Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 961 2014 The last collision, the breakthrough of the dummy

Tomorrow is New Year's Day.

However, Cao Yang's work has never stopped.

Today, he followed Rao Yongxiang, Zeng Tingting and Li Shigui to Nanshan Robotics to confirm a very special research result.

That's the dummy used in car crash tests.

Many people may be familiar with famous collision test organizations such as C-NACP, US-NCAP, and EURO-NCAP, but many people probably know very little about collision test dummies, which are very critical in car collisions.

As the largest automobile company in China, Nanshan Automobile Group inevitably has to use various dummies when developing various models.

"Mr. Cao, our annual expenditure on mannequins is basically more than 3 million RMB."

"If you consider the development cost of the entire model, it may not be particularly expensive, but if you only consider the cost of crash testing, it is very high."

"There are so many domestic institutions and car companies that invest tens of billions of yuan in dummies every year."

"The key is that if we want to conduct more tests, the cost will double."

"So starting last year, we worked with Nanshan Robotics to research dummies for crash tests."

Rao Yongxiang first briefly introduced the general background of the dummy project to Cao Yang.

Although he knew that Cao Yang was very familiar with the development process of automobiles, there were so many things to do that it was impossible for him to pay attention to everything.

When it comes to knowledge about car dummies, Rao Yongxiang feels that he is definitely more professional than Cao Yang.

After all, I have been studying this for a year.

Sure enough, after hearing what Rao Yongxiang said, Cao Yang was also a little surprised and asked, "Is the cost of the dummy so high?"

"Yes, a dummy costs about 1000 million yuan. The key is that you have to pay whatever price they offer. You have no right to bargain."

Rao Yongxiang said a little helplessly.

Li Shigui, who was standing next to him, was in charge of studying the mannequins. After listening to the conversation between Cao Yang and Rao Yongxiang, he also added some relevant information.

"Mr. Cao, why is this mannequin so expensive? There is actually a reason."

“First, the development cycle of test dummies is very long.”

"The automobile industry has been around for more than 100 years, but dedicated crash dummies only appeared much later."

"The birth of the dummy was developed by foreign researchers based on a large number of cadaver collision tests and dissections. In order to further enrich the age, gender and body structure of the test, the research and development cycle of a dummy model often takes 10 to 15 years."

Li Shigui said this while looking at Cao Yang's reaction.

Feeling that Cao Yang was quite interested in this matter, he continued to introduce it seriously.

"The reason why it takes so long to develop is that their test dummies go through roughly three stages."

"In the first stage, corpses were used. According to later calculations, the car designs improved by the corpse test data saved at least 8500 people every year."

"However, there are huge ethical issues with using corpses for testing, so it is basically not used now."

"In the second stage, animals were used. In those days, it was common to see large live animals such as dogs, chimpanzees, baboons and pigs tied to cars for crash tests. The best animals were pigs."

"In 1980, L'Epoque magazine revealed that a French research institute was commissioned by European car manufacturers to conduct animal crash tests, using thousands of pigs every year."

“Animal testing also faces great moral condemnation and is very costly; General Motors alone, for example, kills 19000 animals.”

"So the industry evolved to the stage of dummies. In 1966, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was passed in the United States, which required cars to be equipped with seat belts and required companies to develop highly accurate crash test dummies."

“That should be the beginning of all the car crash dummies we have now.”

Nanshan Robot has spent a lot of manpower and resources to research dummies, so Li Shigui naturally wants Cao Yang to fully realize the difficulty of developing a dummy.

Otherwise, everyone would think that Nanshan Robot spent more than a year developing a dummy, and there is nothing to praise about it.

The R&D investment involved may take several years to recover.

"It often takes a long time to develop a product in Europe and the United States. In addition to the special features of the mannequins, it's more because the people there are not very efficient."

"And things like dummies don't need to be updated very often."

Based on his understanding of European and American companies, Cao Yang felt that it would take more than ten years to develop a dummy, which is as slow as a snail.

The idea of ​​striving for excellence is a bit untenable.

All we can say is that people have exaggerated the difficulty of developing the dummies in order to sell them at a good price.

"There is indeed a reason for this, otherwise we would not have been able to develop a similar dummy in less than two years."

Li Shigui would definitely not deny what Cao Yang said.

But he must take this opportunity to explain the actual situation.

So after he explained it, he immediately added: "In addition to the issue of development time, the selection of materials for the dummy is also quite demanding."

"The mannequin not only has a lifelike appearance, but also has complex ribs, spine, simulated muscles and even internal organs, and the choice of materials is quite demanding."

"The materials used for the dummy's chest, shoulder blades and ribs are all different. There are many parts and they are well made. The R&D costs for these parts are as high as several million yuan, or even tens of millions of yuan."

"Also, the requirement for accurate data collection will lead to a significant increase in the cost of the dummy."

"During the collision test, the dummy collects data through a large number of sensors installed on the body. Some sophisticated sensors can even accurately detect the degree of damage to each joint."

"A dummy is usually equipped with 60-200 sensors, which mainly measure data such as acceleration, angular velocity, force, bending moment and displacement. As the number of sensors increases, the price of the dummy becomes higher and higher."

"Because their bodies are covered with bionic structures and sensors, within 2.5 seconds of feeling the impact, data channels all over their bodies respond simultaneously, and data collection is completed in the blink of an eye, which is comparable to a high-precision instrument."

Cao Yang naturally understood what Li Shigui said.

Sensors can be very cheap or ridiculously expensive.

It is indeed difficult to make a dummy cheap when so many sensors are used on it.

But it is definitely not as high as tens of millions for a dummy.

"Different dummy models can simulate passengers of different ages, genders, heights and weights. Their body shapes and strengths are also different. The most expensive dummy is worth as much as 1100 million yuan."

"So in a crash test, smashing a few cars is actually nothing. The dummy inside may be 100 times more expensive than the car."

After Li Shigui finished speaking, Cao Yang immediately asked, "Are there only a few companies in the world that can produce these dummies?"

Although there are many explanations for the reasons, they all sound reasonable.

But it’s still too expensive.

In this case, the only explanation is that the industry is a monopoly.

Sure enough, Li Shigui's answer did not surprise Cao Yang.

"Boss Cao, you've hit the nail on the head."

"The global supply of dummies is actually a monopoly."

"Almost all crash test dummies in the world are developed by Humanetics, an American company. This micro-enterprise with only 800 employees has monopolized more than 70% of the global market, almost strangling the global automakers."

“There are several other companies that also produce dummies, such as Kistler Group, Cellbond, and JASTI, but their combined share is less than 30%.”

"More than 90% of the mannequins we use in China are purchased from Humanetics, an American company."

After Li Shigui finished speaking, Rao Yongxiang next to him could not help but add, "It's ok that the crash test dummies on the market are expensive, but what's even more unacceptable is that the physical standards of the dummies are also designed according to European and American people."

"You know, there are big differences in body shape between Chinese and Europeans and Americans."

"For example, for the same medium-sized male dummy, Huaxia's dummy should be 3% shorter, 48% lighter, 13% shorter in arms, and 55% shorter in sitting position than the existing model."

"In computer simulation analysis, there are obvious differences between the Chinese human body's dummy injury response and the current common model."

After Rao Yongxiang's explanation, Cao Yang immediately understood the key point.

After all, he has personally participated in the design and development of many car models.

For something like a collision test, it would be very embarrassing if we can't even get complete reference data from the dummy.

"For C-NCAP, the unified Hybrid III series dummies are used when testing different models, which will not have a negative impact on the test results."

"However, the extent of injuries sustained by dummies based on European and American body sizes in car collisions cannot fully reflect the injuries sustained by Chinese people."

"So this time we worked with Nanshan Robotics to develop a dummy similar to the Hybrid III series, but we adjusted various parameters based on the Chinese human body structure."

"As long as it can be popularized in the future, the price of this dummy can be reduced to 100 million yuan."

"We will conduct formal crash tests in the crash lab using our own dummies later."

Rao Yongxiang knows that no matter how much he says, the key still lies in the final result.

You can't tell anything about a mannequin just by looking at it with your naked eyes.

It has to be installed on the car and bumped into properly to let everyone know how powerful it is.

"I always thought that our auto industry chain was 100% localized, but I didn't expect that there were so many imported dummies in the crash tests."

"Since Nanshan Robotics has developed our own dummy, we should use it as soon as possible."

"All our own crash tests from now on will use dummies produced by Nanshan Robotics."

"You can also contact Nanshan Hongqi, Changan Automobile and other companies to communicate and ask them to use our dummies as well."

"With cheap dummies available, I believe no one would be willing to be the victim."

This kind of thing is obviously in line with Cao Yang's idea of ​​advancement, so he will definitely not object.

He even planned to use his huge influence to bring up the topic of mannequins to attract some attention.

If all the OEMs in China use Nanshan Robot's dummies, a lot of money can be saved every year.

Of course, Nanshan Robot's dummies are sold to Nanshan Automobile Group for 100 million yuan, and the price would definitely have to be doubled if sold to other manufacturers.

Even if there was originally a profit of 100 million yuan, the price would have to continue to increase.

Anyway, compared with the selling prices ranging from several million to 1100 million yuan, 200 million yuan is really not expensive.

After finishing the report in the office, the group went to the collision laboratory.

Recorded by various cameras, a special collision test was conducted using the Future S9. That evening, Cao Yang posted a short video of the collision test on his official Weibo account.

Then the situation of the "Huaxia Dummy" was highlighted.

At the same time, Autohome naturally immediately put up a special promotional article.

It gives a detailed introduction to the process of Nanshan Automobile Group and Nanshan Robot working together to develop the dummy.

He also praised Nanshan Robot's mannequin products.

However, ordinary people do not have much knowledge about this matter.

After all, most people don’t care about the dummies used in car crash tests.

But the situation is different in the automotive industry and even the aerospace industry.

In fact, dummies were first used in the aerospace industry and later expanded to the automotive industry.

So Zhao Tianling called Chao Indentation immediately to congratulate Nanshan Robot on its breakthrough in new technology.

"Many of our aircraft tests require the use of dummies, especially in the early stages of development, when more dummies are used."

"After testing various data on the model, our test pilots will have a much better experience when they actually experience it later."

"It's just that the cost of the dummies is too high, so we didn't dare to conduct some tests before."

"Now that you have come up with it, we at AVIC will absolutely support you."

Obviously, Zhao Tianling was delivering the order to Cao Yang.

Although for the two of them, the business of a few dummies was a bit low value.

But there is certainly no harm in taking this opportunity to have a good exchange.

"Mr. Zhao, if you hadn't mentioned it, I would have forgotten that dummies can be used in the development of various aircraft."

"But today's dummies are developed based on the needs of automobile crash tests."

"We will develop a dummy specifically for aircraft testing later."

After Cao Yang finished speaking, he felt that his idea was indeed feasible.

In addition, developing dummies for use on aircraft is less difficult than developing dummies for car crash tests.

Because the pilot's height and weight information is relatively fixed, unlike the passengers in a car which have a huge room for ups and downs.

This means that for cars, it may be necessary to develop a dozen dummies to meet demand, but for airplanes, two or three models are enough.

"It would be great if we could develop a dummy specifically for aircraft testing."

"In fact, it is not only needed during aircraft testing, but also in many occasions in the aerospace field."

"Venus Technology is now making a large-scale foray into the aerospace field, and you guys should be able to use it."

Within any company, all information is definitely not completely interconnected.

And sometimes people have fixed thinking.

Just like Rao Yongxiang and Li Shigui developed the dummies for car crash tests together, all they thought about was how to serve Nanshan Automobile Group.

At that time, no one thought that these dummies were actually in demand at Venustech.

Fortunately, it’s not too late to continue development now.

After all, even if we wanted to develop it before, there was not enough time.

If you develop too many series without launching any single product, it will be a waste of money and not make much sense.

"Mr. Zhao, just because of your reminder over the phone, we can give Aerospace Science and Technology a 20% discount on their purchases of our dummies in the future."

“The dummies used in the aerospace field will definitely be available next year.”

Cao Yang's thanks were not spoken casually.

With the previous foundation, the difficulty of developing new products will be much lower.

……

"Mr. Wang, Nanshan Robotics has developed a dummy for car crash testing, and Nanshan Automobile Group has already started using it."

"I think the company can consider purchasing a batch, which will not only reduce costs but also bring it closer to Nanshan companies."

As the director of Great Wall Motor Research Institute, Zhu Jianbo is naturally very clear about the current situation of dummies in China.

Great Wall Motors has launched many new models in recent years, and domestic regulations are increasing their requirements for collision tests.

Therefore, the cost of purchasing dummies by Great Wall Motors has been increasing every year.

If this money can be saved significantly, it can definitely be used for more experiments.

"I'm really unfamiliar with the dummies used in these crash tests."

"Before, I just saw the information on the purchase application form from the research institute, but I didn't study it seriously."

“I didn’t expect that the market was previously monopolized by American companies, and they made so much money for so many years.”

"Now that Nanshan Robotics has developed a domestically made dummy, we naturally want to support it."

Although Wang Ying had heard some information about the fake person, she was so busy that she naturally couldn't know everything.

However, she has great confidence in Nanshan-affiliated companies, and since Nanshan Automobile Group has already started using it, she naturally would not object.

Anyway, you can sell favors and save costs. If you don’t do this, you’d be stupid.

"Then I will arrange for someone to contact Nanshan Robotics first, and then submit the purchase application as soon as possible."

Liang Chuanqing was a little surprised that Wang Ying was mentioned so easily.

It seems that Cao Yang’s boss also read the Weibo post.

I just don’t know if other car companies have also started communicating with Nanshan Robot so quickly to purchase their dummies.

……

"Director, with Nanshan Robot's actions, we are in a bit of a passive position."

At the C-NCAP Management Center, Wu Wei complained to the center's director Zhao Wenming with some entanglement.

As a relatively authoritative collision test organization in China, C-NCAP actively or passively conducts collision tests on many vehicles every year.

Although dummies don't necessarily need to be replaced every time they collide, they are still consumables after all.

The number of dummies purchased by C-NCAP each year is probably one of the highest in China, and even in the world, it is considered a major customer of the dummy company.

Don’t think that American companies won’t have relationships with you. They just don’t want to have relationships with you.

People like Wu Wei, who have the authority to purchase dummies in large quantities, must definitely have a good communication with him.

Things like sending children to study abroad or traveling abroad are no big deal.

After all, a dummy costs several million to tens of millions, but the production cost may be less than 100 million.

The profit margin here is extremely large.

Especially the dummies on the market, they have been produced for many years, and their various research and development costs have long been amortized.

It can be said that every time a dummy is sold, huge profits can be made.

"Our collision test has strict procedures. Whether the dummy developed by Nanshan Robotics can meet our requirements also requires special certification."

"If the other party doesn't contact us, then we can just ignore it for now. After all, maybe their dummy hasn't been developed yet."

"But if they come to our door, let them send a dummy over so we can study it first and give us a reply later."

Zhao Wenming was obviously using a delaying tactic.

Anyway, I won’t say that I won’t use your robot. After all, if I really don’t use it, with the other party’s influence, there may be various ways to force Zhao Wenming to agree.

"That's a good move."

"At that time, they won't be able to say anything even if they have opinions."

"It takes European and American companies more than ten years to develop a dummy, and they need to accumulate a large amount of data before they can develop it."

“But I heard that Nanshan Robotics developed the dummy in less than two years.”

“Although we are developing this by standing on the shoulders of giants, the speed is still worrying.”

Wu Wei smiled obsequiously and nodded, thinking that his director's plan was really great.

In this way, his pressure was reduced a lot.

"Yes, we don't have to directly confront Nanshan-affiliated companies, but there is no need to support them."

In recent years, Nanshan Automobile Group has promoted the development of China Insurance Research Institute, which has reduced the influence of C-NCAP tests in China.

They must have remembered this tooth mark.

However, being in the automotive industry, they are well aware of the huge influence of Nanshan Automotive Group.

If they keep picking on others and end up making them angry, they are also worried that they will suffer the consequences.

Therefore, a good solution is to deal with it in a way that makes it more difficult for others to blame you.

At least that's what Zhao Wenming and Wu Wei thought.

So even though Nanshan-affiliated companies have a huge influence in China, they have tremendous support from both relevant departments and the public.

But there are definitely still people who dislike Nanshan-affiliated companies.

The rise of the Nanshan system has certainly affected the interests of some people.

There was no need for anyone to explain these situations, Cao Yang actually knew a lot about them.

If you are not envied by others, you are a mediocre person!

(End of this chapter)