China Passenger Car Electronically Controlled Suspension Industry Report 2022: Penetration Rate of Air Suspension is as Low as 0.7%

DUBLIN, Sept. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "China Passenger Car Electronically Controlled Suspension Industry Report, 2022" report has been added to  ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The penetration rate of air suspension is as low as 0.7% in Chinese passenger car market.

In terms of commercial vehicles, air suspension finds wider application in commercial vehicles as regulations require mandatory installation.

According to the Technical Specifications for Safety of Power-Driven Vehicles Operating on Roads (2017), the rear axles of trucks (cross weight: 12,000kg) transporting hazardous articles, all semi-trailers transporting hazardous articles, and three-axle balustrade and silo-type semi-trailers should be equipped with air suspension since January 1, 2020. The penetration rate of air suspension in Chinese commercial vehicles remains very low, compared with about 85% in rich world, leaving plenty of space to grow.

According to the statistics of the publisher, the air suspension penetration in the imported passenger car market was about 25% from January to April 2022, compared with about 0.7% in the China-made passenger car market.

Chinese OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers are rapidly lowering the application threshold of air suspension.

Air suspension makes cars much easier to maneuver and far more comfortable. It is mostly used in imported luxury cars priced at more than RMB600,000, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volvo, Land Rover and Porsche. Emerging carmakers like NIO, Xpeng and Li Auto, and conventional automakers including Geely, FAW-Hongqi and Great Wall Motor install air suspension on their high-end smart cars for branding. They either work on independent full-stack development, or cooperate with air suspension suppliers, realizing downward penetration of air suspension.

Chinese automakers may tend to develop their own air suspension control units and algorithms (which are eventually integrated into chassis domain controllers). They split hardware assembly into air supply units, air springs, sensors and other components, and purchase them separately. Then OEMs take on the ultimate integration. This mode brings opportunities to domestic component suppliers to make breakthroughs at a single point, for example, Shanghai Baolong, Zhongding Sealing Parts, Tuopu Group, and KH Automotive Technologies among others have gradually achieved mass production and supply of air suspension components.

At present, the air suspension of a single vehicle is worth about RMB11,000-16,000. With the localization of the supply chain and the increase in production, the average price of passenger car air suspension made in China is expected to drop to less than RMB8,000.

Driven by consumption upgrade and localization, air suspension is sinking to RMB600,000 to RMB300,000 models of emerging automakers as an optional or even a standard configuration from luxury cars priced at RMB600,000. Since 2018, the launch of NIO ES8 and ES6 has downgraded air suspension to vehicles with prices lower than RMB400,000. In 2021, ZEEKR 001 and Dongfeng Voyah FREE further pushed air suspension down to models within RMB300,000.

In the clear trend of automobile consumption upgrade in China, models valued above RMB200,000 has made up much more of the total sales, with the proportion up from 17.3% in 2016 to 30% in 2021. The upgrade of automobile consumption has also accelerated the penetration of air suspension.

KH Automotive Technologies has its own air spring assembly line, with the planned annual capacity of the Phase I up to 150,000 sets. Tuopu Group's first air suspension system factory is located in Ningbo Binhai New Area, with the total investment of about RMB600 million. The facility is scheduled to come into operation in June 2022, producing 2 million sets of air suspension annually for 500,000 vehicles.

Shanghai Baolong has invested RMB1 billion in building an air spring production line in Hefei, with the annual capacity supporting 100,000 vehicles. The second and third lines will start production in 2023. Another six production lines are planned to be built in the future. In 2025, the company will boast air spring capacity that supports more than 500,000 vehicles.
The operation of a large number of air spring production lines in China will surely facilitate the mass adoption of air springs in vehicles, laying a hardware foundation for the introduction of higher-level suspension functions such as Magic Carpet Suspension.

Magic Carpet suspension springs up.

Common air suspension systems often allow manual selection of driving modes which differ in suspension settings. Magic Carpet suspension goes a step further, scanning the pavement in front of the car through cameras and radars to adjust the damping, height and stiffness of the air suspension so as to smoothly pass through bumpy roads. Magic Carpet suspension generally has one more environmental perception system (vision and radar, etc.) and controllers with higher computing power (the computing power of domain controllers may be used) than air suspension.

The environmental perception system most widely used in Magic Carpet suspension is the stereo vision system. Mercedes-Benz's Magic Carpet suspension system is called the MAGIC BODY CONTROL which uses a stereo vision system. BMW also uses stereo cameras as a perception system.

The BMW Magic Carpet Suspension is composed of the following systems: dynamic damping control system, integral active steering system, intelligent all-wheel drive system, 4 wheel speed sensors, electric active stabilizer bars on the front and rear axles, 12V battery and inverter, and front windshield stereo camera.

Among Chinese stereo vision suppliers, Smarter Eye and Shanghai Baolong have both secured designated projects for Magic Carpet suspension.

Voyah first introduced the `Magic Carpet` function to its MPV Dreamer. The solution is comprised of the following units: four CDC shock absorbers, five acceleration sensors, cameras & control units, and front double wishbone + rear five-link + air suspension. The front camera scans the pavement 5 to 15 meters in front of the vehicle in real time to detect special road conditions such as speed bumps and road bulges.

Meanwhile, sensors monitor the movement of the vehicle and transmit the movement signal to the control unit which then calculates the sensor signal and output the control current to the solenoid valves on four CDC shock absorbers according to the internal control algorithms, thus controlling the damping force to offer more driving comfort.

Suspension control needs to combine with steering, braking control, and ADAS functions

In the chassis control of luxury brands, electronically controlled suspension never exists independently, and instead often combines with steering and brake control systems, such as Mercedes-Benz's E-Active Body Control System.

Mercedes-Benz's E-Active Body Control uses five multi-core processors, more than 20 sensors, and stereo cameras to predict different driving situations.

Like ADAS, Magic Carpet suspension also requires an environmental perception system, so the two can share some sensors. Among Chinese enterprises, Smarter Eye and Shanghai Baolong have launched "Magic Carpet suspension + ADAS" fusion perception solutions together with their partners.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Overview of Electronically Controlled Suspension Industry
1.1 Overview of Suspension System
1.2 Air Suspension

2 Tier 1 Suppliers of Electronically Controlled Suspension
2.1 Continental
2.2 Shanghai Baolong
2.3 KH Automotive Technologies
2.4 Tuopu Group
2.5 AMK
2.6 Vibracoustic
2.7 Suzhou Gates
2.8 KEBODA
2.9 UAES
2.10 Exquisite Automotive Systems

3 Layout of Foreign Passenger Car OEMs in Electronically Controlled Suspension
3.1 Mercedes-Benz
3.2 BMW
3.3 AUDI Suspension System
3.4 GM
3.5 Volvo
3.6 LAND ROVER
3.7 Porsche
3.8 Volkswagen
3.9 Toyota

4 Layout of Chinese Passenger Car OEMs in Electronically Controlled Suspension
4.1 Li Auto
4.2 Great Wall Motor
4.3 BYD
4.4 FAW Hongqi
4.5 NIO
4.6 Dongfeng Voyah
4.7 Geely ZEEKR
4.8 Electronically Controlled Suspensions for Other Models

5 Development Trends of Electronically Controlled Suspension Industry
5.1 Intelligent and Active Suspension Systems Are A Future Trend
5.2 The Automotive Suspension System Industry Chain Has Taken Shape
5.3 Key Chinese and Foreign Tier 1 Suppliers Are Scrambling to Deploy Chinese Air Suspension System Market
5.4 More Than 20 Passenger Car OEMs Have Introduced Air Suspension
5.5 Magic Carpet Suspension Spreads from BBA Luxury Models to Models Priced at RMB300,000+
5.6 Emerging Automakers Lead Downward Penetration of Air Suspension
5.7 Application of Air Suspension System in Chinese High-end Passenger Cars Accelerates
5.8 Voyah Dreamer Pioneers in Applying Magic Carpet Suspension to Electric MPV
5.9 Magic Carpet System Widens the Application of Binocular Stereo Vision System
5.10 Different Modes of Chinese Mainstream Automakers in Layout of Electronically Controlled Suspension
5.11 Replacement of Foreign Air Suspension Systems with Local Ones Is Under Way
5.12 Chinese Automakers' Requirement for Split of Supply Accelerates Independent Development
5.13 Chinese Passenger Car Air Suspension Market Size, 2022-2025E
5.14 New Technologies and New Applications of Automotive Suspension System

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/u1ktmd

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