Ouyang Tao, the assistant director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (hereinafter referred to as “China National Automobile Researchâ€), is the first person to break through the tradition—the TPMS national industry standards led by him, far higher than the US national standards.
This is a brand-new breakthrough for domestic companies that have been lagging behind European and American countries in terms of automotive technology standards, and the standards are usually based on European and American standards. And this national standard, which is much higher than the United States, is currently being controversial in the industry.
The formulation of China's TPMS standard was initially aimed at taking active safety as the starting point and minimizing the occurrence of puncture accidents due to insufficient tire pressure. During an interview with CNAF, Ouyang Tao said that “the development of this standard should be as complete as possible, and the potential danger should be informed to the driver in the most direct and clear manner at the first time.â€
However, this standard is being challenged by the business community represented by the United States, Europe and Japan. The high TPMS standard cannot possibly avoid the harm caused by a sudden explosion, so whether this technology can be popularized is worth exploring. The establishment of strict standards will allow OEMs and parts companies to invest large sums of money in technical upgrading. Economic considerations do not require the establishment of high standards.
Why is the standard higher than the United States?
The United States is currently the only country in the world that has established TPMS mandatory standards. The cause was the continuous accident report that pointed out that when Bridgestone tires were used under insufficient tire pressure, the surface of the tires would peel off at high speeds and cause a flat tire. After the puncture, due to the different tire speeds on both sides, the center of gravity will be seriously tilted and cause the accident of turning over the vehicle.
This led the U.S. government to start drafting relevant laws that require automakers to accelerate the development of a tire pressure monitor system (TPMS) and to legislate that after September 2007, every light new car will need to have a tire pressure monitoring system installed. FMVSS138 standard (hereinafter referred to as "138 standard") to ensure traffic safety.
"The 138 standard is very simple." Ouyang Tao told reporters that it is simply stipulated that four tires, cars under 4.3 tons must be installed; and TPMS to meet the technical requirements are: tire underpressure 25%, when the car is driven to 50- At 100 km, an alarm is required within 20 minutes and a specific lamp display is required to be installed.
China's standards are followed by Europe and the United States, and TPMS is no exception. Ouyang Tao told reporters that China National Petroleum Research Institute is to see whether the United States introduced TPMS standards, but also began to study whether the domestic need to develop similar standards.
"After the introduction of U.S. standards in 2002, China National Automobile Research Institute began to prepare for the project," Ouyang Tao said. However, at that time, after investigation, it was discovered that as the domestic auto market was still in its infancy, domestic TPMS manufacturers were almost blank. Until 2006, it was learned that domestic TPMS manufacturers have already reached a certain scale, and there have also appeared monographs to develop TPMS manufacturers.
In terms of quantity, the domestic TPMS industry has more than 150 companies, but the strength of the company's scale is uneven. The best domestic company is Shanghai Taihao Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Taihao"). Since its establishment in August 2002, it has been focusing on the development of TPMS products. Jin Xiaogan, the technical director of the company, told the reporter: After spending 4 years and spending tens of millions of dollars, the TPMS products developed by Thai Wells have surpassed the US minimum threshold.
“At that time, there were two kinds of views: one wished to copy American standards and one wished to establish a higher Chinese standard.†An expert who participated in the drafting of Shanghai Volkswagen told reporters. Taking into account that the US standard is too simple, members of the drafting group represented by Ouyang Tao believe that it is difficult to meet the purpose of active safety that the drafting unit has to achieve. Ouyang Tao and Shanghai Volkswagen and other participating organizations believe that China should set higher standards.
Pro and opponents
There are a total of 17 drafting organizations, among which China National Automobile Research Institute, Shanghai Volkswagen, and Taihao, as well as international mainstream chip manufacturers and test units. Foreign companies such as Toyota and TRW, as observers, provided opinions and suggestions.
Shanghai Volkswagen, one of the members of the drafting group, was in the process of developing the TPMS system for Passat's new high-end models. According to the scheme proposed by Shanghai Volkswagen, tire pressure conditions must be immediately displayed in the state of zero kilometers after ignition, and alarms should be issued within 6 seconds of insufficient tire pressure. From the quality requirements, the TPMS system including the battery needs to achieve a 6-year warranty of 100,000 km. In addition, the TPMS system is required to promptly report an air leak and can accurately determine which tire and other details. These have become the specific content of the future TPMS national standard.
However, the excessively demanding TPMS national standard formulation has caused controversy in the industry. When the TPMS national standard was solicited for opinions in October last year, the European Automobile Industry Association and the Japan Automobile Industry Association all raised objections. Among them, representatives of the Japan Automobile Industry Association made more than 200 comments before and after.
One of the members of the drafting group, Liu Xinliang, product engineering department of Shanghai Volkswagen Electric Engineering Co., told reporters, “The most important issue raised by the two associations is that in the case of zero kilometer ignition, tire pressure must be displayed within six seconds. The reason they objected was that the tires were round. In the stationary situation, there were many dead zone data that could not be read in the in-situ detection. This would affect the accuracy of the TPMS alarm. In their view, the dead zone was There is no way to solve the physical phenomena that exist."
"Because there has not been a lot of trials, foreign companies are still facing such a technical bottleneck." Another drafting group member told reporters that in fact these can be solved.
The United States TRW is the world’s largest company focusing on automotive passive safety. A person in charge of the company told reporters that they are not up to the standard, but if the standard is set too high, it needs to modify the program and verification time. It takes about six months or so and it is technically not a problem, but more than 200,000 U.S. dollars need to be invested for this purpose. If the domestic market demand does not reach a certain amount, then the cost of the customer will be relatively high, which is not worth considering from the economic point of view.
"The US mandatory TPMS standard is just a standard of comfort and energy efficiency. TPMS cannot fundamentally solve the security problem."
According to the statistics of the National Highway Safety Administration, there are obviously one tires with insufficient tire pressure for every four tires on a car or every three truck tires. Although the traffic rules manual recommends checking the tire pressure once every month, most car owners do not want to bow or bend to detect tire pressure. With visual inspection, it is not very accurate to determine the degree of tire pressure shortage. Therefore, the convenient tire pressure monitoring system has become popular as a means of popular use.
The second route is also controversial
Although the domestic TPMS system has now entered the stage of review by the National Automotive Standardization Committee, but what is the best solution to the problem of flat tires is still under discussion.
TRW's sources told reporters: “The biggest problem with the TPMS standard is that even if the national standard has been considered comprehensive and the risk is kept to a minimum, the actual occurrence of a puncture is much shorter than 6 seconds. When the puncture occurred, the TPMS system with a reaction time of 6 seconds could not react at all."
From this point of view, the TPMS system is also just a defensive measure, that is, through the advance notice, timely adjustment of the tire pressure to the best condition, to avoid tire puncture caused by insufficient tire pressure, but it can not be avoided. A puncture caused by an accident. Moreover, due to competition among manufacturers, the TPMS system currently on the market is far higher than the US standard.
Liu Xinliang also agrees with this, but at the same time, he also believes: “The probability of puncturing other than other causes is far less than the puncture caused by insufficient tire pressure. In this regard, setting up a high demand TPMS system can still play a role. ."
In January 2008, the European Union also set up a TPMS system. Although there is news that Europe implemented this standard in 2012, it has not been verified before the reporter's draft. European companies, represented by Continental Tires, are trying to promote run-flat tires, that is, once the tire has burst, it can continue to travel a certain number of kilometers at a certain speed until it reaches the destination or the rest stop.
However, this technology also has obvious flaws. “It is a one-off, that is, tires are scrapped once they reach the destination after a flat tire. Compared with ordinary tires, the price of a run-flat tire is quite high, which is the price of four ordinary tires. If the cost If it cannot be reduced, the difficulty of promotion will be enhanced. If all 20 million cars in Europe are replaced with gas-for-use tires, the cost will be high.†Ouyang Tao said that China National Automobile Research Institute has not established this project yet.
Some time ago Geely BMBS technology was scolded. Geely chairman Li Shufu is now communicating with China National Petroleum Research Institute and hopes to formulate the BMBS industry standard. BMBS uses artificial intelligence active intervention technology. Its core technology is that the BMBS system automatically takes over the vehicle before the driver encounters a puncture response to replace the driver to implement the vehicle braking, so as to reduce and resolve the risk of puncture.
According to Geely’s explanation, after the car with BMBS technology on the road can run at a speed of 120km/h—160km/h, a puncture suddenly occurs. The BMBS system will immediately start operation and will automatically brake and decelerate within 3 seconds. The car decelerates to approximately 40 km/h and maintains a state of non-horizontal, side-to-side, straight-line travel. It also lays aside in 3 to 5 seconds.
But this is not accepted by the TPMS drafters. An engineer from the drafter’s office told the reporter that foreign companies are afraid to use this active braking system. The reason is to ignore a major security risk - trailing behind other vehicles. A sudden accident such as a puncture occurred in front of the car. The trailing vehicle is also traveling at a high speed. If the front vehicle is suddenly braked, how can the rear vehicle not be disturbed? This may result in a more serious rear-end collision.
In addition, technical experts also questioned this question. Once a puncture occurs in the turning lane, the BMBS system can accurately turn the vehicle while braking and braking automatically. If it cannot turn, it means that there may be even more danger. Therefore, they believe that such technology is still only in the laboratory, and industrialization needs to break through many technical bottlenecks.