In the automotive field, Geely's performance is particularly eye-catching. In addition to donating 200 million yuan, it recently said that it would develop an all-round healthy car with virus prevention function and plan to sell it to consumers. So what are the highlights of this car, what difficulties will it encounter in anti-virus and how long will it take us to buy it? In view of these problems, buy a car and talk to you.
Let's look at the characteristics of the all-around health car first.
During the epidemic prevention period, it is believed that car owners pay more attention to the hygiene inside the car than before, and some people will also clean the decorative parts inside the car with disinfectant or alcohol. But in the long run, these liquid substances will lead to problems such as fading or whitening of the interior, and it will not be able to return to normal.
Geely's all-around health car can solve these problems. The interior of this car adopts highly environmentally friendly materials, and at the same time, it can inhibit bacteria or sterilize the surface by adding certain antibacterial substances. In addition, the new car also has the function of isolating harmful substances from the outside air and purifying the air inside the car quickly and efficiently, which can effectively inhibit and reduce the harm of viruses to the human body.
Simply put, Geely's healthy car can not only sterilize, but also purify the air. This model can be said to be the first in the market, which also means that there will be a new development direction in the field of automobile research and development. Of course, since there are no examples of mass-produced cars that rely on automobile hardware and software to prevent viruses in the market, Geely will face unprecedented technical problems in developing all-healthy cars.
What problems will you face?
As we all know, the main mode of transmission of COVID-19 is through respiratory droplets and contact. A better prevention method is to isolate the virus in the air from the air we breathe. For cars, the air inside the car needs to be purified by air conditioning filter, so if you want to create clean air inside the car, air conditioning filter should become the primary breakthrough for healthy cars.
At present, there are three kinds of common air conditioning filter elements in the market: ordinary filter paper filter element, activated carbon filter element and HEPA filter element. Among them, ordinary filter paper filter and activated carbon filter can only isolate large suspended particles such as dust in the air, and stop at PM2.5 (particles with a diameter of not more than 2.5 microns). HEPA filter can effectively isolate PM0.3 (particles with a diameter of 0.3 micron). The droplet diameter attached to COVID-19 is usually larger than 0.74 micron, so HEPA filter element has better filtering function, and the effect is similar to N95 mask.
However, not all HEPA filters can effectively isolate virus intrusion, after all, it also has many layers. As shown in the following table, in order to protect the filter element above N95 level, the vehicle must use at least HEPA filter paper above E 1 1.
Of course, even if the HEPA filter can isolate the virus, because the vehicle is not a closed space, the car will be in direct contact with the air at the moment when the door is opened, and it is impossible to completely isolate the virus just by creating a clean environment in the car. The most ideal method is to install HEPA filter, and the car is also equipped with an active disinfection and sterilization system. How to realize this function is a difficult problem for Geely Automobile.
When can consumers buy?
Regarding how to make the car realize the automatic anti-virus function, we might as well wait for the announcement of Geely Automobile. Buy a car, and tell everyone about the question that has attracted much attention: How long does it take for a new car to go from research and development to mass production?
There are two ways of automobile research and development: forward research and development and reverse research and development. Among them, forward R&D means that all aspects of the vehicle, such as power systematization, chassis and styling, need to be completely developed and designed, and then all parts need to be rigorously tested for a long time, so it often takes 3-5 years to develop a new car forward.
In contrast, reverse research and development takes less time, which is more in line with the urgent needs of consumers for anti-virus models. Because the reverse development of new cars is only based on the transformation of existing models, most parts do not need to be remanufactured, so the time required is very short, usually 0.5- 1.5 years, which means that Geely's all-round healthy car can be bought as soon as this year.
However, it should be said that the disadvantages brought by the forward and reverse research and development of new models are also obvious. Because the research and development of new cars requires a lot of new equipment and a lot of test materials, coupled with labor costs, it often costs tens of billions of dollars. Moreover, the all-around health car will be equipped with many advanced technologies to prevent germs. These factors will lead to an increase in car prices.
Reverse R&D is equivalent to copying the design of the prototype, which is not only difficult to digest all the design ideas of the prototype, but also inherits the shortcomings of the prototype, and even the handling limit and driving quality may be lower than the prototype.
Generally speaking, Geely's idea of developing all-round healthy cars is worth encouraging and welcomed by consumers, but there are also many problems. Because this kind of car is equivalent to research and development from scratch, in addition to overcoming the problem of active disinfection and sterilization of materials, we should also consider how to control the cost under the premise of ensuring the high quality of products and ensure that most consumers have the purchasing power. Looking forward to the final result.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.