From September 24 to 28, 2024, the 24th China International Industry Fair (CIIF) was held at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai). As a world-leading event in industrial technologies, the CIIF was a gathering for top-notch technology companies worldwide to showcase their latest technological achievements in the era of Industry 4.0.

During the event, CIIC launched by CATL (Shanghai) Intelligent Technology was the eye-catch of many visitors due to its innovative design concepts and mind-blowing form.

Innovative Concepts Breathe New Life into the Century-old Auto Industry

With the development of electrification and AI applications, people expect vehicles to develop from merely a means for transportation to smart mobile spaces for diversified needs: including outdoor travel, family cars, business travel, and retro customization. Moreover, the homogeneity of basic technologies has brought about intensified competition and an escalating price war in the auto industry. After more than 200 years of development, how the auto industry can truly embrace “smart mobile travel” has become a valuable topic to dig into.

Against this background, the skateboard chassis makes their way to the public view. It represents a novel auto design concept: the decoupling of the chassis and the upper body, greatly streamline the vehicle development cycle, and transforms the traditional models for vehicle development and business.

CIIC unveiled at the CIIF is a highly intelligent skateboard chassis developed by CATL (Shanghai) Intelligent Technology. Its core features are “decoupling of the upper body and lower chassis, high-level integration, and open access.” As a mobile energy unit with self-driving capabilities, CIIC assumes the roles of a sports center, an energy center, and a data center. Through innovative structural design, CIIC can absorb more than 85% of collision energy (whereas traditional chassis can only absorb around 55%), improve vehicle safety, mitigate design limits, and make it easier for auto partners to focus on the definition of vehicles, as well as the development of functions related to user experience, including intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and auto styling.

The CIIC integrates the vehicle's drive, brake, steering, and suspension systems into one. Moreover, it is equipped with a versatile set of toolkits, including different energy cabins, and electric drive solutions. Under the scalable architecture and standardized interface design, there can be a flexible selection of solutions for different models and scenarios, and this single solution can cater to a variety of models. The CIIC-S model exhibited at the CIIF adopts the flat chassis design and is compatible with a variety of solutions such as battery replacement. The emergence of CIIC will promote a more modular, personalized and intelligent auto design. While the chassis focuses on energy supply efficiency, battery health management and utmost safety, the upper body focuses on personalized and customized styling, and the ultimate intelligent user experience. This ensures specialized design, R & D, and manufacturing of the upper body and chassis, and more rational division of labor.

Enhanced Technological Strength allows the materialization of the “One-for-all” Black Technology

The widespread application of innovative concepts requires ongoing technological upgrading and safety is the primary concern of consumers when purchasing new energy vehicles. Based on the CATL's advanced power batteries, CIIC places batteries at the center and integrates the battery cell into the chassis with the cell to chassis design. This enables the sharing of the same structure with the chassis, and better rigidity. Moreover, the battery cell is designed to be inverted, so as to place the explosion-proof valve downward. This enables the movement of highly compressed and heated airflow downward along a specified pressure relief path under extreme conditions for more secure “decompression and deflation” and a lower risk of thermal damage to the passenger compartment. Besides that, based on CATL's NP2.0 (without heat diffusion), it can avoid open flame outside the battery pack when the battery cell is out of thermal control under extreme conditions, and thus improve vehicle safety.  

The integrated design of each CIIC's subsystem not only achieves high-level mechanical integration, but more importantly, the integration of battery, electric drive, and thermal management systems. Such design enables the connection of cooling and heating systems. The CIIC 800V model of Neta S Shooting Brake, which was launched for pre-sale this August, is equipped with CIIC. Its CLTC power consumption is as low as 11.7kW/h per 100km, indicating that users can travel more miles.

Based on the thermal management system of the multi-source heat pump, CIIC can achieve more efficient energy management and heat source management. The attenuation rate of heat preservation is less than 33% at -7℃. For the purpose of compliance with the thermal management requirements under all types of climates, the R&D personnel have formulated more than 20 thermal management strategies, which can achieve integrated energy management in four modes: cooling in summer, heating in winter, heat pump in bitter weather, and waste heat recovery.

In case of fast charging during winter, the battery can be preheated to a proper temperature at the appropriate time, ensuring fast charging and the increase of battery life.

In addition to that, the low-voltage power supply and distribution system of CIIC replaces the lead-acid battery with the PDC+12V lithium battery. It can last with the vehicle for the first period of its lifespan without replacement (lead-acid batteries have to be replaced every 2-3 years). It is designed for use with the PDC low-voltage intelligent power supply and distribution controller, which can intelligently inspect the safety of the electricity network throughout the life cycle and achieve health management.

“Black technology is a term full of enigma that represents cutting-edge technology that serves as a ground-breaking leader of the future. In the auto industry, ”black technology" indicates a smarter driving experience, higher efficiency in energy utilization, and safer driving... It is a technological breakthrough, as well as a profound change in human lifestyle.We can see that future travel will pay more attention to human-vehicle interaction, environmental conservation and sustainability, safety and comfort... The emergence of CIIC marks that the skateboard chassis as a concept of “black technology” has been put into mass production, ushering in the era of mass customization and personalization for the auto industry.