Electric car will be more popular soon and its critical component: bearings

"In the era of AI and software, no matter what high technology is used, it needs to be realized through mechanical devices, such as high quality bearings and parts, and these technologies also need to be continuously updated and developed." During the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, Japan Seiko Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as NSK) executive officer, Mr. Yu Guoping, said in an interview.

Driven by AI advancement, a new round of technological revolution in the automotive industry is accelerating. Everyone begins to cheer for the achievements of higher-level autonomous driving scenarios. They lamented the beauty of the software car era, but they always ignore that hardware determines the boundary of software. In fact, every step of the technological revolution is actually inseparable from the continuous research in the field of basic parts and components

In fact, affected by the pandemic, the domestic and foreign auto markets show a certain degree of decline since 2020. As the price of raw materials moves toward long-term and high-level development, it will further test the industry chain. Based on NSK's experience in 2020, Yu Guoping suggested that corporate cooperation should strengthen communication and form supply and demand virtually. At the same time, OEMs, upstream suppliers, and raw material companies should work out a good mechanism to overcome difficulties.

Regarding the medium and long-term development trend, Yu Guoping’s view is that consumer demand for emerging technologies such as AI will provide a certain amount of room for increase in the overall automotive market sales, but the longer-term automotive market needs to be recognized. Based on this, Yu Guoping said that nowadays, parts and components companies need to go ahead of end users and lead the technological revolution in order to maintain an invincible position in the future market competition with a solid core competitiveness. The era of full electric drive is accelerating, and the core technology still needs a revolutionary breakthrough

In 2021, China officially launched the "14th Five-Year Plan". According to the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0" it’s projected that China's new energy vehicle sales will account for 20% by 2025. In this regard, Yu Guoping pointed out that the proportion of traditional fuel vehicles will continue to decline in the future, and the direction of pure electric vehicles will remain unchanged. However, thermal power generation will be the mainstay in the short term. Therefore, before the widespread use of cleaner renewable energy, hybrid system may be a better choice. Based on this, "In the next 5-10 years, fuel, hybrid and pure electric vehicles will present a three-pronged pattern."

But at the same time, facing the era of full electric drive in the future, there are still many technical bottlenecks to be resolved. In recent years, with the continuous evolution of the miniaturization and weight reduction of electric vehicle drive systems, and the increasing market demand for high-efficiency drive motors, higher speed requirements have been put forward for ball bearings for drive motors. However, under high-speed rotation of ball bearings, heat generation and cage damage are issues that need to be solved urgently.

To solve this problem, at this stage, NSK has released the third-generation high-speed ball bearings for electric vehicle drive motors (Gen3), which are suitable for high-speed operating conditions with dmN*1=1.8 million. It is reported that this series of grease-lubricated deep groove ball bearings can achieve the highest speed in the world, reduce the energy consumption of electric vehicles, extend the cruising range, and at the same time contribute to the expansion of the interior space through the miniaturization of the drive motor. "With the continuous development of technology, the demand for high-speed motors is gradually increasing. I think that high-speed ball bearings will usher in greater development in the next five years." Yu Guoping revealed that NSK is currently one of the few capable of producing ultra-high-speed balls.

With the continuous advancement of smart electric vehicle technology, NSK has developed an electric brake actuator that uses its world-leading ball screw technology to accurately execute the brake command in place, and has a small volume, light weight, high performance, It has the advantages of high response speed and higher safety, which can be applied to pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles. "At present, this technology has been put into production in China in April this year. With the continuous expansion of new customers in the future, its production capacity will further increase." Yu Guoping revealed.

In addition, based on NSK's advantages in mechatronics, it has further introduced a steer-by-wire that supports automatic driving technology, which can achieve straight-line stability at high speed while ensuring maneuverability at extremely low speed. When combined with a high-output steering actuator, it is also suitable for large commercial vehicles such as trucks.

NSK adopts an integrated design combining driving, steering and braking functions at the same time. It is equipped with load sensors and a vehicle height adjustment mechanism, which can automatically adjust each module. The load balancing can be applied to various vehicles such as smart logistics vehicles and smart buses.

"Facing the future, I think the industry will accelerate integration, high-quality companies may continue to absorb and merge the remaining capacity, and the strong will remain strong." Yu Guoping said that at present, several major international mainstream component companies have increased their transformation efforts and continue to develop new ones. Technology, materials and products, but at the same time, local companies are also accelerating to catch up. "As a foreign-funded enterprise, we cannot stay on the same page, and we must continue to innovate and build a higher core competitiveness." But it is clear that if you want to compete for a larger market share in the future, we need to accelerate the development and commercialization of new technologies and products on the basis of maintaining the share of existing products. 

In recent years, China has become a fertile ground for cultivating many emerging technologies, thanks to the great support of the Chinese government for innovative technology and the automobile market, and the enormous tolerance of the huge market for new things. But at the same time, the ever-changing market put forward higher requirements for every company that wants to have a cut in the huge market of China.