The auto parts giant sounded the death knell for the engine

The global production capacity of 100 million sets of engines and gearboxes is in an awkward position. As core components of "fuel vehicles", they are facing the fate of being gradually eliminated.

On May 3, 2017, Delphi, the largest auto parts supplier in the United States, announced in the UK that it would completely spin off its powertrain division. The original company will focus on electronic and electrical business, especially in the fields of autonomous driving, intelligent technology and safety technology, involving 15,000 engineers and 145,000 employees worldwide.

Delphi's shares surged 12 percent after the announcement that the separate powertrain company, which had $4.5 billion in revenue last year, would improve powertrain performance and efficiency.

The positive significance of this news can be seen as the global auto parts giants realizing that the wave of electrification is difficult to contain and are actively seeking change to embrace industrial transformation.

The sad signal is that despite the official avoidance, the original power system's business and employees have in fact been "abandoned."

Such "abandonment" will continue to happen. Bosch, the world's largest automotive parts supplier, announced almost at the same time that it would sell its starter and generator business to a Chinese consortium, including 7,000 employees of the business unit.

Every car is equipped with an engine and a gearbox. According to conservative estimates, the global production capacity of engines and gearboxes will exceed 100 million sets, with an annual output value of several trillion yuan. The livelihoods of tens of millions of industrial workers are at risk, and this threat is growing day by day.

At the same time, the industries related to engine and gearbox, including a complete set of oil supply systems, a complete set of intake and exhaust systems, a complete set of lubricating oil systems, and a complete set of power transmission systems, will disappear with the disappearance of the engine. The corresponding manufacturing system and manufacturing workers will eventually exit the stage of history.

Ten years after the sale of fuel vehicles stops, gas stations will gradually disappear, replaced by charging stations. After that, those maintenance work involving the "three filters" will no longer make sense. The maintenance work of electric vehicles will be greatly reduced, and the livelihoods of a large number of maintenance practitioners will also be affected. There is no doubt that this group of practitioners will also number in the tens of millions.

Any industrial change, while bringing progress and well-being to human society, will also cause great pain, and the livelihoods of countless families will be affected. The setting sun is like blood, magnificent but also sad for its evanescence.

However, this is all going to happen.

The major I studied in college was vehicle engineering, and at that time I was in the "Powertrain" department, which shows the importance of the powertrain system to the automotive manufacturing industry.

After graduation, many of my classmates and alumni went to work in the power department of automobile companies, which is a core job in the automobile industry. More than a decade has passed, and now these people are facing dual challenges in their life journey: "midlife crisis" and "career crisis".

A buddy who works in an oil seal factory is deeply anxious. When cars all use electricity, who will they sell the oil seals to? Whether they like it or not, practitioners will face an irresistible reality. The wave of electrification is coming, and the situation of internal combustion engine practitioners is becoming increasingly embarrassing. Do they have to hold on until the last moment, until the entire industry is replaced?

In October 2016, the German Senate announced that it would completely ban the sale of fuel vehicles by 2030. This news was like dropping an atomic bomb on the automotive industry, and suddenly people could clearly see the end of the industry. The small Nordic country Norway is taking an even more radical approach, and they will make fuel vehicles disappear from 4S stores by 2025.

The Chinese government has vigorously promoted the development of electric vehicles, providing tens of billions of yuan in financial subsidies to new energy vehicle manufacturers. They plan to achieve sales of 2.5-3 million new energy vehicles by 2020.

For the Chinese government, it is imperative to reduce its dependence on oil. If a crisis occurs in the South China Sea and oil from the Middle East cannot be transported to the mainland smoothly, our crude oil reserves will be exhausted within 30 days.

According to Wang Binggang, the leader of the 863 Plan's electric vehicle major project supervision team, with China's current thermal power accounting for 75%, each kilowatt-hour of electricity generates 500 grams of carbon emissions, and a gasoline car generates 3,000 grams of carbon emissions when it burns 1 liter of gasoline. If a fuel car consumes 7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers, the carbon emissions are 21,000 grams; at present, domestic electric vehicles consume about 20 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers, generating 10,000 grams of carbon emissions. The significance of energy conservation and environmental protection is self-evident.

China is vigorously promoting the adjustment of its power structure, significantly reducing and increasing the proportion of wind and photovoltaic power generation. At the same time, it will further reduce the carbon emissions of electric vehicles. The power structure of Europe, the United States and Japan is mainly based on wind power, photovoltaic power and nuclear power.

In addition, fuel vehicles suffer from discrimination in many cities in China. In addition to not enjoying full road rights, every time smog occurs, fuel vehicles become scapegoats that are "condemned".

Driven by China, Europe, the United States and Japan have to follow suit in the development of new energy vehicles.

What is more terrifying than policy is the progress of technology. What buried the engine is not policy, but technology, the new species.

In the past decade or so, battery technology has made rapid progress. When I was studying, BYD had just started making batteries. They produced lead-acid batteries with pitifully low energy density. The conclusion at that time was that batteries had an energy density limit and could not be used as a power source for driving cars. A more reliable solution is hydrogen fuel cells.

More than a decade has passed, and BYD's battery technology has transitioned from lead-acid batteries and nickel-chromium batteries to lithium batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries and ternary lithium batteries. Next, people will welcome solid-state lithium batteries and air lithium batteries. Scientists are also trying to use graphene to improve the performance of power batteries.

Mr. Ouyang Minggao, deputy director of the Academic Committee of Tsinghua University, director of the State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy Conservation, vice president of the China Society of Automotive Engineers, and executive director of the Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association, pointed out that by around 2020, China's pure electric vehicles will be able to compete with fuel vehicles in terms of cost performance in the A-class car market. By then, the specific energy of the power battery can reach 350wh per kilogram, and the pack cost per wh will be about 1.3 yuan.

It must be pointed out that the above target is the average target of China's new energy vehicle industry. The world's advanced level, such as Tesla, GM's Chevrolet Bolt is expected to achieve the above target in 2018, surpassing fuel vehicles in terms of cost performance.

Once electric vehicles catch up with fuel vehicles in core areas such as range, charging speed, price, battery life, and temperature range, their advantages of easy maintenance, larger space, safer collision, easier intelligence, and low cost of use will emerge and beat fuel vehicles in the market.

As more and more new energy vehicles enter the market, the charging and other service ecosystems will mature, and the market share of fuel vehicles will drop sharply.

The electrification of mobile tools is not only a requirement for energy security and environmental protection, but also a requirement for humans to move towards an intelligent society. When there are more and more robots, electricity is undoubtedly a better energy choice compared to oil.

With the development of Space X and Blue Origine, humans are gradually heading towards space. From a broader perspective and time dimension, the ideal energy supply for humans in the future will be electricity supported by nuclear power and photovoltaics.

From the perspective of unmanned driving, electric drive is more convenient than engine drive because the supercomputer can give real-time instructions to the car. The internal combustion engine has a response delay of about 500ms to the computer. If the speed is 100km/h, it will take nearly 15m to drive out. The electric drive can respond to the computer's instructions in real time.

Electric vehicles are more suitable for the deployment of supercomputers, and their architecture is more conducive to leveraging the advantages of software and can further improve the level of automotive intelligence.

From the perspective of technological progress, fuel vehicles will probably be driven out of the market by new species without government policy restrictions. It is not electric vehicles that will defeat fuel vehicles, but smart cars in the guise of electric vehicles. Tesla has proved this.

This is happening. For Chepingjun and his classmates, they will have to face both the "midlife crisis" and the "career crisis" at the same time. This group will reach tens of millions, which is an extremely sad "industry tragedy".

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.