“Chinadoes100” media under Outing Bai Ren focuses on the evolution of the automobile transportation industry chain

Author: Zheng Wen

Recently, U-park Technology released two products, “UP Super Chassis” and “UP SPACE Super Body”, once again bringing skateboard chassis back to the public’s attention.

“It’s certain that it will become mainstream.” U-Run Technology founder and CEO Li Peng is very confident about the future of skateboard chassis, “By 2024 or 2025, we believe that this industry will come to a consensus, that the skateboard chassis is the future. If someone releases their own product based on the skateboard chassis in 2022, I believe everyone will follow it more quickly.”

He believes that by utilizing the UP Super Chassis, all carmakers in any scenario can focus on personalizing the car body experience: styling, space and intelligence, and also concentrate on the areas that best reflect user value: product definition, software integration, and user operations, to create the third smart mobile space that goes beyond cars and achieve true “freedom to build cars.”

The Android of the Automotive Industry?

In 2002, General Motors released a concept car called Hy-wire, which was very innovative – “line control chassis + hydrogen power.”

The body and chassis were separated. The chassis was a nearly flat “skateboard-style design.” In addition, it applied the line control technology originally belonging to the aviation field, abandoning traditional hydraulic steering and braking structures.

It can be seen that if the hydrogen storage tank is replaced with a battery pack, its layout of the battery system, thermal management system, and motor system is exactly the same as the current electric vehicle “skateboard chassis.” At that time, perhaps GM did not know it would erupt into such great energy.

Experience is accumulated bit by bit, and strength is built up over time. In 2020, the “skateboard chassis” became popular.

In November 2020, a US start-up company called Rivian created an industry record. Its first-day trading was high and its intraday gain exceeded 53%. Its market value exceeded US$100 billion, which surpassed traditional automakers such as GM, Ford, and Honda. This company is the main promoter of skateboard chassis and has also produced a mass-produced version.

The skateboard chassis consists of mechanical structural parts and electronic structural parts, which can be divided into three parts: front axle, middle axle, and rear axle. The front axle includes front suspension, subframe, motor, and steering gear. The middle axle includes battery, anti-collision structure, and thermal management system. The rear axle includes rear suspension, subframe, and motor.The skateboard chassis company integrates and designs various components such as powertrain, suspension, braking, steering, battery, electric drive system, and suspension in a chassis resembling a skateboard.

According to the product introduction of YouPao, there are four core technologies: the full-line control chassis, the plug-and-play mesh electronic and electrical architecture, the CTC battery system, and the highly integrated thermal management system. Among them, the line-controlled steering and braking are directly controlled by the electrical signal, which is decoupled from mechanical control to achieve modular control.

As Li Peng stated, as a platform-type software and hardware integrated operating system, the UP super chassis provides first-class intelligent electric vehicle “base chassis” for car makers: with a range of over 1000 kilometers and computing power of over 1000 TOPS, meeting the L4 and above automatic driving requirements in the future.

YouPao has already created five UP SPACE super cabins with distinct styles on the same standardized chassis, covering various passenger car and commercial vehicle product forms, including sedans, MPVs, SUVs, pickups, and box cars.

Undoubtedly, the birth of the skateboard chassis is in line with the trend towards electrification and intelligentization in the automotive industry. For instance, the cable-controlled operation system directly eliminates the mechanical connection and decouples the upper and lower bodies of the vehicle. The skateboard chassis company is the result of the recombination of the industrial chain in the new era of change.

In essence, the skateboard chassis also has a strong “sharing” attribute. If the standardized skateboard chassis is mass-produced, it can reduce waste of resources in the chassis aspect, which is indeed of great positive significance for the industry.

Former CEO of FCA, Marchionne, once said that investment in research and development by automotive brands accounts for too high a proportion of the company’s value compared to other industries. The average R&D spending for every 4.1 years is equivalent to the enterprise value itself, while the average level of the entire industry is about 20 years.

According to his estimate, 45% to 50% of the enormous automotive R&D expenses are spent where the consumers cannot perceive, and each competitor is spending the same money to do similar things. What Marchionne pointed out is a serious problem faced by the entire industry, where many enterprises are making a lot of repetitive investments, which we commonly call “reinventing the wheel.”

Some people liken the skateboard chassis to the Android operating system in the automotive industry, which is not without reason. Once upon a time, the emergence of the open-source Android system in the mobile phone industry directly reduced the threshold and cost of developing intelligent phone operating systems, while mobile phone manufacturers were able to focus on doing things outside the system.Currently, the skateboard chassis companies that have come to the attention of the public include Rivian, Canoo, Arrival, REE from abroad, and PIX from China. They all operate based on skateboard chassis, each with their own emphasis.

Rivian builds their own brand of cars and has already released a pickup truck, an SUV, and a van. Arrival focuses more on commercial transportation of people and cargo, with a more concentrated range of products. Canoo’s model is to manufacture vehicles through third parties, and then market them under their own brand while providing innovative vehicle subscription services. REE emphasizes high modularity and flexible combinations, and their website contains a configurator that allows users to configure the vehicle chassis plan they want.

PIX is currently focusing on the development of low-speed chassis, primarily targeting unmanned logistics vehicles in semi-closed scenarios. Based on modular architecture, PIX has developed seven chassis platforms that can be adapted to 23 types of vehicles, covering the 0.5m to 5m chassis size range, which can meet the non-standard and diversified needs of low-speed scenarios. Their product, PIXBOX, has been sold to foreign markets within six months of its release.

Looking at it from this perspective, compared to peers, YOUPAO’s business model planning seems somewhat vague, and their customer base is not very clear.

Who agrees? Who disagrees?

In the era of traditional energy, car differentiation came from the hardware itself, such as the engines and gearboxes of supercar brands, which were trade secrets. Therefore, hardware itself was the basis of differentiation at that time. However, today’s electric era has less differentiation in hardware.

“We believe that the space design and software development are what truly create the value of future intelligent electric vehicles.” Li Peng explained. The three UP SPACE super cabins unveiled at the press conference are based on the same skateboard chassis, and don’t affect the customization of the individual car body.

In other words, different car companies can customize individualized car bodies based on the same skateboard chassis according to their own needs.

The concept has attracted a lot of attention, and AutocarMax has been asked about their views on it by peers. In reality, the feasibility of skateboard chassis is not determined by those who build it.Perhaps traditional automakers may not be willing to accept such a transformation. In the past, the core R&D system of automakers included self-developed chassis and body, whereas the emergence of skateboard chassis has disrupted the existing ecological chain. Even if the modular design of skateboard chassis is accepted by the automakers, they are still willing to invest heavily in it.

The importance of the electric vehicle chassis is not something automakers are willing to give up, even if the importance factor of the chassis is reduced compared to traditional fuel vehicles. The integrated modules of the electric chassis include motors, batteries, intelligent driving chips, steering, brakes, etc., with a BOM (bill of materials) percentage that may reach 60%-70%. Although outsourcing such a high percentage of modules has made automakers leaner, they are questioning whether this weight loss is too much.

In addition, one issue that automakers may also consider is that finding a third party to make skateboard chassis in a situation where the original supply chain has been disrupted may be a thankless task. Because the business changes in this part of the industry chain have not brought incremental value and are not new business growth points.

It is worth noting that many electric vehicle chassis designs are derived from skateboard chassis. The technical consensus in terms of modularization and high integration level is consistent among Tesla’s product platforms, Volkswagen’s MEB platform, etc. However, whether this part should be separated and made into upper and lower modules remains to be seen and depends on the votes of the companies involved.

The business logic behind the skateboard chassis company is that despite the traditional view that chassis is a big piece and automakers must do it themselves, pioneering startups believe that the trend is changing. For example, new automakers’ investment focus in related businesses has shifted from traditional major components to new areas like energy, software, and chips.

Following this line of thinking, skateboard chassis can let outsiders enter the battle lightly. Cross-border automakers without car-making experience may favor skateboard chassis. It was previously rumored that Apple’s car-making project would choose Rivian’s skateboard chassis.

On December 2, 2021, during a speech, Academician Ouyang Minggao classified the future trends of new energy technology into two main categories: 1000km endurance and skateboard chassis. In his view, the advantage of skateboard chassis is that the unchanging chassis can be easily made into various models. This is the result of years of technological evolution and represents the trend of technological development.

However, undoubtedly, the future will not be determined by the chassis alone. There are other areas of stronghold, such as core competencies accumulated in autonomous driving algorithms. The advantage of purchasing a third-party chassis is that it greatly shortens the product development cycle and reduces the burden of early R&D investments.

Li Peng stated at a press conference that based on the development of the UP Super Chassis, the research and development can be shortened by 6-12 months, and the cost and entry barriers are greatly reduced compared to the traditional platform’s development.

However, objectively speaking, achieving standardized mass production of sliding chassis in the passenger car field is not so easy, and it is currently in the stage of discussing the commercial picture.

If the current platform architecture of automobiles mainly considers the general and interface standardization of mechanical parts, then universal chassis such as sliding chassis are not considered at this level.

Let’s take Toyota’s current TNGA architecture as an example. By designing the chassis, powertrain, and basic components into standardized, modularized products, the proportion of common parts for TNGA architecture models can even reach 70% to 80%, while the initial proportion of common parts for the architecture was only 20% to 30%.

In contrast, the sliding chassis for electric vehicles focuses on the integration of electronic and electrical architecture and the standardization of interfaces, as well as the modular classification of software and hardware decoupling, which are currently the focus of research and development. The recently released Outeneng electric vehicle platform by GAC Group mentioned wireless communication between battery modules. Huawei is also working on wireless electronic architecture to reduce the “uncontrolled wiring cost black hole” in automobile manufacturing.

Li Peng used the example of the mobile phone industry to analogize the situation of sliding chassis. When MediaTek launched the MTK standard board, no new mobile phone players came out and said they would definitely not use it and that they wanted vertical integration.

However, he still needs to answer a question. Even if the OEMs generally agree with the future of sliding chassis, how can Urbotan create their own “MTK standard board”?

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.