In 2014, Great Wall Motor said it “temporarily abandoned” its car business. At that time, competition in the car market was extremely fierce. Faced with the continuous downward pressure of joint ventures, the market dividends that independent brands could receive were limited. In order to focus resources on advantageous sectors, Great Wall Motor resolutely chose to temporarily abandon its car business. A few days ago, Li Ruifeng, vice president of Great Wall Motors and general manager of the WEY brand, revealed that Great Wall Motors has restarted the sedan project. The first sedan will be placed under the WEY brand and is scheduled to be released in May this year. First of all, regardless of whether Great Wall Motor’s decision to plunge into the embrace of SUVs was right or wrong, Great Wall Motors now only relies on SUV products. Although not the first, it has indeed been firmly among the top three domestic car companies. This coincides with the critical period when the tank brand is separated from the Wey brand. WEY needs more business support and only relies on high-end urban SUVs. The product line is still slightly monotonous. Diversification will be the way out for the WEY brand to grow. And choosing to enter the car field this year, Great Wall Motors is obviously well prepared. In 2020, the Great Wall lemon, tank, and coffee platforms will be officially released. With the support of intelligent and modular platforms, it will be able to quickly launch a variety of new models to achieve product empowerment, technology empowerment, and rapid coverage of more categories. This is undoubtedly the confidence that Great Wall Motor chose to enter the car market at this time. No company is willing to give up the car production line that is close to hand after working hard to develop a modular architecture, not to mention that the market has been suffering from the absence of cars in the Great Wall for a long time. According to the investment project of Great Wall Taizhou Branch, Great Wall will establish complete vehicle manufacturing and chassis manufacturing projects in Taizhou’s factory. The main models put into production are two sedans, a compact car and a medium-sized car. All models are new energy vehicles and will be driven by pure electric power. In addition, in addition to the gradual maturity of core technologies, Great Wall Motor’s factory layout and dealer layout have matured, and the road for the production of cars has been paved. Let’s look at the domestic car market. Let alone joint venture cars, among the independent brands, Geely Emgrand and Changan Yidong have performed well in the domestic car market. Geely Auto’s Emgrand sales have surpassed 3 million in 2020, with an average monthly sales of more than 10,000; Changan Auto’s sales have remained high since the launch of the Yidong PLUS model, and Changan Yidong surpassed Emgrand in February and March. First place for autonomous cars. Great Wall Motors has entered the sedan project at this time, and has made B-class cars a key model. The opportunity for WEY is obviously great. (Fictional picture of netizens) Only relying on SUV models can be the leading auto company of independent brands. Now that the sedan project is restarted, sales growth is one aspect. Once “abandoning” has achieved Great Wall Motor’s SUV dominance, but now it is regaining the “old dream” of cars, which is even more exciting. What do you think of the upcoming B-class sedan of the WEY brand? Welcome to leave a message below and discuss with us!

Auto-First|Liu Tianming

Following the global debut of the Lemon Hybrid DHT, Great Wall Motors’ Lemon Hybrid DHT conducted the world’s first live test live on April 15. The model tested this time is the WEY Macchiato, the first model of the Lemon Hybrid DHT.

In this live broadcast, Huang Zhenyang, Chief Engineer of Hybrid Power System of Great Wall Motors and General Manager of Lemon Hybrid DHT Development, Zhihu Professional PU Frey Liu and Navis Li were invited to participate in the actual vehicle test. In this actual vehicle test, a total of 4 interesting test items were set up, which not only presented the “fast, smooth, quiet and economical” product characteristics of the lemon hybrid DHT from multiple angles, but also demonstrated the technical value of the lemon hybrid DHT.

In the “fast” test session, the acceleration performance of the lemon hybrid DHT was tested. During the test, Frey Liu sat in the co-pilot with a balloon placed between the back and the seat. When the test-driving car was cruising steadily, the balloon remained motionless, and when the test-driving car accelerated rapidly, the balloon was instantly squeezed.

This is due to the excellent power performance of the lemon hybrid DHT. Huang Zhenyang said: “In the initial stage, electric drive is adopted. Compared with the engine, the motor can release the maximum torque at the moment of starting. There is no traditional gearbox and the transmission efficiency is very high. High, so the vehicle responds very quickly and has a strong sense of pushing back. In medium and high-speed road conditions, the system adopts engine direct drive. If a power request is received, it can achieve a downshift and acceleration effect similar to that of a fuel vehicle, not only switching from economic gear For the power transmission, the motor can participate in the output at the same time, forming a parallel mode, so that the acceleration ability can be improved.”

In the ride comfort test, after a series of operations such as starting, accelerating, and decelerating the water cup at the sunroof of the test-driving car, the juice in the water cup did not overflow. In this regard, Huang Zhenyang said, “The reason why the lemon hybrid DHT is excellent in terms of smoothness is that it has a set of modes and energy management and torque control strategies with completely independent intellectual property rights, including intelligent switching between series and direct drive modes, and no power. Interrupt shifting, intelligent clutch control, motor torque compensation matching and IGBT junction temperature estimation, etc.”.

The quiet performance of the Lemon Hybrid DH is also very outstanding. In the test “quiet”, a speaker is placed in the test drive site to simulate a noisy environment, and the test drive car circles the speaker. In the case of more than 90dB outside the car, the members in the car talk and communicate normally and keep floating in the range of 50-70dB. The overall performance is excellent, which can create a pure electric driving experience for users.

For the NVH adjustment, the hybrid 1.5L/1.5T engine used in the Lemon Hybrid DHT has been re-optimized for its overall NVH, including jitter, noise, etc., to minimize it, combined with the high-end sound insulation material of the vehicle itself Technologies such as improving NVH have greatly reduced the noise introduced into the car.

Fuel economy is the highlight of the Great Wall Lemon Hybrid DHT. In this test, WEY Macchiato conducted a 5km actual test, including starting, accelerating, braking, turning, etc. The average speed was 15km/h, and the apparent fuel consumption was 5.1L/100km.

In fact, the key to fuel-saving lemon hybrid DHT lies in its advanced dual-motor hybrid hybrid solution. Huang Zhenyang analyzed the technical principles: “In low-speed road conditions, the pure electric or series mode is used to directly drive the wheels through the motor to avoid the problem of low engine efficiency. In the medium and high-speed road conditions, it is switched to direct engine drive. It can save fuel by 10%-15% in series mode. And the direct drive of the engine has economy gear and power gear. The economy gear is used in steady state cruising. The power gear needs to be switched when accelerating, and the output is assisted by the motor to avoid transient engine load. High to achieve a perfect balance between power and fuel consumption.”

Relying on the technology accumulation of Great Wall Motors over the years, the Lemon Hybrid DHT has achieved the best power and economy in the full speed range and all scenarios, giving the product the product strength of “fast, smooth, quiet, and economical”. At the upcoming Shanghai Auto Show, WEY Macchiato equipped with this technology will be officially unveiled.