“Last year, GAC Aion registered an output of 270,000 cars. This year, we have set a target of 600,000.” Zheng Chunqi, Deputy General Manager of GAC Aion New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., told GDToday correspondent Carson on April 14 at the factory.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday inspected the city of Guangzhou in South China’s Guangdong Province.
During the inspection of GAC Aion New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., Xi listened to reports about the company’s progress in making technological breakthroughs and other work. While visiting the carmaker’s R&D centre, he talked with researchers, entrepreneurs, employees, and representatives of foreign enterprises.
Currently, intelligent and new-energy vehicle (NEV) is one of the three emerging pillar industries in Guangzhou. In 2022, Guangzhou has produced 313,700 NEVs, with a total output of 44.661 billion RMB.
According to Zheng Chunqi, more than 700 robots are in use at the factory, and the automation rate in stamping, welding, and painting reaches 100%. On the assembly line of GAC Aion, automotive glass is automatically installed by the robots, with the current installation accuracy reaching 0.1 mm.
Meanwhile, Zheng Chunqi also introduced that before the start of production, the car will be customized based on people’s different needs, and the system will allocate required parts to achieve “zero inventory”. “The factory can now produce one car every 60 seconds, and about 1,000 cars a day,” he said.
Zheng Chunqi said that GAC Aion has built its own system and exported NEV technology to Honda and Toyota in the automobile industry’s three core technologies: battery, motor and electronic control.
Zheng Chunqi told GDToday that the sponge silicon negative plate battery technology independently developed by Aion extended the driving range to over 1,000 kilometres for the first time in China. In addition, Aion doubled the motor power by using carbon fibre winding, which enables the latest NEV to accelerate from 0 to100 kilometres per hour in just 1.9 seconds.
“The reason we can have these technologies is that we have a powerful research institute, GAC R&D Centre.” He said, adding that the centre has over 6,000 people, and more than 15,000 patents. “In the field of three core technologies, we have a R&D team of nearly 1,000 people.”
GAC Aion also plays a key role in improving the resilience of industrial chain and supply chain development, as well as helping with the coordinated development of Guangzhou’s automobile full-chain enterprises.
At present, driven by GAC Aion, the Panyu automobile industry chain has attracted more than 40 auto parts and related projects to settle in, and established a complete intelligent networked NEV industry chain with three core technologies.
After a test drive, Carson scored the car as excellent, and Zheng told him “With the continuous development of our new energy technology, I believe we will bring our cars to the United States.”
GDToday correspondent | Carson
GDToday editors | Zhao Yang, Wing, Steven, Ou Xiaoming, Hannah, James
Graphic designer | Mia
