My Age of Investment

"The motor drive control system directly determines the performance of pure electric vehicles such as climbing, acceleration and top speed. It is mainly composed of inverters, drives, power modules, controllers and other major components. The most core component is the inverter. devices and controllers.

Let’s talk about the inverter first. Its function is to invert the DC power output from the battery into three-phase AC power. It is mainly composed of IGBT insulated gate bipolar transistor power modules. "

Peter Rawlinson looked at Xia Jingxing, "When the Roadster was delivered, we decided to temporarily raise the price due to the skyrocketing cost. The cost was on the IGBT, right?"

Xia Jingxing nodded lightly and sighed, "Yes, the Roadster's electric drive control system was originally authorized by the company. It uses a single-tube IGBT solution and is equipped with 36 fourth-generation IGBT automotive chips provided by IR Company.

However, during actual use, we found that the performance of the inverter was a bit low and it was only suitable for use as an ordinary electric vehicle. Therefore, this was also one of the important reasons why the Roadster was discontinued. There were too many defects and it was not perfect. "

Peter Rawlinson smiled and said: "Compared with the Roadster, the design of the Model S is very bold and advanced. The new inverter plans to triple the number based on the Roadster, that is, it is equipped with 96 IGBT chips, and it is the sixth generation product of IR. .

At present, IR's sixth-generation products have not yet been stably mass-produced. Their automotive chip department has been in contact with us recently, hoping that we will give them some time.

During the test, IR engineers told us a terrible test result, because 16 chips in parallel need to handle a total of more than 200 kilowatts of power. As long as one or two chips are switched slightly earlier or delayed by a few microseconds, it will directly cause other chips to fail. It was burned out, causing the fuse to trip and the high-speed car to brake suddenly..."

Xia Jingxing frowned more and more as he listened, and then comforted himself that the technology of the automobile industry was not that easy to break through. If it were that easy, Tesla wouldn't have taken nearly 20 years to fully develop in the previous life.

Straubel said slowly: "I contacted Infineon and wanted their automotive chip department to design a new IGBT solution for us.

Their customers are all OEMs such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz, so they are a bit indifferent to us and are far less enthusiastic than the people at IR.

However, IR Company itself is limited by the size and technology of the company, and the development of solutions is very slow. "

Straubel pointed to the prototype car in front of him, "It is currently equipped with IR's fifth-generation IGBT chip product, and it also uses the Roadster's solution.

If we switch to our newly designed solution, the performance of Model S will rise by more than one level. "

Xia Jingxing kicked the tires of the prototype car, "So you call it a prototype car?"

Straubel and other executives hung their heads in shame.

At this time, Peter Rawlinson, who had always felt that the prototype car was not good or bad, stood up and explained: "Darren, this is not only our problem, but also the problem of the entire supply chain and industrial technology system.

What happened was that we came up with an amazing design, but the supplier couldn't complete it. "

"This is not a reason to shirk responsibility."

"We are not shirking responsibility, but stating a fact."

Xia Jingxing glanced at Peter Rawlinson. He finally understood why Musk couldn't tolerate this guy. It was estimated that Musk was often contradicted and couldn't stand down.

Although he respects talents, he will never be soft when the time comes. Xia Jingxing said solemnly: "Do you think I am talking about the problems with this prototype car? But you have clearly discovered the problem, why don't you actively solve it? ?”

Speaking of this, Xia Jingxing's face gradually turned cold. He had just driven the prototype car and felt pretty good, but the car that is actually on the road will travel tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of kilometers. If there is any safety accident, such as a sudden disconnection on the highway, Electricity causes the car to be rear-ended, and Tesla's reputation will become as bad as it was in its previous life.

Although he knew that this might be unavoidable, subconsciously he hated all risks and uncontrollable factors.

Peter Rawlinson said: "We are actively communicating with IR, but this will take time."

"Is it just communication? Why can't we send engineers to participate in research and development together to speed up the launch of perfect solutions?"

Peter Rawlinson was startled for a moment, and then replied: "We don't have enough manpower. If we send some people out, a lot of work will come to a standstill."

"Then continue to recruit people. Stop some less important work first. We must overcome the difficulties of IGBT first. I don't want to see what happened to Roadster happen again."

Xia Jingxing's words were serious because he knew the importance of IGBT. This thing is called the CPU of power electronic devices and accounts for more than one-third of the cost of the electronic control system and 10% of the cost of the entire vehicle. 10%. Among all vehicle components, the cost ranks second only to the battery.

If charging piles are deployed in the future, IGBT will also be a core component, accounting for 20% of the cost.

In addition, as the mainstream device of new power semiconductors, IGBT is also widely used in many fields such as communications, consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, high-speed rail, subway, aerospace, national defense industry, photovoltaic power generation, home appliances, etc.

The country is still lagging behind in this area and can be called a blank. BYD only entered this field three years ago. Now it has not even released its first product and is still immersed in research and development. At this time, domestic high-speed rails and subways are equipped with All high-voltage IGBT devices are imported from Germany, Japan, and the United States.

Infineon, which was spun off from Germany's Siemens Semiconductor Division, is the dominant player in the field of power semiconductors. In the future, it will also acquire IR (International Rectifier Corporation), a company that cooperates with Tesla, accounting for more than one-third of the global market share. , and half of the market share in China.

Many industries under Fuxing Industry require the use of IGBT chips. It would be false to say that Xia Jingxing has no idea about this industry. However, Fuxing Semiconductor has just launched and it will take some time to mass-produce chips, let alone win Tesla. Placed orders for automotive-grade chips.

If you have an idea, you can only slow down for the time being.

Peter Rawlinson nodded towards Xia Jingxing and actually adopted the latter's suggestion without any refutation.

"If you have any other questions, don't hide them away. Tell them all together."

Starting a new energy vehicle business is like a narrow escape! Xia Jingxing has now developed a big heart and can bear it.

“In addition to the inverter, another core component of the electronic control system is the controller.

The controller can be called the brain of the electronic control system, including body controller, battery management and charging management controller, motor control and drive board, vehicle infotainment and other modules. In the future, automatic driving modules will be added.

Each module will report its own operating status or alarm information to the vehicle information module, so that the vehicle's operating status, such as vehicle speed, kinetic energy recovery, battery power, automatic driving function and alarm information display, can be seen through the display screen on the vehicle. …”

Xia Jingxing listened carefully. The difference between Tesla and traditional fuel vehicles is that many function control buttons are integrated into the central control screen, that is, the car computer.

The technical change behind this is the use of a centralized electronic and electrical architecture.

The change in architecture has enabled Tesla to divide the electronic control unit (ECU) into domains according to body, chassis, power, infotainment, etc., and on the other hand, realize cross-functional connections through the central control gateway to strengthen collaboration between various components.

At the same time, it also has a very important function, which can update vehicle systems, software, etc. through OTA over-the-air download technology. The update content mainly includes power, entertainment, body, chassis, etc.

“In terms of controller, we are currently using a chip provided by DZ Instruments, and its performance is pretty good.

However, we are still lacking in software research and development capabilities. Let alone research in the direction of autonomous driving, we cannot even handle in-car entertainment systems. "

Xia Jingxing waved his hand to Peter Rawlinson, "Don't worry about the in-car entertainment system. Fuxing Mobile and Android will launch an interesting product next, and relevant applications and developers will be arranged.

You only need to focus on research and development of in-vehicle functional software such as power, body, chassis, etc. "