional skateboard chassis manufacturers, as Tier 1 suppliers, are responsible for designing and developing serialized and platform-based chassis products for selection;
At the same time, assist the cooperative brand owners to create personalized upper body hardware with exclusive brand tonality;
Brand owners are responsible for importing and maintaining their own software ecology.

This is a bit like the design, development and production mode of most smartphone brands today.

That is, brand owners define products, select existing hardware products on the market (or require suppliers to customize development), such as CPU, camera module, battery module, screen panel module, etc., and then a group represented by Foxconn etc. All OEM factories are responsible for manufacturing.

If the requirements are not high, the OEM foundry can even provide the brand owners with a complete set of basic product solutions that have been tested in practice. The disadvantages are that the personality is not clear and the performance is not outstanding.

Smartphone development and production model

5. Different people have different opinions on technical difficulties

The technical difficulties on the bright side seem to be:

CTC battery chassis integration - the battery cells are directly integrated into the chassis, maximizing the reuse of chassis space, and the high integration makes maintenance and replacement difficult;
Control-by-wire technology—use electronic signals instead of mechanical hard connections to control the accelerator (electric vehicles have been fully realized), braking and steering, and maximize the reduction of mechanical force transmission and control mechanisms. The disadvantage is that it is only controlled by electronic systems without mechanical systems. Redundant backup, doubtful safety and reliability;
In-wheel motor—the combination of the wheel and the drive motor maximizes the reuse of the wheel space;

The above three points, in the application direction of the skateboard chassis, the core purpose is to reserve enough personalized display space for the passenger compartment...

These are actually not too big of a problem. Each independent sector has a lot of related companies in research and development and promotion, and it is only a matter of time before they are finally integrated.

The key lies in the contradiction between the structural safety of the skateboard chassis and the core selling point. As mentioned earlier, the core selling point is the decoupling of the upper and lower car bodies, and the upper car body supports personalized and rapid development, but the vehicle safety department does not think so.

Now that it has been decoupled, the skateboard chassis as a platform can be made very safe and mature. But the difficulty lies in the upper body, a part that requires rapid development.

The safety of the whole vehicle depends on your solid chassis and strong structure, which is useless. Due to the low profile of the skateboard chassis, the structural safety of the upper vehicle body is even more important, because the burden of collision protection for the passenger compartment falls on it. !

Comparison of Traditional Passenger Car Integrated Cage Body Structure and Skateboard Chassis Models

As a result, the upper body also has to be strengthened at an epic level, and special design and extensive verification are required to cooperate with the coupling points of the upper and lower bodies, which just brings uncertain factors to the upper body that "supports personalized rapid development".

Therefore, how to coordinate the "fastness" required by "individualized rapid development of the upper body" and the "stability" required by the collision safety of the whole vehicle will be a major challenge for the future development of skateboard chassis technology.

Source | Yanzhi Automobile

Understanding smart car skateboard chassis in one article

1. What is a skateboard chassis

2. Who are the players?

3. What problems exist?

4. What are the benefits of the emergence of skateboard chassis?

5. Different people have different opinions on technical difficulties

Guess you like