Author: Zheng Senhong
Chinese independent brands are becoming the “protagonists” in the new energy competition.
From newly established brands in the automobile industry to independent new energy brands derived from traditional automakers, every participant on this road is striving for a “striking” presence. The rapid growth of the market has also given birth to various technological routes for Chinese new energy brands.
Today, a high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand that integrates oriental wisdom and masters the core technology in Chinese hands points to a brand new road of Chinese automobile manufacturing.
On June 25th, witnessed by Changan Automobile Chairman Zhu Huarong, Huawei’s Acting Chairman Xu Zhijun, and CATL Chairman Zeng Yuqun, Avita launched the CHN platform.
“The name CHN was derived from the first letters of Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL, and is also the international code for China,” proudly introduced Zhu Huarong.
This new platform, created by the three giants working together, gives Avita an edge over other newly established automakers.
Xu Zhijun’s on-site endorsement: Avita 11 exceeds expectations
In the era of new energy, whether a carmaker has a pure electric platform has become the standard for evaluating whether a carmaker has good products and the strategic high ground for a carmaker’s future development.
This is because the height of a pure electric platform determines the strength and scope of the products.
If you have difficulty understanding Avita’s CHN platform, you can refer to Geely’s SEA architecture.
The SEA architecture is Geely’s first exclusive pure electric architecture. Unlike other pure electric architectures, the SEA architecture is a comprehensive architecture from hardware to system to ecological layers, with strong self-iteration capabilities in the popular fields of intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and cloud computing.
JiKe 001, Smart Spirit #1, Lotus Eletre, and Jidu ROBO-01 are all developed based on Geely’s SEA architecture. Through these different brands’ models, we can see that the SEA architecture exhibits robust compatibility through steady evolution, excellent user experience, and modular architecture.
Similar to the SEA architecture, Avita’s CHN platform is even more capable.
Although the AVITA CHN platform integrates technologies from three companies – Changan, Huawei, and CATL – in different fields, it is not simply a matter of applying existing technologies directly to the CHN platform.
For instance, in terms of intelligence, the CHN platform uses Huawei’s high-level intelligent assisted driving technology, but behind it is a Huawei intelligent driving team of over 1,000 people working with AVITA’s engineers in Chongqing.
According to AVITA’s positioning on the “emotional intelligence” route, Huawei needs to work together with AVITA’s engineers to jointly develop specific scenarios for “emotional intelligence”.
These types of functionalities do not mean that AVITA only produces a pile of products; rather, with the support of the top technologies from the three companies, AVITA has broken through the boundaries of different technological fields and continuously experimented to eventually form a clearly positioned and complete product.
On site, Xu Zhijun even promoted AVITA:
“AVITA 11 exceeded my expectations. I tried its electric performance, which was built jointly by CATL and Huawei, and the power must be very strong. Huawei fully combines its strongest intelligent driving ability with AVITA’s car building ability so that customers can buy a car with ease.”
For AVITA, the CHN platform is like an indispensable soul, from the mechanical layer to the cloud data layer. The CHN platform possesses the main competitive core of today’s intelligent electric vehicles.
When a leading host manufacturer deeply cooperates with intelligent terminal suppliers and power energy suppliers, their story is not just about creating a sensation.
Different from the emerging new forces in car manufacturing or traditional car manufacturers cooperating with the Internet, AVITA is a smart electric car brand created by a cooperative effort from a leading domestic auto brand, Changan Automobile, Huawei, a leading player in ICT technology, and world-leading power battery maker CATL.
Each of the three strategic partners has made full use of their respective strengths: Changan makes quality more assured, Huawei makes the vehicle more intelligent, and CATL provides more powerful power.
Due to this innovative cooperative mode, the CHN platform does not only focus on mechanical quality, three-electric systems, and intelligentization but also integrates these three aspects and outputs CHN platform’s “new architecture, strong computing, and high-voltage charging” capabilities.## CHN Platform Introduction
The CHN platform consists of six layers: Mechanical Layer, Energy Layer, Electronic and Electrical Architecture Layer, Vehicle Operating System Layer, Vehicle Function Application Layer and Cloud Data Layer.
The products under the CHN platform not only achieve deep software and hardware decoupling, but also have the capabilities of high scalability, high performance, long endurance, high safety, strong computing, high intelligence and evolution.
Combining the six-layer architecture and the functions of the products under the platform, they correspond to:
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Mechanical Layer: High scalability;
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Three Electric Systems: High performance, long endurance;
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Intelligence: High safety, strong computing, high intelligence, and evolution.
Mechanical Layer
In terms of mechanical performance, high scalability means that the CHN platform can accommodate multiple vehicle body types and driving configurations, including sedans, SUVs and MPVs with wheelbases ranging from 2800-3100mm, as well as compatible with both two-wheel and four-wheel drive.
Three Electric Systems
Equipped with Huawei’s dual-motor four-wheel drive system, the CHN platform has a maximum power output of 425kW and a maximum torque of 650N・m. This system has been applied to the Seres Huawei Selection SF 5 and the ARCFOX S HI edition.
The most significant feature of this system is that the vehicle operates at its optimal balance point in terms of energy consumption, power output and NVH performance.
Take the debut model, Avita 11, as an example. Its dual-motor propulsion system features a maximum power output of 195kW from the front motor and 230kW from the rear motor, with a total power output of up to 425kW.
By employing the dual-motor system, the Avita 11 has joined the three-second club, with a zero-to-hundred acceleration time of 3.98 seconds.
In addition, the CHN platform adopts NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) lithium-ion batteries with high energy density produced by CATL, supporting expandable battery packs ranging from 90kWh to 135kWh, which enables a range of more than 700 kilometers. With the support of Huawei’s full-stack high-voltage 750V platform, a 10-minute fast charge could add 200 kilometers of driving range.
Avita 11 offers two versions of driving range: 555km and 680km. A longer-range version with a driving range of over 700 kilometers will be released in the future.
With a maximum charging power of 240kW, the Avita 11 can be charged from 30% to 80% in just 15 minutes under fast-charging conditions.
The intelligent Huawei AVATRANS navigation system empowers the CHN platform with upgradable and iterative intelligent ecosystem, covering hardware, software, whole vehicle, and data aspects.
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Huawei domain controller fusion architecture: the CHN platform has OTA upgrade ability, keeping up with the latest trends;
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Huawei Harmony OS: the CHN platform possesses the mainstream automotive system;
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Huawei advanced intelligent driving assistance: the CHN platform comes with the intelligent driving assistance function for all situations.
Similar to the Alpha S Hi version, the AVITA 11 based on the Huawei MDC810 platform has 400Tops operation power, which is more than twice as high as Tesla Model 3 with 144Tops.
Moreover, in terms of hardware, the AVITA 11 carries Huawei’s 3 x 96-line mid-to-long range LiDAR, expected to support full-scenario driving including high-speed, city, and parking at the same time next year.
With a six-level composite structure covering from vehicle architecture to power system, intelligent cabin to intelligent driving, CHN platform excels many mainstream electric vehicle models on the market.
Compared to the characteristics of the Volkswagen MEB platform and the General Motors Ultium platform in the mechanical layer, the CHN platform is an all-around platform that covers mechanical, power, and intelligent layers.
The AVITA 11 is the first model produced using this platform. Of course, the effectiveness of the CHN platform needs to be verified after the AVITA 11 is officially delivered.
According to the plan, the CHN platform’s first model, the AVITA 11, will be officially released on August 8 this year, with mass delivery by the end of the year, and the network coverage to 110 cities by the end of 2022.
The strongest partner in car manufacturing joined hands to create AVITA
As a top-tier player of Chinese domestic brands, premium products have always been a challenge for Changan Automobile.
Zhu Huarong believes that only by cooperating with the most powerful Chinese partners can we create an international high-end brand.
Therefore, Changan has found two more partners: Huawei and CATL.
On the day of the CHN launch conference, based on the collaboration between Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL, Huawei and AVITA further signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement to jointly create high-end and intelligent cars.Based on the CHN platform, both parties work together to create a series of high-end intelligent electric vehicle products and continue to iterate, and will launch four new models by 2025.
Xu Zhijun said that Chinese automakers’ leaders believe that what China lacks is not a Huawei-branded car, but a parts supplier that truly possesses core technologies, is trustworthy, and can continuously introduce them to support China’s automobile industry.
Neptune’s entry is more of a risk-sharing, win-win cooperation.
Zeng Yuqun revealed that Zhu Huarong and Xu Zhijun’s original intention was to jointly build a good platform for China’s automobile industry, while Ningde Times would contribute its own advantages to support Avitar’s development.
In the future, Ningde Times will also provide the latest and best power batteries for all Avitar models, supporting Avitar to become China’s and even the world’s best intelligent electric vehicle brand.
As Zhu Huarong said, using Eastern wisdom to master the core technology in the hands of Chinese people, from chips to battery packs, to the entire vehicle, from design to manufacturing, to back-end intelligent services, should all be led by China’s innovation power.
Faced with constantly emerging new brands, new technologies, and new models, competition in the intelligent electric vehicle market is increasingly fierce.
From the publicly available parameter and configuration information, Avitar 11 will have Tesla Model Y, NIO ES6 as competitors, and its intelligent driving capability can refer to the Alpha S, which also uses Huawei HI.
In November of last year, Avitar made its global debut and its products were unveiled. In March of this year, Avitar completed its first round of financing and its valuation increased to 6.26 billion RMB; in April, it released the MMW limited edition model – Avitar 011; on May 20th, Avitar 11 revealed the cockpit and started pre-orders; on June 16th, it announced the first batch of Avitar experience centers, located in Chongqing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, with a total of 9 stores across 4 cities.
In less than a year, Avitar has achieved rapid development.
Avitar CEO Tan Benhong believes that Avitar’s determination and confidence in deepening the new field of intelligent electric vehicles stems not only from everyone’s trust and support for Avitar, but also from the empowerment of Changan Automobile, Huawei, and Ningde Times.
Through this launch, the lineup of this car-making “strongest partner” has shown to the outside world that Avitar is not a new force that simply relies on joint cooperation, but a high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand that has been integrated systematically.# This year on August 8th, Avita will officially go on sale, and the Avita 11, which is supported by the CHN platform, will also officially announce its price to the public. It is expected that a large number of units will be delivered to consumers before the end of the year.
China’s “strongest partner” in new car manufacturing has teamed up to create Avita. Whether it has competitiveness or not, let’s look forward to it.
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.