Robots weld electric car chassis at a Zeekr plant in Ningbo in China’s eastern Zhejiang Province – Copyright AFP RETAMAL
Rebecca BAILEY, Taimaz SZIRNIKS and Rebecca BAILEY in Changshu
As car skeletons took shape on an automated factory floor in the eastern Chinese city Ningbo, dozens robotic arms synchronised their movements to pick up metal pieces and weld them onto vehicle beds.
In China, models like these have gone from conception to release in record-breaking time. This is known as “China Speed” in the industry and is the envy of competitors abroad.
Zeekr, an EV company, has a massive Ningbo factory where advanced robotics and artificial intelligent have been used at every stage of manufacturing to save time and money.
In the casting shop a robotic arm towered above the human foremen who were supervising the robot. It picked up a newly made piece of aluminum and dipped it in a vat filled with water, sending out steam, before passing it to another machine that would cut and press the metal.
The factory still employs about 2,500 workers for some delicate tasks and quality control.
But hundreds of robots are working around the clock to do the heavy lifting.
Not only manufacturing has been accelerated.
Zeekr’s research and development center in Sweden allows for the sharing of workloads across time zones. Geely, its parent company, also owns Volvo, a Swedish automaker.
In the factory car park, hundreds gleaming Zeekr 7Xs without plates were waiting to be transported to dealers.
Above the entrance hall, a slogan read: “The future is history.”
– ‘Make-or-break moment’ –
These factories and companies have set the pace for the industry.
Bain & Company, a consulting firm, said in a recent report that “established global automakers are at a moment of make-or-break”.
AFP spotted lorries transporting brand-new Zeekr vehicles on their way to the factory. They were bound for Ningbo’s massive port, where they would be exported to countries like Australia.
Bain’s report stated that the most innovative Chinese car manufacturers spend less than one-third of what their traditional competitors do to develop new cars.
The timeline for younger brands is closer to 24 to 30 months, compared to the 48 to 54-months that legacy automakers take to introduce new models.
A spokesperson for AFP said that some of Zeekr’s models took only 15 months to develop.
Authorities say that the sheer number of choices available to consumers is staggering: there are currently 2,755 different models from 163 different brands on the Chinese market.
More than 100 new models have been launched at the Auto Shanghai show, which opened on Wednesday.
Foreign rivals also sped up to catch up with Chinese firms, such as BYD, Chery and Zeekr.
Volkswagen and Nissan unveiled dozens of new models “in China for China”, with executives claiming they had adapted their vehicles to “China Speed”.
The shift to EVs has helped accelerate the acceleration.
BCG consultant Mikael le Mouellic told AFP that you should start by designing a car virtually and making as few prototypes of it as possible. This will allow you to move quickly.
He added that design and engineering would work together, and they would often “reuse successful recipes”.
Zeekr’s “Sustainable Experience Architecture”, as an example, can be used to bed A-class and E-class vehicles, saving both time and money.
Three years and nine months –
Foreign suppliers also had to adapt.
Michael Fischer, the boss of French automotive parts manufacturer Forvia, said that it could take companies up to three years, on average, to design a new headlamp.
He said, “In China, that doesn’t work.”
Now, “we’ve got a process which is very organised and will ensure quality, but we can produce a new headlamp within nine months”.
Four large robots assemble LED headlamps at Valeo’s Changshu factory, north of Shanghai.
Gu Jianmin, Valeo’s Innovation Manager in China, joked “We don’t have to work 24 hours a day!” “But we use existing technologies and we work with the automakers upstream.”
AI and other technologies help speed up the development and durability tests, which “would have taken many months” otherwise.
“Chinese producers are a bit more demanding.” Gu said that foreigners were trying to catch up.
“To succeed in China, you must be on the same level as locals.”
