How long does it take to produce a new energy heavy truck? "Less than 5 minutes!"

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More than 100 years ago, the world's "first car" was born, marking the end of the horse-drawn carriage era and the arrival of the "mobile era". Today, the global automotive industry is accelerating its transformation to new energy and intelligentization. In the fierce international competition, how can my country's auto companies achieve "overtaking on the curve" and "overtaking in the lane change" with leading technology? Recently, a reporter visited Shaanxi Automobile to reveal the "smart manufacturing method" of heavy trucks.

"Smart Factory" demonstrates China's speed

How long does it take to produce a new energy heavy-duty truck? "Less than 5 minutes." This is the answer given by Shaanxi Automobile New Energy's "smart factory".

"Shaanxi Automobile New Energy Intelligent Manufacturing Factory adopts domestic advanced automated manufacturing equipment. It is a domestic first-class, industry-leading intelligent and digital intelligent manufacturing factory." Wang Yang, director of the Technical Office of Shaanxi Automobile Holding Frame Factory, introduced to reporters.

The reporter noticed at the scene that the frame factory display board includes all the display content of the frame factory, including operation indicators, department indicators, management status of each workshop, and equipment status. "This allows managers to grasp the dynamics of the workshop in real time and improve production efficiency and the level of intelligent advancement." Wang Yang said.

It is reported that the frame warehouse of Shaanxi Automobile New Energy Intelligent Factory is the first in China to introduce intelligent warehouses for heavy truck frames. Through digital recognition, twin recognition and intelligent recognition systems, automated warehouse entry and exit without human management is realized. The warehouse occupies a small area and can store a large number of trucks, solving the industry's chronic problems that heavy truck frames are heavy, difficult to transport and difficult to sort.

The automated production line of Shaanxi Automobile New Energy's smart factory. Photo provided by the interviewer

"The automated production line can achieve intelligent upgrades throughout the entire process from material distribution to finished vehicle assembly." Li Zhangliang, senior business deputy manager of Shaanxi Automobile Holding's automobile general assembly plant, said that automated production not only greatly improved production efficiency, but also significantly reduced the impact of human factors on product quality and improved product stability and consistency.

Smart cars have smart brains

The reporter saw at the scene that an L4-level autonomous driving vehicle can realize autonomous obstacle avoidance and detour after the driver sends the destination. Such precise intelligent driving is due to its smart "brain".

"Shaanxi Automobile has developed and deployed four core modules, namely environmental perception, high-precision maps and positioning, intelligent decision-making and control execution, from the perspective of the whole vehicle, and established a complete algorithm library to form a core solution for autonomous driving in multiple scenarios such as highways, ports, closed parks and sanitation," said Tian Namei, autonomous driving product manager of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of Shaanxi Automobile Holding. The intelligent algorithms in these algorithm libraries cannot be separated from the support of massive data, and the Shaanxi Automobile Tianxingjian platform provides a complete solution.

Tianxingjian system. Photo provided by the interviewer

"The Internet of Vehicles can collect information about the operation of a vehicle throughout its life cycle, including its driving conditions, and collect and analyze real-time data. For example, it can observe the driver's driving process and remind the driver to reduce bad driving behaviors and reduce risks while driving." Chang Mingjuan, product manager of Shaanxi Tianxingjian Internet of Vehicles Information Technology Co., Ltd., said that the Tianxingjian platform has connected more than 1.1 million commercial vehicles, including tractors, dump trucks, special-purpose vehicles, trucks and other commercial vehicles.

Technological innovation allows heavy trucks to be equipped with hydrogen

As the heavy-duty truck industry enters the era of new energy, intelligence and lightweight, heavy-duty truck products are ushering in an important period of opportunity and accelerated development. "The commercial vehicle and transportation logistics industries are undergoing a major industrial transformation driven by multiple factors such as technological innovation, demand upgrades, and policy-driven factors. Green, low-carbon and intelligent are the inevitable direction for the future development of commercial vehicles." said Yang Zhigang, deputy general manager of Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile Co., Ltd.

Facing the trend of intelligent and new energy development in the automotive industry, Shaanxi Automobile has laid out a diversified power route. "For all market segments within 500km, we are developing a full range of new energy vehicle product solutions, covering pure electric and hybrid tractors and dump trucks, pure electric trucks, special vehicles and municipal vehicles. For long-distance transportation scenarios of more than 500km, we have developed hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicle solutions." In Yang Zhigang's view, "the hydrogen energy route is the ultimate technical route for future long-distance transportation."

Electric drive axle. Photo provided by the interviewer

"'Electric drive axle' is one of the characteristic parts of new energy heavy-duty trucks. It focuses on solving the problems of motor heat dissipation and system vibration, improving transmission efficiency while reducing weight." Yuan Kai, assistant to the general manager of DeChuang Future Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that with the weight reduction and efficiency improvement of the "electric drive axle", the heavy-duty truck chassis has also ushered in greater innovation and breakthroughs.

"Compared with traditional new energy vehicles, the battery capacity brought by chassis integration technology has increased by nearly 1.5 times." Wang Yin, general manager of Qiji Zhixing (Shanghai) Automotive Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Dechuang Future, introduced that through the application of EMB technology and electric drive axle technology, a large amount of space is released for the entire chassis, and these released spaces can be used to arrange batteries with larger capacity. In addition, all-electric steering technology can ensure that solid-state chassis vehicles are more environmentally friendly and the steering system is more intelligent.

Guided by the "dual carbon" goal, the heavy-duty truck industry is accelerating its pace of transformation and upgrading to green intelligence with the help of artificial intelligence and digital technology. After intelligent assembly, heavy-duty trucks can also be equipped with "hydrogen" and travel intelligently, running at a new technological speed.

Audit:

Yang Zhigang, Deputy General Manager of Shaanxi Heavy Duty Automobile Co., Ltd.