On April 17, Xpeng Motors and Volkswagen Group jointly announced the formal signing of a strategic cooperation framework agreement on EEA electronic and electrical architecture technology.
According to the agreement,The CEA (China Electrical Architecture) electronic and electrical architecture jointly developed by the two parties is expected to be applied to Volkswagen brand electric models produced in China from 2026.
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If you are not someone in the automotive industry, it is difficult to understand why such an electrical architecture cooperation is so important. However, for Volkswagen, this cooperation is extremely valuable, no less than the previous two cooperations between Volkswagen and Xpeng in equity investment and joint procurement.
1. What is the EEA architecture?
We can understand the EEA architecture as the “iOS/Android system of the automotive industry”. The EEA architecture connects and drives all control units and components including body, chassis, power, smart driving, and cockpit.
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The EEA architecture has also gone through several eras of development. The first era is the era of distributed electronic and electrical architecture, including car lights, windows, airbags, intelligent assisted driving, etc. Various functions of the vehicle are controlled by hundreds of independent ECUs. Control, information transmission and switch control between various functions require complex cable connections. There is limited space for intelligence and subsequent vehicle OTA upgrades, making it difficult to support the performance requirements of today's vehicles for intelligence and smart driving.
Later, the automobile industry entered the era of domain control electronic and electrical architecture, which solved some of the shortcomings of distributed architecture. Some key modules such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and full vehicle gateway were introduced into the domain control electrical architecture and adopted Ethernet high-speed bus communication. Technology has reduced the number of ECUs and the length of wire harnesses to a certain extent, but there are still coordination and compatibility issues between multiple domains.
If cars want to be truly intelligent, it is the general trend to choose a more integrated “central supercomputing + regional control” architecture.This EEA architecture can further integrate the various control domains of the vehicle and integrate the intelligent driving domain with the cockpit domain, bringing about huge leaps in performance and cost.
As early as 2022, Xpeng G9 will carry this centrally integrated EEA architecture into a car for the first time, namely EEA 3.0. Xpeng G9's intelligence, intelligent driving capabilities and vehicle power consumption are significantly ahead of the industry level.
In 2023, Xiaopeng launched the “Fuyao” platform, bringing a brand-new XNGP, bringing smart driving into an era of “easy to use across the country”. Behind these achievements, the foundation is Xpeng’s leading EEA electronic and electrical architecture.
Currently, Xpeng’s EEA architecture has evolved to version 3.5.
Compared with the EEA3.0 architecture, in addition to improving the domain control performance of the vehicle by 50%,Because the controllers of each module are greatly reduced, the integration is the highest, and the hardware cost is saved by 40%. This is undoubtedly very attractive to car companies.
In terms of performance, Xpeng EEA uses a hierarchical management software platform, shortening the iteration cycle of intelligent functions by 50%; and, after-sales intelligent diagnosis can enable pre-diagnosis of problems before users arrive at the store, which is at the leading level in the domestic automobile industry.
In addition, Xpeng EEA supports Gigabit Ethernet high-speed data transmission between the central domain and the intelligent assisted driving domain controller, which can shorten the OTA time of each vehicle to less than 30 minutes, which is the fastest in the industry.
Moreover, Xpeng EEA supports precise power distribution for the entire vehicle's electrical components. Different from traditional cars that require the entire vehicle to be powered on to “turn on any function,” Xpeng EEA can provide scene power supply based on user application needs, reducing the power consumption of the entire vehicle. Optimized to the extreme. This is also the core reason why Xpeng G9’s power consumption control level has always been at the forefront in many media battery life tests.
At present, most domestic car companies still stay in the completely independent architecture of the intelligent driving domain and the cockpit domain. Xpeng has taken the lead in upgrading to the EEA3.5 architecture of “central supercomputing + regional control”. In terms of integration and data technology platform , layered software platforms, etc. are all at the absolute leading level in the industry.
It can significantly reduce hardware costs while improving computing power utilization. It can be said that,The EEA architecture will also become Xpeng Motors’ second technical business card after XNGP smart driving.
2. Why is Volkswagen’s Chinese partner Xiaopeng?
Among the new domestic car-making forces, the three industry giants “Wei Xiaoli” all have their own brand characteristics.
NIO is famous for its high-quality service to users and is known as “Haidilao in the car circle”; Li Auto accurately meets user needs; and Xpeng Motors is a “representative of the technology department” and is deeply involved in smart driving, electrification and intelligence. Cockpit area.
For Volkswagen, the world's largest car company, it is possible to improve user service levels and meet users' more refined needs in a short period of time with the support of sufficient funds and a large dealer system.
Only in the new energy era,In terms of emerging technologies such as intelligence and smart driving, it is difficult to achieve immediate results by simply increasing investment in research and development. This is why Volkswagen is anxious about the fierce competition in China's new energy market.
In the European market, Xpeng Motors' performance in terms of body safety, advanced vehicle electrification architecture, and outstanding intelligent driving capabilities has also attracted the attention of Volkswagen.
Volkswagen does not care about the “soul theory” of car companies. It is the best shortcut for century-old car companies to “cut through the mess quickly” by participating in the competition in the emerging new energy vehicle market as quickly as possible.
Against this background, Volkswagen has cooperated twice with Xpeng Motors in equity transactions and joint procurement.
On April 17 this year, Volkswagen chose to cooperate with Xpeng for the third time. The two parties signed an EEA electronic and electrical architecture technology strategic cooperation framework agreement. They will jointly develop and integrate it into Volkswagen based on Xpeng Motors' latest generation electronic and electrical architecture. The car is on China's CMP platform.
Compared with the previous two cooperations, this EEA electronic and electrical architecture cooperation has touched the “soul” of Volkswagen even more. Volkswagen's new energy models in the Chinese market have fully shifted to the Xpeng series in the fields of grassroots electrification, smart cockpits, and smart driving. camp.
It is equivalent to Volkswagen’s “betting” on Xpeng Motors to make cars in the Chinese market smart in the future. It is enough to witness Xpeng Motors’ leadership in the latest generation of electronic and electrical architecture technology. After all, certification from the world’s top car companies has already enabled it. Explain many problems.
3. The third cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng is actually a win-win-win situation
The cooperation between Volkswagen and Xpeng in the EEA electronic and electrical architecture is a win-win cooperation for both the industry and car companies.
As far as Volkswagen is concerned, the new energy models launched in the Chinese market through cooperation between the two parties, the electrification and intelligence level of the entire vehicle have reached the level of the first echelon in the country, ensuring the competitiveness in the current abnormal involution market. At the same time, by absorbing the technology of Xpeng’s advanced architecture, Volkswagen can also raise the upper limit of vehicle intelligence.
For users, the Volkswagen brand has a large number of fans around the world. The intelligence level of Volkswagen's new energy vehicles has greatly improved, and the car experience will also be improved simultaneously.
Through technology output, Xpeng Motors has not only gained industry recognition for its technical capabilities, but has also developed a high-end model of “technology monetization”, which will significantly benefit the overall brand image and revenue of car companies.
Judging from financial data, from 2019 to 2023, Xiaopeng’s investment in research and development has reached a total of nearly 20 billion yuan, most of which has been invested in intelligent capabilities. In 2024, “AI technology with smart driving as the core” will The total R&D investment is RMB 3.5 billion.
Such investment in R&D and the paranoid pursuit of intelligence seem to be “outliers” in the automotive industry. However, now that Volkswagen has actively chosen to deepen cooperation with Xpeng Motors, it proves that Xpeng Motors adheres to the line of “technological long-termism” correctness.
Moreover, since Xpeng Motors entered the car manufacturing industry, it has successively released full-scenario parking, visible and talkable smart cockpit, Fuyao platform, XNGP smart driving and the latest electronic and electrical architecture, which have also strengthened Xpeng Motors' technical label and made it even more popular. The public recognizes that Xpeng Motors is a car company with “no upper limit on technology”.
In the future golden age of new energy vehicles, car companies will compete for their “technological trump cards.” The “technology monetization” model that Xpeng Motors is now cooperating with Volkswagen may become one of the mainstream models.
