To ensure the victory of the Li 8, Li Auto first fought three tough battles with the supply chain.
“When facing problems, some colleagues even held phone conferences in the bathhouse to discuss solutions.”
When Chen Hui, the general manager of the Ideal Business Unit at Sunwoda, recalled the past cooperation with Li Auto, he said with emotion, “We've been in the trenches with Li Auto for five or six years, and every single thing is still vivid in my memory.”
Now, the Li i8 is about to be launched, with a pre - sale price ranging from 350,000 to 400,000 yuan. The new car is positioned as a large six - seat pure - electric SUV, built on an 800V high - voltage platform, and is equipped with two battery specifications of 90.1kWh and 97.8kWh, corresponding to a CLTC range of 670km and 720km respectively. The maximum energy consumption per 100 kilometers is 14.8kWh.
However, different from the launch of the L8, when Li Auto had a first - mover advantage in the range - extender market, now the growth rate of Li Auto's range - extender vehicles has slowed down, and it needs to find the next growth point in the pure - electric market.
The Li i8 is the first model to shoulder this mission.
As the flagship model of Li Auto targeting the market above 500,000 yuan, the Li MEGA doesn't necessarily need to pursue high sales volume. But starting from the i8, all of Li Auto's pure - electric models are expected to drive up sales.
However, it won't be easy for the i8 to increase its sales volume.
In the second half of the year, the Model Y, which has held the top spot in China's SUV sales for a long time, will launch an extended - range version, the Model Y L; the Le Dao L90, under the BaaS plan, has a starting price of less than 200,000 yuan; after the launch of the pure - electric version of the M8, its pre - sales have been remarkable, with over 10,000 small orders received in just eight hours.
When the Li i8 enters the narrow market of large six - seat pure - electric SUVs along with such a group of competitors, how can it win?
Li Auto's strategy is to continuously enhance intelligent capabilities such as assisted driving, solve the range and charging problems of large pure - electric vehicles through low energy consumption + long range + 5C ultra - fast charging, and at the same time achieve high space utilization through high integration. And to implement these product features, Li Auto and its suppliers need to fight several tough battles together.
Define the ATL LiDAR with a user - centric approach
The Li i8 will be equipped with Li Auto's self - developed Mind VLA assisted driving architecture and will come standard with the Hesai ATL LiDAR as a safety redundancy.
The ATL LiDAR is custom - made for Li Auto, and the 'L' in the product name represents Li Auto.
The discussions between the two parties about this LiDAR started in the middle of 2023.
At that time, Li Auto had already started building its pure - electric platform. Considering that the most crucial product performance indicator for pure - electric vehicles is range, when defining the product, Li Auto hoped that the LiDAR could be as small in size and as low in power consumption as possible.
Meanwhile, to reduce the wind resistance of its pure - electric vehicles, Li Auto designed the windshield of its pure - electric vehicles to have a larger inclination angle than that of its range - extender vehicles. This also requires the LiDAR to have a more aesthetically pleasing shape that fits the overall appearance of the vehicle with a large inclination angle.
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There is a significant gap between requirements and implementation.
Liang Feng, the vice - president of R & D at Hesai Technology, explained to 36Kr Auto, “If we reduce the size and power consumption of the LiDAR, the optical aperture inside the LiDAR will shrink. Taking a camera as an example, a smaller aperture of the camera will inevitably lead to less light sensitivity and poorer image quality. The principle of a LiDAR is the same.”
However, in the end, Hesai Technology made the impossible possible through two innovative approaches.
Liang Feng told 36Kr Auto, “First of all, Hesai Technology came up with a very compact optical path design. You can see the lens in the disassembled diagram of the LiDAR. In this way, the size of the LiDAR is reduced, but it can still maintain relatively high optical efficiency.”
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More importantly, the innovation lies in the chip.
The chip almost determines the performance ceiling of a LiDAR. So, Hesai Technology started to layout its chip development in 2017. After Li Auto put forward its requirements for the new - generation LiDAR, Hesai Technology defined its fourth - generation chip accordingly. “This generation of chips, combined with optimized lasers and detectors, can just offset the optical performance degradation caused by the reduced size.”
Hesai Technology used a set of data to more intuitively explain the optimization of the new - generation product to 36Kr Auto. “The volume of the ATL is 60% smaller than that of the AT128, the power consumption is reduced by 55%, but the performance has doubled.”
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Beyond technological innovation, the co - creation mechanism between Li Auto and its suppliers is a deeper reason for ensuring the smooth implementation of product requirements.
In Liang Feng's memory, during the development of the ATL, Li Auto and Hesai Technology held numerous co - creation meetings. Eventually, “the people from Li Auto didn't even need to swipe their cards to enter Hesai Technology because the security guards at the entrance already knew them well.”
The co - creation meeting is “a relatively unique practice when Li Auto cooperates with its suppliers, and few other automakers do this.” During the co - creation process, Li Auto not only puts forward requirements to its suppliers but also provides “help and guidance.” More importantly, Li Auto has infused the user - centric approach into Hesai Technology.
Liang Feng believes, “Hesai Technology used to have a strong engineer - centric mindset. To achieve optimal performance, we would prioritize performance over user experience. But Li Auto has conveyed many user - oriented requirements to us. For example, there is a scanner in the LiDAR, and this scanner emits a little noise and vibration.
If we followed our engineer - centric mindset, to achieve better performance, we would make the scanner larger, which would make it easier to meet Li Auto's requirements. However, this would also increase the noise.
Once we have a user - centric mindset, solving the noise problem of the LiDAR becomes very important. Maybe we can achieve more extreme performance, but the user value brought by it may be lower than that of improving the NVH performance.”
The'striple - new' silicon carbide module
Energy consumption and range are two more important indicators for potential pure - electric vehicle buyers. Therefore, Li Auto not only equips the i8 with large - capacity batteries of 90.1kWh and 97.8kWh, achieving a CLTC range of 670km and 720km respectively, but also equips it with a self - developed silicon carbide motor, thus controlling the vehicle's energy consumption between 14.6kWh/100km and 14.8kWh/100km.
In addition, this silicon carbide motor will create an additional 24mm of longitudinal space for the third - row seats.
In a silicon carbide motor, the core component is the silicon carbide module or silicon carbide chip. And Sike Semiconductor is a key part of Li Auto's layout in the field of silicon carbide chips.
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Sike Semiconductor is a subsidiary jointly established by Li Auto and Hunan Sanan Semiconductor, with Li Auto holding a 70% stake. Currently, Li Auto is the only customer of Sike Semiconductor. Li Auto is responsible for the source design of the products, and Sike is responsible for manufacturing.
Compared with many competitors, the most significant difference in the silicon carbide module developed by Sike Semiconductor is that it has a windowed area.
Sike made such a design mainly for two purposes. First, to improve efficiency and reduce stray inductance; second, to reduce the size and improve the space utilization of the third - row seats.
Tang Huayin, the person in charge of Li Auto's electric products, used a more vivid analogy to explain how the windowed area achieves these two purposes:
“We can think of it as if there are several hands on the module, which are connected to the outside to control the motor and current. Our hands don't need to reach as far, so we can save space. In the traditional design, the hands have to reach farther, which of course takes up more space.
As for why 'a shorter reach' can also reduce stray inductance, that is, reduce energy loss? It's like the faucets in some old houses. When you turn on the faucet, you can hear the pipes vibrating. This is because the pipes from the water tank to the faucet are very long. The water flow may suddenly be blocked by a valve in the middle, so the water will oscillate in the pipes, thus consuming energy.”
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Sike Semiconductor calculated that “compared with traditional IGBT modules, using silicon carbide modules can increase the range by 6%. And because Sike designed the windowed area to reduce stray inductance, the range can be further increased by 1%.
That is to say, for a 100 - kWh or 80 - kWh battery, after using Sike's silicon carbide module, the range can be increased by 47 kilometers.” “At the same time, since the rear motor will be placed under the third - row seats, a smaller electric drive can create an additional 24mm of space for the third - row seats.”
If designing a windowed area on the module can improve range and space utilization, why do few companies adopt this design?
Gao Xian, the general manager of Sike, said with a smile to 36Kr Auto more than once, “We are 'triple - new' – new technology, new materials, and new processes.” Since few people have tried this design before, Sike had to explore the way forward during the entire R & D process.
Co - create 5C ultra - fast charging batteries with suppliers
Relieving users' range and energy - consumption anxiety is not enough. The Li i8 also continues the selling point of the 5C ultra - fast charging of the Li MEGA.
According to the data officially released by Li Auto, the 5C ternary lithium batteries in the i8, supplied by CATL and Sunwoda, have reached a charging speed of 500 kilometers of range with a 10 - minute charge.
In addition to range, the 5C battery in the Li i8 has also been optimized in terms of safety protection and space utilization compared with the MEGA battery.
According to Wu Zhenhua, the chief engineer of domestic passenger - car technology at CATL, this is specifically reflected in that the overall layout of the battery pack in the Li i8 has a conformal structure according to the chassis of the i8. This means that the space utilization of the i8 battery pack is higher.
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Moreover, the battery pack of the Li i8 uses an inverted technology, which isolates the thermal hazards and smoke from the passenger compartment, providing a higher level of safety protection.
After the battery is inverted, the original exhaust space and the space of the bottom guard plate can be shared. Thus, on the basis of the original storage efficiency of the Kirin battery, the chassis space in the vehicle height can be reduced by more than 5mm, thereby increasing the passengers' seating space.
Just like the battery pack in the MEGA last year, the battery pack in the Li i8 is also the result of in - depth co - creation between Li Auto and CATL. In the words of Wu Zhenhua, the two parties are “intertwined with each other.”
Wu Zhenhua told 36Kr Auto that although the charging time of the i8 has only been reduced by 2 minutes, in fact, the goal of reducing the charging time to 10 minutes was set relatively late.
At that time, CATL's battery architecture plan had already been finalized, and in product development, the overall architecture plan cannot be changed every day. Therefore, how to achieve the '10 - minute' goal without making major adjustments to the product architecture has become the biggest challenge for both parties.
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From the perspective of the battery alone, to make the battery charge faster and control the temperature better, CATL can, without changing the chemical system, improve the charging rate capability through the design of the battery cell's electrodes and reduce heat generation by more than 10%.
This is what CATL is good at.
During the charging process, to ensure the stable consistency of the battery cells and the performance of the battery's ultra - fast charging rate, CATL can also achieve this by adjusting the number of folds in the water - cooling system or the balance of the flow channels.
However, with a good battery foundation, the cooperation of the entire vehicle is also