Read the smart car skateboard chassis in one article

01 What is a skateboard chassis

The so-called skateboard chassis is to integrate the battery, electric transmission system, suspension, brakes and other components on the chassis in advance to realize the body and Chassis separation, design decoupling. Based on this type of platform, car companies can significantly reduce early R&D and testing costs, while quickly responding to market demand to create different models. Especially in the era of driverless driving, the layout of the car is no longer centered on driving, but will focus on space attributes. The skateboard-type chassis can provide more possibilities for the development of the upper cabin.

As shown in the picture above, of course when we look at the skateboard chassis, don’t be confused by “Oh, it’s a non-load-bearing body” when you come up. First impression frame. There were no electric cars back then, so there were no battery packs of hundreds of kilograms, no steering-by-wire systems that could eliminate the steering column, no brake-by-wire systems, and no fashionable slogan of “software-defined cars.” The skateboard chassis solutions promoted by start-up companies and the capital market today are actually the product of the new era of electric vehicles, steering mechanism innovation, automotive softwareization, and the entry of barbarians and capital into the automotive industry. These new environments and new elements are the product of these new environments.

The next very simple and crude definition: skateboard chassis = non-load-bearing body structure wire-by-wire steering/braking system battery pack and chassis integration

We list the various technologies that promote the creation of skateboard chassis as follows:

• #With the technological iteration of the electronic and electrical architecture of the vehicle, the centralization of computing units. The in-vehicle system interacts with the vehicle's underlying data more and more frequently, and is increasingly integrated with the vehicle, resulting in more customized designs and functional optimization that require "hardware upgrades". The intelligent chassis has gradually become the centralized computing unit of the entire vehicle, and the entire vehicle has gradually become an extended "application" based on the open interface of the chassis
• Intelligent driving technology: The industry believes that driverless driving will eventually come. Then the "cockpit" based on "artificial driving" will eventually disappear or turn into a "function". The smart cockpit of the future will gradually become polarized. "Carrying people" and "carrying things". The common technology of both polarizations is the smart 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 parameters such as the car's motion state, road conditions, and load. The system that keeps the suspension system always in the best vibration damping state is called 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 (instant plug-in and unplug) 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% is batteries, and battery companies benefit more. Combining my industry information, it can be roughly judged that the skateboard chassis may ultimately be beneficial to Huawei, a company with strong software and hardware capabilities, and Xiaomi, which is particularly good at engineering optimization; it will be 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 scalability. It is an important development direction under the trend of vehicle electrification and intelligence. It is competitive in terms of product development cycle, reducing R&D costs, enriching the smart ecosystem, and improving space utilization.

02 Who are the players?

In fact, the concept of skateboard chassis was proposed by General Motors as early as 2002, but it was not until the launch of Rivian last year that it officially came to the forefront. In addition to Rivian, a number of new foreign car companies such as Canoo and REE have gradually commercialized skateboard chassis. There is even news that Apple will also use this chassis architecture to build cars.

Rivian is a self-built brand that builds its own vehicles, and has already released a pickup truck, an SUV, and a Van. I once said that I would export skateboard chassis to Ford to build electric vehicles, but so far it has not come to fruition;

Canoo’s model sounds the most complex. They manufacture vehicles through third parties, then use their own brands to target end users, and provide innovative vehicle subscription services. Canoo's design is very pioneering and has attracted the attention of many industries. It was once reported that the chassis was exported to Hyundai to build cars, and it was once reported that it was acquired by Apple, but in the end nothing happened;

REE emphasizes a high degree of modularity and flexible combination. There is a configurator on the website. You can configure the vehicle chassis plan 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, Top Group announced in February this year that it plans to establish a new wholly-owned subsidiary, Top Skateboard Chassis (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. (tentative name) in Hangzhou Bay New District, Ningbo, to provide customers with skateboards with optimal performance, quality and cost. Chassis products.

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

The layout of skateboard chassis in the CATL era is no longer a secret. Although CATL currently has a far leading market share, market competition has increased, and concerns over domestic power battery overcapacity have surfaced. Under this circumstance, CATL has 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 Vietnamese car company VinFast. The two parties will carry out projects such as CIIC (CATL Integrated Intelligent Chassis) skateboard chassis. cooperate. According to the agreement, based on the existing cooperation in CTP (high-efficiency grouping) product packages, CATL and VinFast will explore various forms of cooperation in CIIC skateboard chassis to help VinFast quickly open up the global market.

##In late November 2022, Motan Technology Co., Ltd. was invested by Xinjiao Group, Times Xin'an and Leo Group. The company (hereinafter referred to as "Motan Technology") was established in Shanghai. It is reported that the main business scope of Motan Technology is the research and development and application of new energy extended-range special chassis 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 CATL. The first product will be a special chassis for high-end smart RVs, and will later be extended to new energy high-end commercial vehicles. , commercial vehicles.

At about the same time, an announcement from Alt showed that the company officially signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with CATL and Gecko Technology on November 18, 2022, and planned to develop skateboard chassis, Cooperation will be carried out in the fields of new energy vehicle business and new energy vehicle battery replacement business. The agreement takes effect on that day and will end on December 31, 2026.

According to the announcement, the main content of the three-party cooperation is the development of new energy vehicles (including but not limited to scalability based on skateboard chassis) by CATL and its subsidiaries, Gecko Technology and Alt. New energy vehicles) business cooperation, in which Alt provides design services for the production of new energy vehicles entrusted by Gecko Technology. At the same time, CATL will also cooperate with Gecko Technology and Alt in the battery swap business of new energy vehicles to provide the latter two with complete battery swap solutions.

This investment means that CATL 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 making a skateboard chassis has a good chance of winning. In fact, this field still faces many risks. The sudden fall from favor of Rivian, which is sought after by many stars, exposed that the skateboard chassis still faces problems such as insufficient technological maturity. In addition, industry insiders also pointed out that there is still great uncertainty about how many companies will actually buy into skateboard chassis, especially whether OEMs will be willing to outsource the core chassis.

03 What are the problems?

1. Can the chassis be outsourced?

For electric vehicles, the chassis is a big deal. It integrates the motor, battery, intelligent driving chip, steering brake and chassis of the walking mechanism, and the BOM proportion may be around 60-70%. With such a high proportion of things outsourced, the OEM itself has changed from a fat man to a thin man, and its business has become thin. Is it feasible to start a business? Car companies originally have their own chassis capabilities, so why don’t they use these intellectual property rights? Will most of the existing four-digit engineering and supply chain teams be eliminated? For some car companies that need to talk about politics or respect their brand, if they purchase chassis from outside, does it mean that the company admits that it cannot build a better chassis?

2. Can the chassis be made well?

Can a third party build a better chassis? If such a thing can be easily made, does it mean that the century-old manufacturers General Motors, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are quite incompetent?

Compared with the traditional load-bearing body structure made by the car company itself, does the skateboard chassis made by a third party have incremental value to the final car buyer? You can upload online transmission control, but car companies can also upload it. If you can use CTC (battery pack chassis integration) technology, it is not impossible for car companies to do so. Or if the difference is not obvious, why should we hand over the business to outsiders?

3. Can the chassis really be standardized?

Can cars with different product definitions and products in different price ranges be matched to one 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 relatively tolerant person, so I don’t mind. But I'm not sure the three of them mind. If different chassis have to be customized for different vehicles, and additional engineering and development costs are incurred, then the necessity for the existence of professional chassis suppliers does not seem so high.

04 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 has something like a Tier 0.5, which helps some car companies take care of the chassis, a complex thing, but in fact the user experience accounts for an increasingly indirect role. This allows these car companies to 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. "Layman" travels lightly

Some things may not be something you can't do. It’s because you don’t have enough time to do it yourself, or it takes up too much of your energy, or there’s no need to do it yourself.

For some car companies, such as Volkswagen and General Motors, they have superb chassis technology and are automotive engineering monsters who have practiced for a hundred years. It is inappropriate for these companies to leave their own chassis unused and buy other people's.

But what if it’s Didi, Meituan, Oppo, or Pony.ai? If these non-car companies want to have a car business, they can build their own chassis. But this requires a team of thousands of people, takes three years, requires capital investment on the order of billions, and also involves the valuable management resources of the big boss.

Buying a third-party chassis is an option that can be considered. If they win in the automotive field, it will definitely not be because of the chassis, but the unique capabilities other than the chassis that stem from their original track. For example, Didi’s travel business layout and its ability to face different users online from the first to the eighteenth tier across the country, such as Pony.ai’s leading self-driving algorithm, and Oppo’s ability to connect the car and mobile phone ecology and leverage its hundreds of millions of mobile phone base disk advantage.

2. Let the entire industry stop reinventing the wheel

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

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

From the perspective of a single successful automobile company, the emergence of a standard chassis company is not welcome. This may lower the barriers to knowledge they have worked so hard to accumulate.

But from the perspective of the entire automobile industry, especially from the perspective of new entrants to the industry, if a standardized chassis really emerges, it is of positive significance. The road flight team had 1V1 chats with more than 100 electric vehicle users from all over the country this year, and only 2-3 people could share their chassis experience with us. The buttocks of most ordinary people are far less sensitive than car reviewers. They can insist on distinguishing the layers brought to them by the seats, the body under the seats, the suspension under the body, and the wheels on the suspension through long johns and jeans. layer experience, insisting that 0-100 acceleration in 8 seconds is enough, but 9 seconds is not enough, as if the user has a stopwatch while driving.

Every year, the entire industry spends hundreds of billions of research and development funds on automobile chassis, but there is no black technology. From the perspective of ordinary people, this money is not spent wisely. It is far less efficient than the division of labor in mobile phone chips: Qualcomm supplies half of the industry's mobile phone chips, so the research and development expenses here are particularly worthwhile.

The beautiful picture is:

• As a Tier 1 supplier, a professional skateboard chassis manufacturer is responsible for the design and development of serialized, Platform-based chassis products are available for selection;
• At the same time, we assist the cooperative brands to create personalized upper body hardware with exclusive brand tones;
• Brand owners are responsible for importing and maintaining their own software ecosystem.

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

That is, the brand owner defines the product and selects existing hardware products on the market (or requires suppliers to customize development), such as CPU, camera module, battery module, and screen panel module Wait, and then a number of OEM factories represented by Foxconn will be responsible for manufacturing.

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

Instructions on the development and production model of smartphones

05 Technical difficulties are a matter of opinion

The technical difficulties on the surface seem to be:

• CTC battery chassis integration - the battery cells are directly integrated into the chassis to maximize the reuse of chassis space. High integration makes maintenance and replacement difficult;
• Control-by-wire technology - uses electronic signals to replace mechanical hard connections to control the throttle (electric vehicles have been fully realized), braking and steering, maximizing the reduction of mechanical force transmission and control mechanisms. The disadvantage is that only electronic system control is used, without mechanical The system is redundant and the safety and reliability are questionable;
• In-wheel motor - the wheel is combined with the drive motor to maximize the reuse of wheel space;

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

These are actually all It’s not a big problem. Each independent sector has a lot of related companies that are developing and promoting it. 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 of the vehicle.

As mentioned before, the core selling point is the decoupling of the upper and lower bodies. The upper body supports personalized and rapid development, but the vehicle safety department does not think so.

Now that it has been decoupled, the skateboard chassis itself can be made very safe and mature as a platform. But the difficulty lies in the car body, a part that needs to be developed quickly.

For the safety of the entire vehicle, it is useless just to rely on a solid chassis and strong structure. Due to the low profile of the skateboard chassis, the structural safety of the upper body is even more important, because , the burden of collision protection for the passenger compartment falls on it!

Comparison between traditional passenger car integrated cage body structure and skateboard chassis model

As a result, the upper body of the car must also be strengthened to an epic level, and special design and extensive verification must be carried out in conjunction with the coupling points of the upper and lower body. This just adds to the problem of "supporting personalized rapid development" The upper car body brings uncertain factors.

Therefore, how to coordinate the "fast" required by the "personalized rapid development of the upper body" and the "stable" required by the collision safety of the entire vehicle will be the skateboard chassis technology A major challenge for future development.

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