Understanding the Smart Car Skateboard Chassis in One Article

01 What is a skateboard chassis?

The so-called skateboard chassis is to integrate the battery, electric drive system, suspension, brakes and other components on the chassis in advance, so as to separate the body and chassis and decouple the design. Based on this type of platform, car companies can significantly reduce the cost of early research and development and testing, and quickly respond to market demand to create different models. Especially in the era of driverless driving, the layout of the car is no longer centered on driving, but will focus on spatial attributes. With a skateboard chassis, more possibilities can be provided for the development of the upper cabin.

As shown in the picture above, of course, when we look at the skateboard chassis, we should not be framed by the first impression of "Oh, it is a non-load-bearing body". There were no electric cars back then, so there were no battery packs weighing hundreds of kilograms, no wire-driven steering systems that could eliminate steering columns, no wire-driven braking systems, and no fashionable slogans such as "software-defined cars". The skateboard chassis solution promoted by startups and the capital market today is actually a product of the new environment and new factors that have jointly spawned the new era of electric vehicles, steering mechanism innovation, automotive software, and the entry of barbarians and capital into the automotive industry.

The following is a particularly simple and rough definition: skateboard chassis = non-load-bearing body structure + wire-driven steering/brake system + battery pack and chassis integration. The various technologies that have led to the skateboard chassis are listed below:

• With the technical iteration of the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture, the computing unit is centralized. The onboard system interacts with the underlying data of the vehicle more and more frequently, and is more and more closely integrated with the vehicle, which will produce more customized designs and functional optimizations that require a "hardware upgrade" model. The smart chassis has gradually become the centralized computing unit of the vehicle, and the vehicle's upper body has gradually become an extended "application" based on the chassis' open interface.

  
  

• Intelligent driving technology: The industry believes that driverless driving will eventually come, so the "cockpit" based on "manual driving" will eventually disappear or turn into a "function". The future intelligent cockpit will gradually polarize. "Carrying people" and "carrying goods". The common technology of the polarization is the intelligent electric chassis wire control technology.

• Active suspension technology: The suspension system can dynamically and adaptively adjust the stiffness and damping of the suspension according to the changes in parameters such as the vehicle's motion state, road conditions, and load, so that the suspension system is always in the best vibration reduction state. This is called an active suspension system. Currently, there are mainly air suspension, hydraulic suspension, electromagnetic suspension, and electronic hydraulic suspension.

  
  

• High energy density battery BMS module and thermal management technology

  
  

• Vehicle control and domain controller technology based on computing power iteration

  
  

• Scalable (instant plug-and-play) electronic and electrical architecture technology to achieve simplification, expansion and sustainable optimization.

From the perspective of the entire cost structure of the chassis, more than 50% is the battery, so battery companies benefit more. Then combined with my industry information, it can be roughly judged that the skateboard chassis may eventually benefit companies such as Huawei with superb software and hardware capabilities and Xiaomi, which is particularly capable of engineering optimization; it will be even more beneficial to CATL, BYD Blade, and Honeycomb Short Blade, which can perform CTC.

As mentioned above, the skateboard-type chassis has the advantages of high integration, high commonality, and high expandability. It is an important development direction under the trend of automotive electrification and intelligence. It is competitive in shortening product development cycle, reducing R&D costs, enriching the intelligent ecology, and improving space utilization.

02 Who are the players?

In fact, the concept of skateboard chassis was proposed by GM as early as 2002, but it was not until last year with the launch of Rivian that it officially became popular. In addition to Rivian, a number of foreign new car companies such as Canoo and REE have gradually commercialized skateboard chassis, and there are even reports that Apple will also adopt this chassis architecture when making cars.

Rivian is a self-built brand that makes its own cars, and has already released a pickup truck, an SUV, and a van. It once said it would export its skateboard chassis to Ford to make electric cars, but so far, it has not yet come to fruition;

Canoo's model sounds the most complicated. They manufacture vehicles through third parties, then market them to end users through their own brands, and provide innovative vehicle subscription services. Canoo's design is very avant-garde, attracting a lot of attention in the industry. It was once rumored that it would export chassis to Hyundai for car manufacturing, and was once reported to be acquired by Apple, but in the end, nothing happened.

REE emphasizes high modularity and flexible combination. There is a configurator on the website, which allows you to configure a vehicle chassis solution you want with just a few clicks of the mouse. The concept is a bit magical.

In China, the number of skateboard chassis players is also increasing. For example, Top Group announced in February this year that it plans to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Top Skateboard Chassis (Ningbo) Co., Ltd. (tentative name), in Hangzhou Bay New Area, Ningbo, to provide customers with skateboard chassis products with the best performance, quality and cost.

Bosch participated in the Pre-A+ round of financing of Yopao Technology through its subsidiary Boyuan Capital in September 2021. At the same time, Bosch also reached in-depth cooperation with Yopao Technology to carry out a series of technical cooperation in the field of integrated chassis and fully promote the research and development of the "UP Super Chassis". It is reported that the UP Super Chassis was officially launched at the beginning of this year.

It is no secret that CATL is planning to develop skateboard chassis. Although CATL is now far ahead in market share, market competition is increasing and concerns about overcapacity of domestic power batteries have surfaced. Under this circumstance, CATL has already launched a diversified strategic layout, including battery replacement, artificial intelligence, and skateboard chassis.

At the end of October 2022, CATL signed a memorandum of understanding on global strategic cooperation with Vietnamese automaker VinFast. The two parties will cooperate on projects such as CIIC (CATL Integrated Intelligent Chassis) skateboard chassis. According to the agreement, based on the existing CTP (high-efficiency grouping) product matching cooperation, CATL and VinFast will explore various forms of cooperation in CIIC skateboard chassis to help VinFast quickly open up the global market.

In late November 2022, Motan Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Motan Technology"), a trilateral investment of Xinjiao Group, Times Xin'an and Leo Group, was established in Shanghai. It is reported that Motan Technology's main business scope is the research and development and application of new energy extended-range special chassis and smart cockpits. Motan Technology's three-electric and integrated electric chassis (skateboard chassis) and other technologies mainly come from Times Xin'an, a holding subsidiary of CATL. The first product will be a special chassis for high-end smart RVs, and then it will be extended to new energy high-end commercial vehicles and commercial vehicles.

At about the same time, an announcement from Alte showed that the company, CATL and Gecko Technology officially signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement on November 18, 2022, intending to cooperate in the fields of skateboard chassis, new energy vehicle business and new energy vehicle battery replacement business. The agreement took effect on the same day and will end on December 31, 2026.

According to the announcement, the main content of the tripartite cooperation is that CATL and its subsidiaries will cooperate with Becko Technology and Alte in the business of new energy vehicles (including but not limited to scalable new energy vehicles based on skateboard chassis), among which Alte will provide design services for the production of new energy vehicles commissioned by Becko Technology. At the same time, CATL will also cooperate with Becko Technology and Alte in the new energy vehicle battery replacement business, providing the latter two with complete battery replacement solutions.

This investment means that CATL and Gecko Technology will establish closer cooperation in the field of skateboard chassis, which is expected to accelerate their related progress.

Of course, this does not mean that the chances of success in making skateboard chassis are very high. In fact, this field still faces many risks. The sudden fall from favor of the popular Rivian has exposed the problems that the skateboard chassis still faces, such as the lack of technical maturity. In addition, industry insiders also pointed out that there is still great uncertainty as to how many companies will really buy into the skateboard chassis, especially whether the vehicle manufacturers are willing to outsource the core chassis.