A few days ago, the SAIC MG brand released a brand new pure electric model, MG MULAN. Many people interpret it as the pursuit of electrification by traditional car companies, and even the leaders of the MG brand expressed tactfully during the event speech that MG MULAN is the beginning of the MG brand returning to the new energy track.
I personally have reservations about this statement. In fact, when we look at the MG brand's new energy development route, we need to discuss the Chinese market and the overseas market separately.
In Europe, since the MG ZS EV officially landed in many European countries in 2020, it has always been the top ten sales of pure electric vehicles for household use. For example, in the Norwegian market, where new Chinese brands have entered one after another in the past two years, MG ZS EV ranks 7th in all electric vehicle sales, with a market share of 4.85%. In Belgium, the MG ZS EV has also won the title of "Family Car of the Year".
Based on the rapid growth of MG ZS EV in the European market, MG released a new plan at the end of last year: to accelerate the launch of electric vehicles in the global market by 2022, and is expected to launch 5-6 new cars within one year. The advantage of MG electric vehicles in the European market lies in the reasonable price of family cars, with excellent design, performance and a large number of advanced configurations.
Of course, the excellent performance of the MG brand, especially the MG ZS EV in the overseas market, is disconnected from the MG brand we see in the Chinese market. In the past few years, MG has mainly operated fuel vehicles in China. The pure electric version EZS, which is synchronized with overseas, has a short sales record, and its performance and battery life cannot meet China's consumption needs at that time.
Nowadays, China and Europe in 2022 actually have the same demand and awareness of new energy vehicles. As a global automobile brand, MG can also consider global market synchronization in the development of pure electric models. For this background, we can understand the birth of the MG MULAN - it is not only the beginning of MG's transfer to the new energy track in China, but also the baton for MG to continue its good results in MG's ZS EV in Europe.
So as a product covering global consumer demand, what requirements should MG MULAN have?
is safe first. A few years ago, MG's ZS and HS won the five-star collision results of NCAP in Europe and Australia. The body structure and active passive safety design met global standards. At that time, MG ZS and HS far exceeded China's collision safety requirements. This shows that MG has mature experience in safety considerations during global car development.
However, compared with traditional fuel vehicles, the safety of pure electric vehicles also requires the focus on power batteries and three-electric systems.
MG MULAN was born from SAIC Xingyun pure electric platform. It is a systematic platform specially designed for electric vehicles. It takes the world's most stringent European five-star safety standards as development guidance. The main technical points include triple anti-collision beam design, CPM capacitor application, "zero thermal runaway" protection system, remote monitoring, high-tech flame retardant materials, automatic pressure relief and explosion-proof valves and other multiple protection mechanisms.
In fact, MG ZS EV has been sold in overseas markets for so long and its market share is not low. There has been no accidents in the safety of three electric vehicles. This shows that the MG brand has the ability and experience in electric vehicle safety.
However, from the previous single model to the current pure electric platform, SAIC Nebula has to provide redundancy in safety protection for products with different positioning and performance needs. Therefore, we have also seen that the Nebula platform has the highest specifications, including battery safety protection, power safety, battery attenuation and other designs.
What is worth paying attention to is the SAIC "Rude's Cube" battery equipped with MG MULAN. Regarding SAIC's new battery technology, there are two key points: the first is the reclining battery cell, and the second is ultra-thin and flat.
Currently, the mainstream power battery layout forms on the market are all vertical designs. The demand for thermal management of this layout is to use more expansion compensation materials and thermal insulation materials. The mainstream is aerogels.
"Rude's Cube" battery uses LBS reclining battery cells, which is the research and development result of SAIC and CATL. The original intention of changing the battery cell layout from vertical to lying is to optimize the energy density. The most direct and delicious LSB lying battery cell is that it can reduce the thickness of the entire battery pack and the space utilization rate of the whole vehicle is higher under the same battery capacity.
In the MG MULAN car, lithium iron phosphate and ternary lithium are respectively made of 51 degrees, 64 degrees and 77 degrees Celsius, but the thickness of the three battery packs is 110mm. This "ultra-thin and flat" battery layout can also make the vehicle's center of gravity lower and the center of gravity distribution more uniformly, thereby improving the driving texture, including suppressing the vehicle's roll during high-speed driving, making the body more stable and the handling more accurate.
Of course, the benefit of LSB lying battery cells is also safety. Compared with vertical, it uses much less thermal isolation and expansion compensation materials. The ultimate effect is to ensure battery life and "zero thermal runaway" safety protection under higher integration.
It is worth mentioning that MG has made a Rubik's cube battery based on a lying battery cell. The unified size allows MG MULAN to quickly replace the battery pack under the same device, which can not only better solve the limit of the battery pack on the vehicle's value retention rate, but also can upgrade the battery capacity as needed. In fact, this idea also applies to the global market, especially in Europe, where there are already good battery rental cases.
In addition to battery and safety, overseas media also focused on performance when interpreting MG MULAN. At present, the MG brand has also planned a MG5 Estate in the European market, which is expected to be a pure electric station wagon. The first one to introduce MG MULAN was introduced. Some overseas media identified it as MG4, which is more in line with the naming method of the MG brand and overseas models.
MG MULAN is mainly engaged in research and development in China. The two teams of China and the UK have completed the styling design. Based on the global sales plan, MG has made it a performance-oriented product, with rear-drive, acceleration of 3.8 seconds per 100 km, 50:50 front and rear axle load ratio, 5.3 meters steering radius, and 490mm ultra-low centroid height. These parameters of
are intuitively presented to us as MG MULAN, a crossover with performance orientation. The MG brand has always been a sporty car model, but previous family cars include MG6, MG ONE, etc., which are more based on styling and driving style. As an electric car, MG MULAN entered the 3-second club and has strong performance reserves, which mainly tests the capabilities of the Nebula platform.
As mentioned earlier, building cars based on Rubik's Cube batteries can better take into account space utilization and achieve the control advantages of low center of gravity. This also makes the Nebula platform more flexible and upper limit. It has full-size bandwidth, covering various models from A to D, sedans, SUVs, MPVs, and sports cars; it adopts a three-axis electric drive and dual high-voltage platform layout, covering a wider performance.
, and MG MULAN, as the first model of the Nebula platform, can be used as a representative of performance - based on the rear-wheel drive architecture design, maximize the acceleration performance of the motor, reduce the front wheel slippage and acceleration deviation, start faster and accelerate better, match the five-link rear suspension, DP-EPS steering system, and One-Box electric brake system, which serve the performance release and driving fun.
