Today, Buick’s first Altium platform Large Five-seat electric SUV – Electra E5 trial car was officially off the assembly line from SAIC-GM-Wuling’s Wuhan base, marking Buick’s entry into the competition of domestic pure electric platform new energy vehicles as a traditional brand.
New Design in the era of pure electric
Electra E5 adopts the new generation of Buick’s pure electric product design language, with a length, width and height of 4,892 × 1,905 × 1,655 mm respectively and a wheelbase of 2,954 mm. The new car will be equipped with the new generation of VCS intelligent cockpit and the new generation of Super Cruise super-assisted driving system.
Electra E5 adopts the new Buick Pure Design concept, integrating electric design elements. Thanks to the Ultium platform, the space utilization rate of the new car is further increased, and the wheelbase reaches 2,954 mm. The design of long front end, long wheelbase, and short front and rear overhangs creates an atmospheric and stretched body proportion with a poised and dynamic posture.
The exterior of the body adopts Buick’s “Kinetic energy surface” design language. The contrast of light and shadow is formed by the concave and convex of the curved surface and the intersection. The fold lines of the rear wing and the lower part of the side are embellished, bringing a simple and sleek feel. In addition, the car body is the first in the series to use black light electroplating decoration strips in multiple areas, adding a touch of luxury to the new car.
E5 also features Buick’s new three-shield logo design. Matching the “flying eaves and winged front face” design, it inherits and upgrades Buick’s family design language, while the LED headlights on both sides of the front end can provide flowing light and dynamic array lighting. The lower part of the front face brings a horizontal extension visual feel through the same color array grille of the car body, indicating the identity of the electric car.“`
At the rear end, the E5 penetrating wing-shaped tail lights are longer and flatter, expanding the visual width of the rear end and echoing the headlights. The high-positioned crystal shield brake lights at the rear end are in line with the all-new Buick logo.
Currently, there are no official interior pictures of the Electra E5 from Buick. According to previous spy shots and concept maps, the Electra E5 is likely to use the 6K fisheye screen similar to the Lyric.
The Electra E5 was born in the Wuhan Ultium factory, which became General Motors’ second Ultium super factory in China after the Shanghai Jinqiao factory, marking another important step for SAIC-GM in its electric transformation.
Let’s now take a look at the highlights of the Wuhan Ultium super factory in terms of fine manufacturing and production technology.
The High Standard Wuhan Ultium Super Factory
High-precision Machining and Assembly Processes
The Model On-line Station in the Wuhan Ultium Super Factory’s battery workshop first integrated “robotics, 3D point cloud vision, and force sensing” technology, with an installation accuracy of up to 0.2 mm to ensure zero battery damage during the assembly process.
For the first time, the “six-axis fully automatic one-time tightening” assembly technology is used in the module tightening station, with an efficiency improvement of 50% compared to similar processes, and the key parameters of tightening torque and angle can be monitored and traced 100%, achieving industry-leading process accuracy and quality.
The gluing, sealing, and tightening processes of the battery pack are all automated by robots based on the digital twin technology, achieving a measurement accuracy of less than 0.1 mm for the installation process, and providing key guarantees for the Ultium battery pack to meet the sealing ratings of IP67 dustproof and waterproof and IP6K9K high-pressure water spray protection.
The machining line of the electric drive workshop in Wuhan Oter Energy Super Factory realizes the fully automated production process from feeding, processing, cleaning, testing, and inspection to offline production, and the machining is carried out according to the ultra-high precision standard of microns. The assembly of the stator and rotor of the motor adopts the industry’s first adaptive floating guidance design, which controls the assembly accuracy within 50 microns, equivalent to the diameter of a single hair.
High standard quality control management
The whole-battery measurement process of the Wuhan Oter Energy Super Factory battery workshop can simulate the real operating conditions of the battery pack on the vehicle for electrical performance testing, including 15 testing steps and 3,000 measurement points, ensuring the high quality and consistency of the battery pack’s performance.
In the battery pack measurement process, infrared thermal imaging equipment is used to monitor the temperature of the battery pack in real-time to accurately identify battery packs with quality defects and abnormal heating, improving product quality and safety.
It is worth mentioning that, thanks to the wireless communication battery management technology pioneered by Oter Energy, the Wuhan Oter Energy battery workshop is the second workshop on the production line to adopt wireless communication technology after the Shanghai Oter Energy Super Factory, which can avoid the damage of traditional battery test joints and greatly improve assembly quality and production line efficiency in the pre-test stage.
The battery workshop adopts the industry’s most stringent battery pack sealing test standards. Starting from the components, high-precision airtight meters are used for 100% airtightness testing of the batteries from the delivery, process to the assembly, and the results can be traced throughout the entire life cycle to ensure the stability of the working environment of the battery module and other components, significantly improve product durability and prolong service life.
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In addition, the final testing process of the electric drive workshop will also simulate the real vehicle conditions to conduct performance testing on the electric drive assembly, including sealing, insulation, and function, divided into three categories and a total of seven items. Before the final offline, robot intelligent visual technology will be used for intelligent quality inspection of products. Compared with traditional manual inspection, this method is faster and more reliable. At the same time, combined with industrial big data and visual tracing technology, quality data analysis and precise tracing of the entire production process of each part are conducted to ensure zero defects.
Highly flexible co-linear production capacity
The electric drive workshop of Wuhan Optenni Super Factory pioneered modular and flexible pressing units, which can achieve high-precision automatic pressing of 54 parts with only 8 flexible pressing units. In the future, it can gradually achieve co-linear production of 2 major series and up to 22 types of electric drive sub-models.
While achieving flexible pressing, this equipment also has the ability of quality monitoring during the entire pressing process to ensure quality is guaranteed.** In addition, the battery workshop can flexibly produce different battery packs of 8 modules and 10 modules, meeting the production needs of the three-electric system of multiple Optenni pure electric vehicle platforms of SAIC General Motors in the future.**
On the day Wuhan Optenni Super Factory was completed and put into production, Buick’s first pure electric SUV Electra E5 trial installation vehicle was also offline at the Wuhan base. With the operation of the Wuhan Optenni Super Factory, Wuhan Branch will become an important new energy production base of SAIC General Motors.
To Conclude
According to the news from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, E5 will be equipped with a 68.4 kWh battery pack with a range of 545 kilometers. Roughly calculated, Buick E5’s electricity consumption per hundred kilometers can reach 12.55 kWh. Although the battery pack capacity is not large, the range is definitely not bad. For traditional brands of new energy vehicles, the achievement rate of range is always excellent, and we are looking forward to the actual test of E5 in the future.
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Over the next five years, SAIC-GM will launch more than 10 domestically produced vehicles based on the ALTEN platform, covering its three major brands as well as multiple categories and niche markets. By 2023, 4 ALTEN-based vehicles will be available to consumers.
With the completion of two ALTEN super factories, SAIC-GM’s competitiveness in the domestic market has further increased. We look forward to seeing more ALTEN-based vehicle models injecting fresh vitality into the market.
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.