Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 272 As long as there are enough tool makers, the new car will be awesome

How to keep the topic hot on the Internet? Cao Yang definitely has more say than anyone else.

If Xingchen Motors wants to take the high-end route, it will definitely need various exposures.

So there is no harm in publishing some news of your own every now and then.

Whether it is the Xingchen 1 benchmarking against the BMW 730, or the gearbox is preparing to use 8AT, although not all of this news was released by Cao Yang on his own initiative.

But after it was exposed online, he did not arrange anyone to suppress it.

Even Autohome will follow the trend and expose some further news.

In this way, Xingchen Automobile has been remembered by many netizens.

However, Cao Yang himself was very busy during this time.

The company has recruited a bunch of tool people, and it is natural that they will make some achievements in the development of Xingchen 1.

Cao Yang personally participated in the development of some parts in several design departments such as powertrain, chassis, body, interior, exterior, and electronic appliances.

"Mr. Cao, if the new car must use air suspension, then it is best to use a double wishbone structure for the front subframe and a five-link independent suspension for the rear subframe."

"In this case, the need for air suspension can be adapted."

"Otherwise, like the MacPherson structure, since the spring shock absorber strut and the steering knuckle are rigidly connected, changes in the length of the front suspension spring will directly cause the front wheel camber angle to change."

“And because the trajectory drawn by the lower arm is an arc, the front wheel inclination angle changes non-linearly with the spring length.”

"Due to the commonly used spring-damping integrated structure in front suspension, the spring needs to bear part of the lateral stress in the MacPherson structure, which increases the reliability of the delicate air spring."

"In a double-wishbone structure where the spring damper only bears longitudinal forces, the air spring is naturally in a much better position."

"And due to the existence of upper and lower wishbones, and the movable connection between the wishbones and the steering knuckle, the change in the front wheel inclination angle is still more linear and controllable, and usually the amplitude is smaller."

As the head of the Chassis Department, Xun Qi’s professionalism is unquestionable.

If you ask him to develop a part innovatively, he may not necessarily do it very well.

But if you work step by step or explain some theories, there is absolutely no problem.

Cao Yang only set a requirement for the suspension of Xingchen 1 that both the front and rear must be independent suspension, but he also required the use of air springs.

Therefore, Xun Qi needs to explain the logic of the overall chassis design to Cao Yang.

The technical requirements of each part have been set in the first version according to the requirements of the industry, and now it is time to implement them into each specific part.

Originally, everyone thought that setting the requirements for each part was already difficult.

But now when I start designing parts, I find that there are many more difficult things waiting behind me.

In the whole of China, there is no manufacturer with the production capacity of air springs, and Cao Yang does not want to import from abroad and be ripped off. As a result, Xun Qi is under great pressure in the chassis department.

“The air springs give the ride height, ground clearance and spring rate adjustability.”

“At the same time, we can seek better stiffness curves, vibration filtering performance, etc.”

"By changing the amount of air in the air bag, the height of the vehicle body can be adjusted up and down."

"This is very important to the luxury of Star 1."

"Since air springs are to be used, it must be equipped with a front double-wishbone independent suspension and a rear five-link independent suspension, so we should design it in this direction."

"Although these two suspensions are not used by mainstream models on the market, many models from BMW and Mercedes-Benz still choose similar structures."

"The chassis is designed first according to the structure of the BMW 730, and then targeted adjustments are made later."

"As for the air spring, I directly brought several designers to develop it."

Cao Yang will not interfere with how some parts are designed.

However, some key parts are related to the commercialization of the entire model, and they must be included.

Air springs are one of them.

"Compared with ordinary steel springs, air springs do not have noise caused by mechanical friction, and the natural frequency of air does not change as the load increases, which is also more friendly to improving NVH performance."

"If Xingchen 1 is really equipped with air springs, it will indeed be very beneficial to improve the luxury of the model."

"Mr. Cao, don't worry, I won't let you down when it comes to the front and rear independent suspension."

Xun Qi saw that Cao Yang had taken over the most difficult air spring development work, so he naturally wanted to express his position quickly.

Otherwise, you can't do any work well, so what do you need to do?

"In the development of suspension, the adjustment of relevant parameters is very critical. If any problems are encountered, report them in time."

With so many tool people recruited, work must be arranged.

After everyone develops the parts of the first version, and Cao Yang puts forward some suggestions for improvement, it will become much more normal.

Otherwise, Cao Yang would have made everything by himself, which would be unrealistic and strange.

……

"Mr. Cao, judging from the software simulation data, the cooling effect of this air conditioning system is at least [-]% better than similar products from Denso and Valeo, and it is half as strong as Keihin's air conditioner. .”

"I think we can completely follow this drawing and let Nanshan Auto Parts start trial production of prototypes."

In the Xingchen Automobile Interior Department, Peng Changyi faced the computer and explained the design plan of the air conditioning system to Cao Yang, who was standing behind him.

Although various car companies rarely talk about air conditioning when promoting their models.

But anyone who has driven a car knows that it will be very unpleasant if the air conditioner does not have a good cooling effect on a hot day.

For example, Yangcheng Honda's Accord, although consumers speak highly of it, they feel that its appearance and configuration are in line with the international market.

But in terms of the cooling effect of air conditioners, there are a lot of complaints on the Autohome forum.

Another thing that is comparable to the cooling effect is noise.

Especially at high speeds, many people find the noise loud.

Xingchen Automobile is building a luxury car, so the air-conditioning and refrigeration effect cannot be criticized.

Otherwise, no matter how hard you work in the early stage of listing, your reputation will be easily ruined in the later stage.

"Remember to register the patent in time for this air-conditioning compressor related technology."

"Our refrigeration system works well, and the most important thing is that the performance of the air-conditioning compressor is good enough."

This time, Cao Yang "developed" the air-conditioning main unit technology provided by Later Denso to Lexus. Compared with the current mass-produced products in the industry, the effect is naturally superior.

In fact, the operating principle of a car's refrigeration system is very simple, no different from that of a household air conditioner.

The refrigerant that refrigeration relies on, that is, the form change of tetrafluoroethane, absorbs heat during the change process and reduces the temperature of the evaporator.

The compressor starts to drive the refrigerant to flow, and the refrigerant is pushed to the condenser to cool down, and then becomes liquid when it reaches the drying tank and expansion valve.

When tetrafluoroethane becomes liquid, it will enter the low-pressure part, and the liquid refrigerant enters the evaporator. The temperature of the evaporator must be higher than zero, and the boiling point of tetrafluoroethane is -26.2c.

Obviously, the temperature of the evaporator is far above the boiling point of the refrigerant.

At this time, the refrigerant will instantly boil by absorbing the heat energy of the evaporator, and the evaporator will cool down due to the loss of heat energy.

Finally, the fan blows the hot air through the low-temperature evaporator, and the evaporator absorbs the air temperature to create "cold air". This is the refrigeration process.

It can be said that this principle is not complicated at all, and any parts company can understand it.

Even the technical threshold for condensers, expansion valves, pipelines and other parts is not high, and many Chinese companies can produce them.

But when it comes to air conditioning compressors, they look simple, but are actually very difficult to do well.

This time, the refrigeration system of Xingchen 1 worked well because the air-conditioning compressor was powerful enough.

"Don't worry, Mr. Cao, there are dozens of people in the legal department who are responsible for registering patents for various R&D departments."

"We have registered patents not only in China, but also in the United States, Japan, Korea, and the European Union."

"The more important the parts are, the more patents they will register as much as possible to form patent barriers."

"If other parts giants dare to sue us for infringing their patents in the future, we can quickly find some evidence that they have infringed on our patents, so that no one will dare to use patents against our company easily."

Peng Changyi obviously has special research on some of Cao Yang's work styles and requirements.

Xingchen Automobile wants to keep most of the core parts in its own hands, and it is impossible not to infringe on other people's patents at all.

Even if it's not so obvious, if someone wants to file a lawsuit with you, they will definitely be able to find some leverage.

The countermeasure adopted by Xingchen Automobile is to register enough patents by itself, so that when the time comes to file a lawsuit, it will be a big mess.

I am the defendant and I am also the plaintiff.

Let’s all use it up.

……

"Mr. Cao, Xingchen Automobile Research Institute now has more than 1000 R&D personnel. Can we temporarily control the recruitment pace?"

Liu Youmei was also very busy during this period.

Nanshan Group has been developing rapidly and has a strong demand for talents.

This requires the human resources department to continuously carry out social recruitment and even cooperate with headhunters to recruit some talents.

Dozens or even hundreds of people join the company every week, which makes Liu Youmei fully feel the pressure.

"What can a car company's research institute do with only 1000 people?"

"If you look at the research centers of General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, and Toyota, which one has less than 1 people?"

"Although we don't need to compete with them in the short term, we need at least [-] R&D personnel to meet our design needs."

"The R&D and testing of components for each system require a large number of talents."

"You just have to be bold and poach people."

Although many company bosses have recently complained about poaching, Cao Yang has no plans to stop.

The R&D centers of companies such as Spring City Motors and Xifeng Motors employ a lot of people, but they have not produced any decent results.

If I can make use of some of these capable talents, I will be able to contribute to the development of China's automobile industry.

There is definitely no way to build a strong automobile country by simply producing automobiles.

It requires all-round efforts from various parts to equipment to truly achieve a strong country.

Just like the efforts of Nanshan Special Steel, Nanshan Bearings, Nanshan Semiconductor Division and other fields, they will eventually affect all walks of life, allowing the entire Chinese industry to reach a higher level.

Of course, this process must be very long.

After all, Nanshan is just a company, which is very small when viewed as a country.

……

"Mr. Wang, I recently noticed that Nanshan Group has the largest number of patent registrations in the entire Lingnan Province this year."

“Even Warwick’s number of patent registrations this year cannot compare with them.”

"This should have a lot to do with their large-scale expansion of the number of R&D personnel in the past two years."

"It is said that the entire Nanshan Group has more than 5000 engineering and technical personnel engaged in research and development."

"I think the company also needs to consider expanding the number of R&D personnel?"

Liang Chuanqing is also under great pressure this year.

In addition to the F6 model, they are also developing two new models at the same time, one of which will be launched in a few months.

The remaining one will also be available next year.

However, during the development process, various problems were encountered.

So he has always wanted to expand the scale of R&D personnel.

But he also knows that BYD's overall profit margin is not particularly high, and the number of current R&D personnel is not too small.

If we continue to expand, there must be a good reason.

The large number of patents registered by Nanshan Group now provide him with a very good excuse.

"Before Nanshan appeared, Warwick was the company I had seen that placed the most emphasis on R&D in China."

"I also know that R&D work is very important, but R&D and output must be directly linked, otherwise our company will not be able to support a large amount of R&D investment."

"There are already a lot of R&D personnel. If the second new model can also be successful, I agree with you to recruit another 300 people."

Many parts of BYD's cars are purchased from suppliers such as Nanshan Group.

In the research and development of car models, the number of personnel required is naturally not that many.

Just like developing a gearbox, if you want to do it yourself, then you need at least a development team of 200 people to be able to come up with something.

But if you buy the gearbox directly, it is enough to have a dozen people responsible for product testing and matching.

This is also the reason why the number of R&D personnel for domestic independent brands is generally small at this stage.

From the appearance of the entire vehicle to each component, there are only a few that actually design it themselves.

Where do we need so many R&D personnel?

Selling a car only earns 2000 to [-] yuan. How can there be such huge profits to support a large amount of R&D investment?

But if you don’t invest enough in R&D, how can you achieve overtaking in corners?