In January 2020, two days before the Chinese New Year of the Rat, Ning Hao’s micro-movie “Bayier’s Spring Festival” was released, telling a story about a child’s simple yearning for home and the Spring Festival, which triggered a series of events. Looking at the buildings and clothing from the 90s, and listening to the thick Shanxi dialect, an old BMW car in the distance catches the eye.
From the earliest “Bayier” to the well-known “BMW”, BMW has been in China for nearly 30 years. In the development of these 30 years, BMW has already settled in China. Since 2010, the total investment of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd.’s Shenyang production base has exceeded RMB 73 billion, making it the largest production base of BMW Group.
In the recent years of the global wave of electrification, BMW’s electrification process has undoubtedly been moving rapidly, and BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. is ready to play a more important role in BMW’s electrification process.
Since its launch in late 2020, iX3 has maintained a growing trend in sales. In the first 11 months of 2021, the total sales of iX3 exceeded 17,000 units, which has accumulated more experience for BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. in producing new energy vehicles and laid a solid foundation for the production of more high-level electric products in the future.
Importance of BMW in China and Globally
The iX3 is the first to adopt BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive technology. The perfect combination of powerful electric motors and innovative battery technology brings pure electric driving pleasure to a whole new level. Secondly, it is the first pure electric vehicle produced by BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. and the sixth new energy vehicle. Finally, the iX3 is also the first global model produced by BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. for China and the world, manufactured only in the Shenyang factory in China. This is BMW’s first time and the first among these multinational carmakers to fully entrust the production of a global model to China.
In 2020, due to the impact of the pandemic, BMW Group’s global sales fell from 2.5384 million units in 2019 to 2.3251 million units, with almost all global market sales declining. However, the Chinese market was an exception, with sales increasing from 723,600 units in 2019 to 777,300 units in 2020, a year-on-year growth of 7.4%, which is the best sales performance BMW has achieved since entering the Chinese market in 1994!
After many years of deep cultivation, China has gradually developed into a leading strategic market and the largest single sales market of the BMW Group. It has further upgraded to a global innovation center and a new energy production research and development base.
BMW Brilliance’s Shenyang production base has become BMW’s largest automobile production base globally, surpassing BMW’s second-largest manufacturing base in Spartanburg, USA.
Over the past nearly 30 years of deep cultivation in China, BMW Brilliance has established a complete support system in the upstream and downstream industries of the automotive industry, and a group of suppliers have made progress with BMW during this period. This, at the same time, has given BMW Brilliance the confidence to increase sales and expand factory, like CATL, the global leader in electric vehicle batteries, Xingchen Power, the domestic leader in crankshaft, Fuyao Glass, the global automotive glass which meets the international standards, Shougang, the giant in automotive steel industry, and so on.
iX3 from China to the World
Amid a prosperous trend, BMW’s sales of new energy vehicles in China have also been rapidly increasing. As of November 2021, BMW has delivered over 130,000 new energy vehicles to customers in China.
During these 10 years, BMW Brilliance has been continuing to deepen the layout of electrification and intelligence, until the launch of iX3, which can be understood as a “great achievement after 10 years”.
CLAR Platform
The platform used by iX3 comes from BMW’s CLAR platform. At the beginning of the CLAR platform, BMW specifically carried out research and development planning to be compatible with the production and manufacturing of pure electric vehicles.
Based on the research and development and manufacturing experience of the i-series pure electric vehicle and years of experience in fuel and PHEV vehicle production, BMW deliberately designed the CLAR platform as a flexible architecture compatible with ICE, PHEV, and BEV, officially called “smart vehicle architectures”. This architecture can flexibly switch the production of power systems on the same production line according to the market situation, which is comparatively practical and effectively answers the “century-old problem” of both electric and fuel power.
Fifth-generation BMW eDrive Electric Drive System
On iX3, BMW has also applied the fifth-generation eDrive electric drive system for the first time, with a 30\% increase in power density. With this “three-in-one” motor system on iX3, the maximum power output is 210 kW, the peak torque is 400 N·m, and it can push the 2.2-ton iX3 to achieve a speed of breaking 100 km/h in 6.8 seconds, and the top speed can also reach 180 km/h (electronically limited).
Apart from the powerful power output, the advantage of the highly integrated electric drive system lies in its high motor efficiency of up to 93\%. On iX3, the average energy consumption per 100 km of this system is 16.7 kWh.
Interestingly, the direct competitor of iX3, the 350 version of Mercedes EQC, has the same total power as iX3 with a slightly larger torque, and even the battery capacity is very close at 79.2 kWh. However, both the acceleration and the range are worse than the rear-wheel-drive single-motor iX3, indicating that BMW’s fifth-generation eDrive electric drive system performs excellently in efficiency and power.
In the “three-in-one” motor system of iX3, neither the mainstream AC induction asynchronous motor nor the DC permanent magnet synchronous motor is used, but an AC synchronous motor with a non-rare-earth design is adopted, namely an excited synchronous motor.
Because the AC induction asynchronous motor has large power, but low efficiency. While the DC permanent magnet synchronous motor has high efficiency, it is prone to the demagnetization phenomenon of permanent magnet at high loads, making the power difficult to be high. At the same time, the permanent magnet used in the DC permanent magnet synchronous motor, neodymium-iron-boron, requires rare earth materials, which does not conform to BMW’s concept of sustainable production.
Therefore, in the fifth-generation eDrive system, BMW adopts an AC synchronous motor with a non-rare-earth design, which takes into account the advantages of high power and high efficiency.
Battery
As for the battery, iX3 uses the 811 nickel-cobalt-manganese square cells from CATL. The entire battery pack consists of 10 modules composed of 188 cells, with a capacity of 80 kWh and a total weight of 518 kg. The range under NEDC standard is 500 km.Although this set of batteries come from CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd.), BMW participated in the battery development process. During the testing of the iX3 from battery to vehicle, BMW’s rigorous standard for global application could only be met after the battery was subjected to as many as 128 mechanical verification tests, including fire, seawater immersion, drop, needle punching, vibration, compression, and 994 software function tests.
The entire battery pack is made of high-strength aluminum alloy materials and employs a crumple zone structure to reduce the damage of external forces during collisions. The internal structure of the battery pack is strengthened by rib plates, enabling the battery pack to be firmly connected to the chassis and the body, and to perform as a load-bearing carrier, sharing impact forces and reducing damage to the battery.
In addition to dealing with impacts, BMW has also added insulation film and insulation pads between batteries and implemented the world’s first power battery cell insulation spraying, providing three layers of protection between adjacent cells.
To ensure that the battery performance is maximized, in addition to the common “sandwich” structure, BMW has also set up multiple zones of liquid temperature control management at the bottom of the battery pack module, maintaining battery temperature during extremely low temperatures and minimizing the sacrifice of battery energy consumption using PTC and thermal pumps.
Advanced Driving Assistance
In terms of advanced driving assistance, the iX3 has left a good impression on many of our editors with the following configuration:
- Seven cameras (consisting of a tri-camera setup in the front and four bird’s eye view cameras, with the former participating in perception)
- Five millimeter-wave radars
- Twelve ultrasonic radars
- Mobileye EyeQ4 autonomous driving chip with a processing power of 2.5 tops.
During previous test drives, the iX3’s “silent” features also include a capacitive induction steering wheel and adaptive kinetic energy recovery.
The capacitive induction steering wheel has left a good impression on me. During cruising, it prevents dangerous situations caused by turning the steering wheel and allows the vehicle to understand your intentions through touch.And the adaptive kinetic energy recovery system will use millimeter-wave radar to detect the driving trend of the preceding vehicle, and automatically “brake” to recover power based on the distance between the two vehicles, aiming for a seamless design.
Cabin Intelligence
The core of the iX3 cabin’s information interaction lies in the two 12.3-inch screens on the instrument panel and the center console. In fact, this iDrive 7.0 infotainment system has already been widely used in various BMW models, and many people should be familiar with the gesture recognition operation supported by the system.
BMW has integrated localized applications such as Tmall Genie, QQ Music, Himalaya, and Watermelon Video, and can also realize interconnected smart home operations. At the same time, the system combines Tencent Mini Programs to expand application scenarios.
Huachen BMW’s Unlocking Achievement
Huachen BMW has already launched two plug-in hybrid models, the 530Le and X1 XDrive30e, in the market in 2015 and 2016, respectively, and they are industry leaders in various segments. Subsequently, in 2017, BMW Group constructed the Huachen BMW Power Battery Center, the first battery center outside Germany capable of producing complete battery equipment.
Just 3 years later in September 2020, the more advanced Huachen BMW Power Battery Center Phase II was completed and put into operation, becoming BMW Group’s first global production base for the 5th generation of BMW power batteries. Its product is the one first used in iX3.
Currently, more than 500 out of BMW’s over 600 dealerships in China have completed BMW i Business Certification. By the end of this year, BMW will provide access to 360,000 charging piles for vehicle owners, including 150,000 DC fast charging piles.
BMW’s exclusive parking and charging services for the brand have already covered 9 airports in 5 cities and more than 10 popular business districts nationwide, providing great convenience for the use of BMW electric vehicles.
It can be said that choosing China as the driving force in the future competition of electric and smart vehicles is undoubtedly one of BMW’s most correct and best choices.
Final Words
BMW Greater China CEO and President, Mr. Jochen Goller, stated: “In this era of industry transformation, BMW persists in placing customers at the center of our focus and driving continuous innovation in the field of future mobility represented by A.C.E.S, accelerating transformation and leading future mobility in this era of industry transformation.”
“A.C.E.S” refers to Automated, Connected, Electrified, and Shared, which coincides with China’s automotive industry development path during this “unprecedented great change in a century.”
In terms of strategic guidance, BMW has upgraded from “In China, For China” in 2018 to “In China, For China and For the World” by adding “and For the World”. Although seemingly simple, the strategic significance of the Chinese market has fundamentally changed.
As BMW’s largest single market and the second-largest research and development center, China will serve as the driving force for BMW Group in future intelligent pure electric vehicle competition, injecting stronger innovation capability. In the future, we will see not only more “down-to-earth” BMW products but also BMW replicating Chinese experience onto global models.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.