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BAIC and Nanshan Aluminum Reached Agreement on Five-year Long Strategic Cooperation to Concentrate on Developing Light Weight Vehicle Body

On February 2, Nanshan Aluminum published notice to announce it had reached agreement on five-year long strategic cooperation with BAIC Motor Corporation, in order to carry out research on how to fulfill large-scale usage of aluminum alloy sheet and improve aluminum-made automobile components aspects. According to some analysts, bydoing so BAIC may concentrate on developing light weight vehicle body, aiming to seek breakthrough in the new energy vehicle field.

According to the notice, by targeting at aluminum alloy cover sheet, both sides will cooperate to study material features, and technological features of all aluminum alloy sheet materials, focus on studying technological difficulties affecting massive usage of aluminum alloy sheet. In the usage of aluminum alloy sheet materials for front engine cover, study raw materials, mold design development etc, in order to ensure BAIC Motor Corporation to have the ability to manufacture aluminum alloy front engine cover by itself. Furthermore, through industrialized test production of aluminum alloy materials and industrialized test of automobile components forging, both sides will also finish industrialized test production and product molding for auto-use aluminum materials. The notice clarified that the intellectual property rights developed through the above cooperation are shared between both sides.

Furthermore, Nanshan Aluminum will also take advantage of existing production lines of BAIC subsidiaries to complete structural design alteration of aluminum components, and finally make parameter adjustment on technological processes of related production steps. The final intellectual property rights of this cooperation will belong to BAIC Motor Corporation.

The notice clarified that after joint R&D becomes successful, BAIC will give priority to buying products of Nanshan Aluminum.

One automobile manufacture employee told finance.sina.com.cn that in the existing production of passenger vehicles, there is very little usage of aluminum materials, which are mainly used in engine cover, partial engine cylinder body, the main reasons is that aluminum materials including aluminum alloy has low melting point, which results in difficulty in welding, and poor tensile strength which causes difficulty of repair after distortion. But aluminum material has light weight, and enjoys advantage in its ability to lower complete vehicle mass compared with steel material.

According to some analysts, by concentrating on aluminum materials this time, BAIC aimed to make breakthrough in the light weight production of new energy vehicles. Chairman of BAIC Group Xu Heyi said when receiving interview from finance.sina.com.cn that if battery numbers were added for the sole purpose of increasing endurance mileage, it would give car body extra weight, which would instead become a kind of waste of resources. Therefore, Xu Heyi said on many occasions that the global automobile industry would develop toward light weight, intelligence and electrification directions.

Restricted by optimal complete vehicle mass, full electric vehicle can only carry limited battery numbers, therefore many vehicle manufacturers are looking for ways to lower complete vehicle mass, so as to reduce energy consumption. For instance, BMW [Weibo] adopts light weight plan on electric vehicle i3, only that BMW replaces traditional steel material with carbon fiber material to manufacture car body, the chassis is all aluminum alloy, the kerb mass is only 1224kg, it is loaded with 22kwh capacity battery.