Users frequently spit, why should car companies manage? This is the reason for automatic start and stop.

[car home? Industry] There is such a clip in the movie Crazy Stone: When actor Bo Huang is rubbing safflower oil on Guo Tao, the light in the bathhouse suddenly goes out. Bo Huang said angrily, "It's really saving money. Why not install voice-activated lights in the bathhouse? " Poke people laugh at the same time, but also satirize the pettiness of the bathhouse owner.

The automatic start-stop function of vehicles seems to be the same: driving luxury cars, frequent traffic jams, long queues, between stops, vehicles sometimes turn off and sometimes start. More or less vibration is always disturbing. At this time, if you say "save money" to the beauty in the co-pilot position, I'm afraid it will be heard as a cold joke. Come to think of it, why are you so stingy How does the start-stop function that is frequently spit out become the treasure of car companies?

If you want to rank the most "chicken ribs" function of a car, automatic start-stop will definitely be on the list. However, no matter how car owners "spit", in recent years, new cars on the market have been installed correctly and the assembly rate has soared. Automatic start-stop technology is staged "Fire and Ice".

■ From "Wang Xie Tang Qian" to "Ordinary Home"

Automatic start-stop system (stop &; Short for STT, it is a set of devices that can control the engine to automatically turn off/ignite at a specific moment. Earlier, car home's column "It is said that there are a large number" also discussed automatic start and stop. Generally speaking, if the engine continues to work when the vehicle is stationary during driving, it will produce unnecessary fuel consumption and exhaust emissions. Automatic start-stop is to automatically turn off the engine when the vehicle is stationary for a short time, and then restart the engine when necessary to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption and emissions.

Automatic start-stop is obviously not a new technology. According to the data, on 1958, the start-stop function began to be used for buses owned by Japan West Rail Bus Company. 1980 or so, Japan popularized this technology in the field of public transportation. Due to the crisis of petroleum resources, Japan has been at the forefront in automobile energy-saving and environmental protection technology. After enjoying the fuel-saving effect of start-stop technology in the field of public transportation, Japanese car companies turned their attention to the field of private cars.

Japan's involvement in passenger car start-stop technology can be traced back to around 1970. Toyota was the first enterprise to eat crabs, and the fourth generation Crown was equipped with a start-stop system on the basis of experiments. The test results show that the fuel saving rate of this technology can be increased by 10%. However, the automatic start-stop technology was not widely used at that time because it was difficult to solve the problems of restart jitter and electrical power supply. Of course, this will "do something" for the promotion of automatic start-stop in the field of passenger cars.

Around 1980, Volkswagen's second-generation Polo production model also began to assemble the start-stop system. 1994 Volkswagen 3rd Generation Golf and 1999 Audi A2 are equipped with this technology. In 2006, Citroen developed a "start-stop" system, which was installed on Citroen C2 and C3 models. According to historical data, automatic start-stop technology entered the popularization stage in 2006.

From the historical development, automatic start-stop technology mainly focused on high-end models in the early days, as one of the important selling points of car companies. It was not until recent years that it was widely popularized to ordinary models. According to the big data of car home, among the models sold in 2009 -20 10, the assembly rate of automatic start-stop function for large cars was 4.76% and 1 1.54% respectively, while the compact and small cars in the middle and low end were hardly assembled. About 20 14, the assembly rate of small cars and compact automatic start-stop gradually increases.

"In the old society, Wang Xietang flew into the homes of ordinary people." The automatic start-stop function was originally used as a publicity stunt for high-end models. After ten years of popularization and application, it has been well known to the public and is no longer labeled as high-end. However, up to now, it has been "spit" by major car owners. Why?

■ The optimal solution after the game between policy and consumer.

"The first thing to do when you get on the bus is to turn off the automatic start and stop." In the owner Zhou Hua's mind, automatic start and stop can be said to be the most "chicken rib" function. Stop and go when there is a traffic jam. "I haven't saved a few hairs on oil money, and my mood at work has been ruined." Zhou Hua has always had a bad impression on the automatic start-stop function, and thinks that frequent starting of vehicles will disturb driving mood. He never paid attention to the contribution of automatic start-stop to fuel consumption, but thought that driving technology was much better.

Zhou Hua is not an example of the automatic start-stop function of Tucao. After investigating a large number of users, car home found that 70% of netizens will turn off the automatic start-stop function when they get on the bus because "I really don't like this function"; 20% netizens said that they didn't know whether automatic start-stop was useful, but the function would be turned off when the traffic jam stopped. Only 10% of netizens said that this function would not be turned off, and they thought that automatic start-stop would save fuel. It can be seen that most users have a "dislike" attitude towards the automatic start-stop function.

Song Mingyang, director of the Vehicle Integration Office of Southeast Automobile Research Institute, believes that there are two main reasons why users don't pay for automatic start-stop: First, automatic start-stop doesn't give consumers a good experience, and the jitter caused by frequent start-stop makes consumers feel bored. Second, automatic start-stop will also bring some side effects, increasing the potential maintenance cost of batteries and starters.

However, we found that even in the face of a large number of users' "spit", the standard rate of automatic start-stop has always maintained an upward trend. After years of development, the automobile market has entered the "buyer's market" from the "seller's market", and automobile companies have also spent a lot of energy to tap consumers' preferences. Why do car companies that have been shouting "Customer is God" prefer automatic start-stop technology so much? We should also realize that China's automobile market is a "policy market".

20 16, 1, the fourth-stage fuel consumption standard for passenger cars in China (20 16-2020) was officially implemented. According to the plan, the average fuel consumption of new passenger cars in China will reach 5.0L/ 100km in 2020, and the corresponding carbon dioxide emission is about 120g/km. 20 15 to 2020, the average fuel consumption targets of new passenger car products in that year set by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are 6.9L, 6.7L, 6.4L, 6L, 5.5L and 5.0L respectively. In this regard, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also organized the National Automobile Standardization Technical Committee (hereinafter referred to as the "Automobile Standardization Committee") to put forward a technical scheme to meet the energy-saving standards in 2020 from five aspects: reducing the resistance required for vehicle driving, improving the efficiency of heat energy conversion, reducing the loss during energy transmission, reducing the consumption of auxiliary energy, and optimizing vehicle energy management.

Standard technical scheme of passenger car energy saving in 2020.

"From the analysis of technology, cost and energy-saving potential provided by enterprises, it is theoretically possible to achieve the goal of 5.0L/ 100km in 2020, but the corresponding cost needs to be increased." Song Mingyang pointed out that "from 20 15 to 2020, the fuel consumption will be reduced by nearly 30%, and the cost of idling start-stop is far lower than other technical schemes. It only needs to pay for enhancing the performance of the battery and starter, which is very cost-effective. "

On the other hand, automatic start-stop technology does have fuel-saving effect. Statistics show that the automatic start-stop technology can save fuel by 3%- 10% according to legal working conditions. Gu Jianmin, chief technology officer of Valeo China, said that the fuel-saving benefit of automatic start-stop also depends on driving conditions. Under urban working conditions, automatic start-stop can even save 65,438+05% fuel consumption. "Under high-speed working conditions, because the engine does not need to start and stop, it does not involve fuel saving."

It can be seen that the automatic start-stop assembly rate continues to increase even if the user "spits". According to big data from car home, in 20 19, the automatic start-stop assembly rate of passenger cars in China was as high as 52.5%, and almost half of them were equipped with automatic start-stop function.

This is the result of the game between national policy and market demand. On the one hand, fuel consumption and emission indicators are a "sword" hanging over the head of enterprises; On the other hand, although consumers "don't like" the automatic start-stop function, this is not the decisive factor for users not to buy this car. In this case, the new car comes standard with automatic start-stop function, which makes it easier to pass the fuel consumption and emission test before leaving the factory, and it is also a "bitter user". In this way, the logic behind automatic start-stop can be understood, and the higher the assembly rate.

This is the "ice and fire" faced by automatic start-stop technology. When consumers are talking about whether the start-stop function is easy to use, how much oil can be saved between stops, and whether it will damage the starter and battery after a long time, the enterprise has calculated an account: how to meet the fuel consumption regulations more easily and how to choose the energy-saving technical route with lower cost.

■ Electrification is to eliminate the "knife holder" who starts and stops automatically.

However, while we are still discussing the advantages and disadvantages of automatic start-stop, the fuel consumption target of the fifth stage is coming, the market scale of new energy vehicles is gradually expanding, and the seemingly prosperous automatic start-stop technology is facing a crisis.

On October 24th, 2065438+2009/kloc-0, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the mandatory national standard "Fuel Consumption Limits for Passenger Cars" (draft for comments), and it was clearly stated in the compilation instructions that it would continue to promote energy saving and consumption reduction of traditional fuel vehicles, and at the same time ensure the realization of the development goal of new energy vehicles, and finally reach the average fuel consumption level of new passenger cars in China to 4.0l/1in 2025.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out that in order to reach the fuel consumption target of 4.0L/ 100km in 2025, on the one hand, it is necessary to continuously reduce the fuel consumption of traditional vehicles, especially to promote the wide application of technologies such as 48V systems and hybrid power systems, on the other hand, a considerable number of new energy vehicles are needed. Compared with the fuel consumption target in the fourth stage, the application proportion of automotive electrification technology will be significantly improved. For example, 48V system will become an important technical option to greatly reduce fuel consumption. In other words, the 48V system will be the technical route supported by the state, which will be a "dimension reduction alternative" to the traditional automatic start-stop technology.

In principle, automotive electronic equipment is basically powered by on-board 12V battery pack, while the automatic start-stop system mostly adopts enhanced generator. The voltage of 12V is somewhat "inadequate" for the automatic start-stop system, which will cause the start-stop system to vibrate greatly and respond slowly when it works frequently. In addition, after the parking stall, the air conditioner only supplies air without cooling, which is criticized by the majority of users.

"The first function of the 48V system is still the engine start-stop function, but the 48V technology has higher mechanical power, which can improve energy recovery and torque assistance and achieve higher carbon dioxide emission reduction." Gu Jianmin pointed out that the future 48V scheme will largely replace the 12V start-stop system.

"mercedes benz c Class and E Class have 48V light mixing system models".

In addition, the 48V system can also improve various problems caused by automatic start and stop, and consumers will not have a bad experience during use. Song Mingyang explained, "At low speed, the vehicle is driven by a motor. When the vehicle speed is higher than 10km/h, the engine will intervene again. Simply put, 48V not only achieves the purpose of energy saving and emission reduction, but also fits the user's usage habits better. "

Statistics show that by the end of February 2065438+2009, 48V light hybrid vehicles 15 were sold nationwide, and the total number of vehicles equipped with 48V system reached 197500, while in 2065438+2008, it was only 22000. Among them, from 2065438 to 2009, the terminal sales (insurance data) of Mercedes-Benz 48V light hybrid vehicles reached 152500 vehicles. The terminal sales volume of Geely's 48V light-mixed model is 38,400, and Cargill, Xingyue and Yuebin all have 48V light-mixed system models for consumers to choose from.

In the long run, the supporting quantity of automatic start-stop technology will also be impacted by new energy vehicles. It is pointed out in the New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (202 1-2035) (draft for comment) that the sales volume of new energy vehicles will reach 25% in 2025. It is foreseeable that the sales target of new energy vehicles will only be gradually improved in the future. With the increasing proportion of new energy vehicles, the assembly quantity of traditional engine automatic start-stop system will peak and decrease year by year.

As Song Mingyang said, China will implement the fifth-stage fuel consumption policy and actively promote the double-point management method. The cost and fuel-saving effect of automatic start-stop technology will reach the upper limit, and enterprises will vigorously develop hybrid vehicles and increase the sales of pure electric vehicles. "We expect that the automatic start-stop technology will be eliminated within five years."

■ Editor's summary: "Bitter users" thinking is unacceptable.

The automatic start-stop function is unqualified in most cases. From the perspective of pure products, the biggest problem is unfriendly to users. Although it has a certain fuel-saving effect, it also brings great trouble to users. It is undeniable that it is understandable for car companies to achieve the goal of energy conservation and emission reduction, but at the expense of user experience, this "bitter user" mentality is unacceptable.

In fact, there is still room for optimization of automatic start-stop For example, Mazda i-STOP intelligent idle stop system has a good reputation in the industry. The iSTARS system developed by Valeo adopts 12V belt aspirator, which can also realize fast and quiet engine start with high electrical efficiency. However, many car companies regard automatic start-stop as a stepping stone to meet the fuel consumption limit, but they have not further optimized the user experience, and the ultimate harm will only be their own interests. (Text/car home? Li Zhengguang)