Author: French Fries

If you have never been to the seaside, you might not imagine how fast the tide rises. Similarly, if you are not in China, you might not understand the pace at which new energy vehicles are advancing.

If you have no idea what “pace” means, then the best metaphor should be the rising tide.

We can regard the development of new energy vehicles as the tide in Bohai Bay, and the subcategories of passenger cars as the reefs on the beach. Recalling the new cars in recent years in China, after counting one by one, the first to be submerged by this wave were the city SUVs, followed by sedans, and now MPVs, with the next reef to be submerged being the “hardcore off-road” cars.

Speaking of the “hardcore off-road” cars in China, Tank under Great Wall Motor is undoubtedly the hottest among all. I am so convinced of the trend of new energy off-road cars because we had a chance to interview Liu Yanzhao, CEO of Tank, a week ago, and at the upcoming Chengdu Auto Show, HEV Tank 300 and PHEV Tank 500 will also make their debut.

Are pure electric off-road cars not yet ready?

Clearly, the first step in the evolution of new energy tanks has been to start with hybrid.

This might not seem so extreme. The reason why I connected “extreme” with the Tank brand is that in today’s urban SUV-dominated world, by insisting on making off-road cars “hardcore,” Tank itself represents the extreme.

The reason not to go straight to pure electric is also simple. According to Tank, the current pure electric technology is still not ready for medium and heavy-duty professional off-road driving.

Liu Yanzhao cited the four physical technology barriers that pure electric off-road vehicles are currently facing: motor, battery, drive, and balance.

First, the motor.

Strong power is the foundation of off-road driving. In this sense, motors with natural high torque seem to be perfect for off-road use. It’s a pity, though, that while the motor is strong, it is not durable enough. Currently, most motors can only reach peak output for about 10 seconds, after which they will be limited in power due to high temperatures.

# “P2” Plan and the Challenges of Electric Off-Roading

According to Liu Yanzhao, an industry expert who is responsible for English translation, spellchecking, and wording modification in the automobile industry, “a 200 kW electric motor can reach a peak output of 105 kW after 10 seconds, which is the conventional level; 110 kW can be considered an excellent level, and breaking through the limit of 120 kW is currently difficult.” This limitation illustrates the challenge of constant high-power output required in professional off-road scenarios.

Secondly, there is the issue of batteries.

This has become a common issue that is evident in the “supercharging stations” which frequently measure electric vehicle power consumption. The power consumption under a heavy foot compared to cruising at a steady speed can be several times or even dozens of times higher. In extreme off-road scenarios, applying pressure to the accelerator is standard operating procedure. However, this “conventional operation” results in a decrease in mileage by 10%-20% compared to urban road mileage.

Thirdly, there is the issue of drivetrain.

Traditional off-road vehicles rely on mechanical structures to achieve four-wheel drive, and the use of multiple differential locks ensures that all the power is transmitted to one wheel; most four-wheel-drive systems in new energy vehicles, on the other hand, rely on multiple electric motors. Multiple power sources imply complete decoupling of front and rear axle power, which is not necessarily handy for off-roading.

Assuming the total power of a four-wheel-drive EV is 300 kW, with 150 kW to the front axle and 150 kW to the rear axle, we must understand that scenarios where only one wheel has connection with the ground are common in professional off-roading. Under these circumstances, a 300 kW vehicle can only output 150 kW with maximum effort. Sometimes, a 10 kW difference in power, such as crossing an axle or a shell hole, is the difference between “can” and “cannot,” and in certain unique scenarios, “cannot” may even be fatal.

Fourthly, there is an issue of balance.

The easiest way to improve range is to add more batteries; however, adding batteries means extra weight, and additional weight, in turn, reduces range in extreme off-roading scenarios where high output is necessary. Therefore, Tank has proposed that the current state of new energy off-roading is not equal to “battery + electric motor + four-wheel drive.”

Why the “P2” Plan?

Is electric-only off-roading still premature?Unfortunately, our lives are not a “either 0 or 1” digital world. The real masters are often those who are adept at solving both “must have” and “also have”.

Although we have “criticized” the shortcomings of pure electric off-road vehicles above, in reality, electric motors still have advantages that gasoline engines cannot match. For example, at high altitudes, the engine’s power is greatly restricted due to lack of oxygen, but the electric motor can still output as much torque as it needs even in an oxygen-free environment.

“Can we add an electric motor to the tank to help me start smoothly at high altitudes?”

What is user co-creation? The above sentence is the real need of users. Faced with demand and barriers, Liu Yanzhao said, “Hybrid power is a better solution for off-road vehicles to embrace new energy in the medium and short term.“

And in the choice of hybrid power, Tank once again pushed itself to the forefront of public opinion by choosing the longitudinal P2 parallel architecture.

With the rise of domestic hybrid technology in the past two years, consumers have established a mindset of “which hybrid technology is better”. In the general perception, P2 architecture hybrid technology is lagging behind the current mainstream DHT architecture.

“Why does the tank cost so much even though there is the Great Wall Lemon DHT?”

I predict that this sentence will become a flying knife that many people will use to attack Tank in the future, because that’s what I thought at first.

With Tank’s price positioning, it is naturally more sensitive to cost than anything else, but what really convinced me was Tank’s understanding of off-road. For professional off-road, Tank wants stable and powerful power. The P2 hybrid architecture can mix the electric motor power and the engine power together to transfer to the gearbox, achieving maximum power. After adopting this hybrid solution, the 3.0T + 9HAT combination carried by Tank can output a maximum of 389kW and 790Nm.

More importantly, this combination can seamlessly integrate with the hardcore off-road soul — “differential lock + mechanical four-wheel drive”. This means that Hybrid Tank can achieve a 50% power increase without sacrificing four-wheel drive off-road performance.

This is Tank’s killer move in solving “must have” and “also have”, and it is probably the reason why Tank “knows that P2 is easy to be criticized but still insists on choosing P2”.## Understanding off-road at the enterprise level

Choosing the P2 hybrid architecture is the tank’s understanding of off-road.

As the number one hardcore off-road camp of domestic players, tank’s understanding of pure electric off-road has much to offer. Sometimes, this understanding is even “counter-cognition.”

For example, the battery pack layout solution.

Battery swapping is a major trend in pure electric energy supplementation and is currently the most efficient way to complete energy supplementation. However, Liu Yanzhao said, Tank will not adopt a battery swapping solution in the short term.

The reason is simple. If battery swapping is to be done, the battery pack must be laid out below the chassis crossbeam, which is unacceptable to the tank. They believe that bumps and bottoming out are certain scenarios that cannot be avoided in off-road driving. These bumps are “not painful or itchy” for the chassis, but they are a “disaster” for the battery pack.

So, in the future, if you want to find out where the battery pack of an “electric tank” is, just focus your energy on the area above the undercarriage crossbeam.

Another example is the selection of motors.

The tank found that many permanent magnet motors could not pass their tests. The reason is that, unlike normal road conditions, there are too many wheel climbing scenarios in off-road environments. In these scenarios, the wheels rotate very slowly, or even not at all, causing the motor to “jam”, which means that the motor is turned on, but external forces prevent it from rotating. We all know that the essence of a motor is that the energized coil is subject to force and rotates in a magnetic field. When it rotates, it is a motor, and when it “jams,” the coils are almost equivalent to a short circuit, producing a large current that generates a lot of heat instantly.

These heat have two negative effects on the motor: First, high temperatures will limit the output power of the motor. Just when it needs to output power, it will say it’s too hot and needs to rest; Second, high temperatures will demagnetize the permanent magnet. Once a permanent magnet motor is demagnetized, it loses the possibility of rotating output and is equivalent to scrap.

One example that pertains to differential lock is that many novices who don’t know about vehicles know that the large G has three differential locks, which are very powerful. Even if the tank model has differential locks, they still insist on ensuring that all four wheels can contact the ground, and the coefficient of adhesion of the contact surface is more important than adding locks. Therefore, the tank model has spent a lot of effort in ensuring the suspension travel.

There are still many tanks that can embody the concept of “enterprise-level off-road performance”.

To be honest, from a promotional perspective, these “anti-cognition” viewpoints are easy to give people a bad first impression. To reverse this impression, it often takes a lot of effort to explain the logic behind it, and it has to be done under the premise that users are willing to listen. This is obviously a tough job.

But Tank insists on adhering to the “off-road” brand core and caring about the purity of off-road, so they still do it this way.

Fortunately, Tank is not alone. Many people who love off-road understand this kind of purity, and the high demand for orders is the best proof.

“Respect for off-road” is Liu Yanzhao’s original words. Based on this respect, he revealed some different black technology that the “electric tank” will carry.

As for what these black technologies will be and how the “electric tank” will respect off-road, we can only look forward to the next time Liu Yanzhao can chat more excitedly.

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.