Huang Gang: The future direction of truck technology development


On October 25, 2014, at the 12th China Automotive Industry Summit held on the campus of China Europe, Huang Gang, General Manager of Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. expressed his opinions on the future direction of truck technology: "Green, smart, low-carbon The future direction of truck technology."

 

Huang Gang, General Manager of Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd.


As a tool for road transport, trucks have a very large advantage as a means of transportation among all transportation solutions, including greater flexibility compared to railways and aviation, and the development of modern cities is inseparably efficient. The organization of logistics, such as e-commerce now, Alibaba, such as e-commerce platform, orders can be received tomorrow, tomorrow, relying on the truck road transport. The truck industry has made great progress in the past 10 years. Not only has the scale increased by nearly 100%, but its products, technical quality, etc. have all developed very well, but it is also facing many challenges.

Over the past 10 years, the Chinese government has continuously introduced increasingly stringent regulations in terms of safety and environmental protection. In particular, emissions are now in the process of transition from Euro III to Euro IV. Not only emissions but also safety. Another trend in the transport industry is the object of the truck industry service. So far, China's transportation industry is very divergent, that is to say, it is not concentrated. Many of them are individual users. They buy one or two cars and organize transportation in one family unit. The transportation efficiency is relatively low. However, the transportation industry itself is also undergoing rapid changes, especially due to the improvement of road and road traffic conditions, the development of highways over the years, and the development of the express delivery industry. The rapid development of logistics industries such as Debang and Shunfeng has also contributed to the logistics industry itself. Intensive, especially in the express delivery industry. Five years ago, the top 20 logistics companies in China accounted for less than 2% of the total, but now they see a zero-single express delivery industry. Their degree of concentration, the share of the top 20 companies has reached 2/3, so this is very fast. A progress. This brings a lot of changes. The individual user is not too pursuing efficiency. He may be very concerned about price, but after the logistics company is intensive, he will pay more attention to the cost of the entire cycle. In addition, they will be increasingly demanding the efficiency of transportation organizations. Therefore, the truck industry will undergo great changes driven by such factors. What kind of trend is the future?

First of all, from the perspective of market size, the demand for 1 million heavy-duty trucks has been reached in the past 10 years. With 40% of the world's medium-heavy truck market in China, China's market scale has increased Europe and North America. However, in the future of China's economic restructuring, China's truck market will not continue to grow rapidly in the next decade. In the next five years, the market will remain relatively stable, rising and falling, and the overall scale of 1 million units will remain. But in the next 5-10 years, China's truck market will decline. On the one hand, this is because of the transformation of the Chinese economy itself. Now there is not so much investment in infrastructure and not so much coal mining and transportation. However, the volume of this part of logistics will increase. Therefore, it will shift from construction vehicles to logistics vehicles. As logistics vehicles improve efficiency due to improved road conditions and intensification of the logistics industry itself, the same volume of traffic no longer needs as much demand as before. Therefore, truck demand will gradually decline in China. This is a challenge.

At the same time, many structural changes have taken place in the truck industry, from engineering to highway use. Urbanization will bring many opportunities for logistics, including the development of the city itself, and it also has many new requirements for trucks. In addition to changes in scale in the future, the truck industry will have a lot of trend changes. For example, as a truck manufacturer, the development approach will have to grow from extensive growth to survival, future growth to sustainable profitable growth, no increase in scale or even declining growth. The use of our technology to improve costs, support the efficiency of the logistics industry, as well as the development of business models. In particular, the technology in the future will become more and more complex, which will form a business model for a solution. Of course, there are also the effects of globalization.

Followed by emission reduction, CN4 will be fully implemented next year. This is a very tortuous process. It has been postponed three times in a row, so next year it must be completely implemented, and emission reduction is a focus. Strictly meeting the CN4 emission standards is still a challenge for the truck industry. It will also be a very big improvement. Green trucks, in the next ten years, our country's emission regulations will also be upgraded to the level of Euro 6. What is the status of Euro 6? In European air quality, the environment of use, the emissions of vehicles, the exhaust will be more than European air Cleaner, this is a very big change.

Again, low-carbon, low-carbon For trucks, we believe that the most important task is to reduce fuel consumption, not necessarily new energy vehicles, because trucks, such as mainline transportation, may be more suitable for the upgrading of conventional internal combustion engines. Let the traditional internal combustion engine rejuvenate. Of course we have many energy-saving technologies. For example, in the U.S. project that exceeds trucks, the fuel consumption of trucks is reduced by 50%, including reducing the air resistance and rolling resistance of the vehicles themselves, and the combustion efficiency of the engine, including the reuse of exhaust gas, energy recovery, and other measures. It can ensure that the fuel consumption is reduced. At the same time alternative fuels, such as the demand for natural gas.

The technical direction of future trucks can be attributed to three key words. One is a green truck, one is a low-carbon truck, and the third is a smart truck. These three trends will also support the development of smart cities.