Domestic engines have made rapid progress, why hasn't the gearbox improved much?

When it comes to the automobile industry in China, the first thing that many people think of is that the engine is not autonomous and its appearance is backward, so it is only suitable for agriculture. In fact, today's domestic cars have approached or even surpassed some joint venture cars in design, materials, workmanship and configuration, and the core component of the engine has also developed wildly in various self-imitation and made great progress. After overexertion, symptoms of partial eclipse appear. The development of gearbox is not a little slower than that of engine. Although Dongan and Sheng Rui can also produce AT gearboxes at present, the reputation of domestic AT gearboxes is not as good as expected. Many independent brands of engines are independently developed, and the gearbox is mainly Aisin and ZF gearbox.

In fact, the research and development of several first-line independent brands on gearboxes has never stopped. Chery, a technical automobile manufacturer in China, once spent 1 billion, and many top universities in the United Nations to develop the first domestic CVT gearbox in five years. However, after a hundred years of industrial inheritance, people can catch up casually in five years. This gearbox also has the disadvantage of not being able to withstand large torque, and many core components need to be purchased from abroad. BYD is also a leading car company in China in gearbox, and many models also use their own gearboxes. The main reason for its development is the limited production capacity caused by the export restrictions of foreign technology. Geely, the brand, absorbed the technology of Australian DSI and made the first 6AT gearbox in China through clever acquisition. However, due to the old technology and high fuel consumption, it is rare for Geely to adopt its own AT gearbox. The dual clutch is nominally independently developed, but it is actually the technology of Borgwarner.

On the surface, we do have the technology to independently develop the gearbox, but we only solve the problem from scratch, and the ride comfort and handling are far from the advanced gearbox abroad. In fact, the research and development of gearbox may become more and more unnecessary in today's market environment. With the advancement of globalization, the flow of these suppliers has become very free, and the cost of procurement is actually much lower than that of self-research. Because there are not a few manufacturers who can provide excellent gearboxes, it is theoretically impossible to cause bottlenecks in such a big market as China. It is only a problem for them to stop supplying, which makes capital unwilling to invest in this long-term unprofitable self-research work, which is also one of the factors that make little progress in gearboxes.

China's current policy is to gradually replace fuel vehicles with new energy sources. On the one hand, China does not produce oil. Even if the automobile industry completely surpasses foreign countries, oil will get stuck one day. On the other hand, the huge gap in precision industry can not be made up in a short time. To develop overtaking of electric vehicles in corners, we can directly skip the technical tree of fuel vehicles. As long as the power grid and charging piles are fully popularized, a total ban on the sale of fuel vehicles in the future is an armchair strategist.

The above is a brief analysis of the slow development of domestic self-developed gearboxes. First of all, it started too late and took too long to catch up with this gap. The maturity of the global industrial chain makes the procurement cost lower than the self-developed gearbox, which also makes the capital dare not invest. In addition, the development route based on electric vehicles does not really need the parts of traditional fuel vehicles to become the primary investment targets. If you have different opinions, you can leave a message below.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.