European heatwaves kill 2,000 people. Can Chinese air conditioners be the life - saving devices?

This summer, it's not just a bit "hot".

On August 5th, there were a total of 150 high - temperature red alerts across the country. Among them, there were 75 in Sichuan, 39 in Hubei, 21 in Chongqing, 14 in Henan, and 1 in Shandong.

During this period, when you go out on the street, it feels like the soles of your shoes are about to melt, and the seat of a shared bike can fry a soft - boiled egg.

But as soon as you push the door and enter the house, with a "beep", a domestic air - conditioner can turn the nightmare of 40 °C into a cool breeze of 26 °C within minutes.

Nowadays, when people buy air - conditioners, there are more and more choices. Domestic brands like Gree, Midea, and Xiaomi not only achieve the new first - level energy efficiency, Wi - Fi intelligent control, but can even be voice - controlled. They are cool and intelligent. And after the national subsidy, the price can often be less than 2000 yuan.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the earth, in Europe where the temperature reaches 50 degrees, people suffering from the heat are still eagerly longing for the "dream" of owning an air - conditioner.

Currently, the air - conditioner penetration rate in Europe is less than 20%. More than 2300 people died due to the high temperature this year, forcing Germany to directly legislate to popularize air - conditioners. Even environmentalists have fallen silent under the pressure of survival...

For Europeans on the verge of being heat - stroke, it's okay to spend thousands on an air - conditioner, but the key is that the installation fee is more than 10,000 yuan, and the electricity bill is outrageously expensive, with one kilowatt - hour costing 5 yuan.

Against this backdrop, we suddenly realize that the coolness we are used to today is not easily achievable. Behind it is a decades - long manufacturing challenge.

Specifically, the development of domestic air - conditioners has also gone through a process from being unable to provide cool air effectively or comfortably, to being cheap, cool, and intelligent later.

Today, let's start with air - conditioners and see how domestic manufacturing has been on a "winning streak" and tamed the current 40 °C heatwave.

The First Glimpse of Coolness

Speaking of it, the dawn of domestic air - conditioners dates back to the 1990s.

For many people born in the 1990s, using an air - conditioner in the summer of the 1990s was a luxury experience.

At that time, if a family installed a domestic air - conditioner, it would definitely be big news in the neighborhood. Usually, it was a window - type air - conditioner, looking like a square white brick embedded in the window, with the outdoor unit directly hanging outside the wall, making a buzzing sound that could scare away sparrows.

In Lao Ju's memory, when the old - fashioned window - type air - conditioner was turned on, there was a loud "click" sound, and then it gasped "buzzingly", making the whole room vibrate. But the moment the cool air blew, the noise didn't matter at all.

The air blown out was not the kind that gently surrounds you like it is now. It was like an ice pillar stabbing directly at your forehead, and it took a while to start cooling.

To put it simply, the compressor of the air - conditioner at that time was like a stubborn single - cylinder engine. It either ran at full speed or stopped completely. The air could only rush out all at once, and the temperature fluctuated. The heat - exchange efficiency was extremely low, so the fan had to be turned to the maximum, and of course, the noise soared.

However, even such an air - conditioner that made people feel very "uncomfortable" was still sought after by many people at that time.

According to a classmate of Lao Ju's recollection: "In 1996, a window - type air - conditioner cost more than 2000 yuan. At that time, his father's monthly salary was only more than 100 yuan. My mother said that buying this air - conditioner was equivalent to not eating or drinking for two years. But it was so hot that summer, so the family gritted their teeth and bought their first air - conditioner."

It can be said that compared with the disadvantages of direct cold air blowing and loud noise, "high price" was the biggest pain point of air - conditioners in that era.

Fortunately, Chinese enterprises quickly learned and copied the technologies of foreign brands. Coupled with extremely low prices, they directly counter - attacked in the market.

For example, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the inverter air - conditioners of Japanese brands Hitachi and Panasonic entered the Chinese market. At that time, their selling points were "stable, power - saving, and long - lasting".

The reason is that the control system inside used a very advanced dedicated DSP chip (Digital Signal Processor) at that time. There were more than a hundred components on the circuit board, and the capacitors, inductors, and resistors were densely arranged.

After Gree and Midea introduced and studied these technologies, they found that the Japanese solution was too complicated. Many modules inside were designed to ensure the machine's stability in extreme environments, such as being able to start smoothly at minus 20 °C. But Chinese consumers don't encounter such extreme situations every day.

At that time, the engineers at Gree replaced the Japanese DSP chip solution with a general - purpose microcontroller (MCU) that could be provided by the domestic supply chain and optimized the software algorithm at the same time. As a result, the hardware cost was immediately cut by one - third.

For consumers, the experience at this moment was that the air - conditioner suddenly became a "household appliance" rather than a "luxury". Before, people had to save money to buy one, but now "two or three months' salary is enough", and every family can afford to install one.

The Competition of Systems

In the first decade of the 21st century, the most intuitive feeling people had about air - conditioners was that they were much quieter and cooler than before.

In Lao Ju's memory, turning on an air - conditioner used to be like starting a tractor. But since the early 2000s, after upgrading from window - type to split - type air - conditioners, although there is still some sound, at least it won't wake people up. And it cools much faster. Before, it took half an hour to get cool, but later it only took a dozen minutes.

However, this quietness and coolness did not come easily. It stems from the part of the air - conditioner that most tests the manufacturing system - the inverter compressor.

The reason is that the compressor is the "heart", but this "heart" has to meet several contradictory requirements at the same time:

It has to compress the gas vigorously with high pressure but cannot leak. The parts inside have to rotate at a high speed of thousands of revolutions per minute but must be as stable as a rock and work continuously for dozens of summers. In short, it has to be strong, durable, quiet, and long - lasting.

Therefore, to meet these contradictory and demanding requirements, it requires the coordination of multiple fields such as materials science, precision machining, heat treatment, sealing technology, and motor control. It cannot be solved by a single - point breakthrough. A complete industrial system is necessary.

Around 2008, the top - notch compressor manufacturers in the world were only a few like Copeland in the United States, Hitachi, and Panasonic. At that time, domestic manufacturers were faced with a situation where others held back the technology and wouldn't sell it. Even if they did, the price of a single compressor could account for one - third of the cost of an entire air - conditioner.

At this time, Gree in China chose to face the challenge head - on.

Gree's approach was quite representative among domestic manufacturers at that time. Engineers often put the R & D prototype on the test bench and let it run continuously under extreme conditions. When it broke down, they immediately disassembled it to track the problem and then made a new version for retesting. They iterated dozens of times a day and completed in a few months what others took years to verify.

In contrast, Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic and Hitachi had a slow R & D process. The iteration cycle was five to eight years, and they pursued almost demanding precision in every process.

The gap lies in that Japan also has a materials industry, but it doesn't have a supply chain like China's that is "comprehensive and responsive". Once you need to test repeatedly, the cost and time will be greatly prolonged.

For example, one of the most crucial components in the compressor is the silicon steel sheet of the motor core. The loss of the silicon steel sheet directly determines whether the compressor is power - saving and whether it generates heat.

In Japan, R & D engineers use imported silicon steel sheets of extremely high grades. The cutting precision during processing is extremely high, and even the installation direction has to be strictly controlled.

In China, there may be several sacks of silicon steel sheets of different batches piled up in Gree's laboratory. Engineers conduct life - span experiments while disassembling and comparing the machines. They change a batch today and another batch tomorrow. If it breaks down, they just keep testing.

Meanwhile, the Chinese market is incredibly large, with tens of millions of air - conditioners sold each year. Even if the yield rate was not high in the early stage, it could still be absorbed by the overall sales volume, and experience could be gained and the process could be improved through large - scale production.

Relying on the advantages of the supply chain and the large market, by 2010, the scroll compressors made by Gree could be installed on a large scale. Their performance was not much different from imported products, but the cost was much lower, and stable supply could be guaranteed.

The Intelligent Test

In addition to the compressor, the stage with the greatest changes in the development of domestic air - conditioners was the "intelligent test" period from 2010 to 2015.

Since then, consumers have not only hoped that air - conditioners can be cool and power - saving but also "intelligent", and even better, be remotely controlled via mobile phones.

According to the comments of netizens on JD.com: "I bought my first air - conditioner with Wi - Fi. At that time, I thought it was extremely convenient. I could turn on the air - conditioner with my mobile phone on my way home from work, and the room would be cool by the time I got home. If I forgot to turn off the air - conditioner when I went out, I could also operate it directly on my mobile phone, avoiding unnecessary waste."

At this time, the air - conditioner is no longer just a simple household appliance but has become an intelligent device that "understands" people.

Meeting this intelligent demand tests the cross - border integration ability of the entire Chinese manufacturing chain.

Specifically, before, a Wi - Fi board cost ten to twenty dollars, and no air - conditioner factory was willing to use it on a large scale. In 2015, after the cost dropped to a single - digit dollar amount, it was no longer "painful" to put a networking module in the Bill of Materials (BOM), and there was a practical basis for the popularization of air - conditioner intelligence.

And in terms of intelligent experience, domestic manufacturers have once again pulled ahead of foreign brands.

The automatic temperature - control logic of many traditional foreign air - conditioners is very straightforward: when the room temperature is high, it blows strongly; when it reaches the set temperature, it stops. As a result, users feel alternately cold and hot, and the noise is large, and they may even be woken up by the cold at night.

But according to the comments of JD.com netizens, domestic air - conditioners can achieve: "The air supply is uniform, and every corner is comfortable. The noise is extremely small. It's almost silent when turned on at night and doesn't affect sleep."

For another example, a netizen commented: "Today's intelligent air - conditioners cool quickly. The whole room gets cool after running for a while. The noise is so small that it doesn't affect sleep at night. The energy consumption is also low. It's not in the same era as air - conditioners ten years ago. Before, it used seven to ten kilowatt - hours of electricity per night, but now it only uses two to three kilowatt - hours."

This intelligent and energy - saving experience is difficult to achieve with just a remote control.

For traditional old - fashioned air - conditioners, like some models of Daikin and Carrier, the compressor is like an old driver who only knows how to step on the accelerator hard. It blows desperately when the temperature is not reached and stops when it reaches the set temperature, and then restarts when the temperature rises again.

For intelligent air - conditioners