Ternyata uda ada yang pernah bongkar ya Mini Ev beginian.
Yang bongkar Professor dari Jepang. Sadis hasil bongkaran nya, tapi ya saya harus akui hebat tuh produsen Cina bisa bikin cost reduction tingkat dewa gitu.
At 28,800 yuan ($4,500), the Hongguang Mini EV has become a big seller in certain Chinese cities and villages. In Japan, a Nagoya University professor disassembled the electric vehicle to discover what kind of alchemy the manufacturer used to set such a low price.
Rather than wizardry, professor Masayoshi Yamamoto discovered a neat trick that SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile pulled off -- the use of cheap, not-so-durable parts put together in a way that makes them easy to replace.
The Japan Management Association imported the top-of-the-line Mini EV, priced at 38,800 yuan ($6,000), to exhibit at an event. Professor Masayoshi Yamamoto and others took the vehicle apart after the exhibition and estimated the total cost of the vehicle's parts and assembly at 480,000 yen ($4,200).
The Mini EV has no regenerative braking system, which has greatly reduced its cost. Regenerative braking converts the rotational force of the wheels when a car is slowing down into electricity, then returns the power to the in-vehicle battery.
The system is essential to extending an electric vehicle's range, but it is not used in the Mini EV. As a result, the range of the high-end model, which has a battery with a 13.9 kWh capacity, is 170 km, slightly short for that amount of battery capacity.
The range is sufficient "if the car is charged at home and is driven only in nearby areas," Yamamoto said. The exclusion of regenerative braking also makes possible the use of simple electrical equipment. For example, the cost of the inverter, which changes direct current into alternating current, was reduced to about $140. Many inverters go for around $530.
The electric vehicle also forgoes a liquid cooling system for the motor and other parts in favor of an air-cooled system. Since the power semiconductor inside the inverter and other electronic components are affected by heat, the inverter's expected life span has been set at eight years, or 120,000 km.
The Mini EV is likely to suffer more problems than many electric vehicles, most of which are designed to last for 20 years, or 200,000 km. But this might not be as big of a trade-off as one might guess. To make up for this difference, the Mini EV is designed so the inverter and other modules can be easily swapped out, Yamamoto said.
The automaker was able to further reduce costs by using off-the-shelf parts and components. The speed reducer, which adjusts the torque of the Chinese-made motor, uses Chinese-made commodity ball bearings rather than specially designed bearings; both meet performance requirements.
