On December 16, the "2021 Science and Technology List" jointly sponsored by Sina Finance Client and Sina Technology was opened. In the afternoon "Wheel New World" roundtable discussion session, Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, Wei Yi, managing director of Country Garden Venture Capital, Chen Shujie, vice president of Xinchi Technology, yu Xiang, co-founder of Fast Power, had a heated discussion on topics such as the lack of cores in automobiles, the difficulty of charging new energy vehicles and the hot investment in power batteries, and Zhang Guoren, co-founder of Zhiyi Technology and editor-in-chief of Chedongxi, presided over the roundtable.
In 2021, when the capital winter, the epidemic shrouded and the economy are in turmoil, the financing capacity of the new energy automobile industry will continue to rise, especially in the field of power batteries and supplementary energy infrastructure, and billion-level investment and financing will be born.
▲ Zhang Guoren, co-founder of Zhiyi Technology and editor-in-chief of Che Dongxi
But on the other hand, behind the rapid sales of new energy vehicles, enterprises and users are pursuing more stable endurance and more efficient energy replenishment infrastructure to support new energy vehicles that can not only run fast, but also run far.
Looking at the future, China's auto industry is expected to overtake in the new energy track, but the uncertainty of the future is still too great, in a thriving new world of wheels, what kind of new power is needed? What kind of crises and challenges are lurking?
First, the lack of core is a short-term challenge, but also a window period
Chen Shujie, vice president of Xinchi Technology, said in the "Wheel New World" roundtable forum that because of the lack of cores, the development of domestic automotive chips has ushered in a window period. "The external factor is the current lack of core, for us, it is a very big booster, it can be said that it is a window, it is an opportunity." Chen Shujie said.
In Chen Shujie's view, when this window came, it attracted great attention both in terms of policy and capital market. Once there is sufficient funding, the chip industry can attract excellent talents and develop rapidly. "Many excellent entrepreneurs and start-ups can quickly grasp these external resources, through their previous experience, from tape-out to real on-board, to real mass production, shipment, this window is very valuable, the time requirements are also very urgent."
Chen Shujie pointed out that the lack of cores in automotive chips next year may continue until the second half of next year. She also said that she felt that the whole vehicle enterprises began to become more open, embracing the national independent innovation chip, on the one hand, to ensure the flexibility of the supply chain, on the other hand, to better embrace the intelligence of the car.
▲Chen Shujie, vice president of Xinchi Technology
With more and more players in the market, Chen Shujie believes that how the entire market is better improved and formed depends on two points: First, the requirements of the vehicle-grade chip standard are much higher than the general chip requirements. "What China's chip manufacturers are pursuing, absolutely can not only be a low-end domestic substitution, must be an international standard, only Chinese manufacturers have such a confidence and wholehearted belief, this industry can be born, this is a standard problem."
Second, depending on the end-to-end integration problem, the future of the car chip is not just a component or a high-performance computing unit, must have the ability to integrate software, hardware, ecological partners, because the final delivery is actually a solution.
"What do automakers really want? It is not just a chip, but to connect ecological software and hardware to give users a particularly good experience in the end. Chen Shujie said. She stressed that in the future, automotive chip manufacturers must have the ability to integrate ecology and the ability to cooperate. "I believe that the wisdom and diligence of Chinese, as well as the policy support of the state and the help of capital, the key is to add the efforts and hard work of entrepreneurial enterprises, and believe that the future is promising."
Because of this, hard technology represented by automotive chips has also become an investment hotspot. Wei Yi, managing director of Country Garden Venture Capital, said at the "Wheels New World" roundtable forum that 45% of Country Garden Venture Capital's funds have been invested in the technology track in the past two years. According to him, Country Garden Ventures was established in 2019 and has invested in more than 50 projects so far, basically focusing on 4 themes: science and technology, health, consumption, and industrial chain.
"New energy technology, semiconductors, and the automotive industry chain are a track that we have focused on in the past two years." Wei Yi said, "Our concept is very simple, that is, industrial empowerment, value co-creation, how to produce linkage cooperation with enterprises in the investment process, is an investment concept that we attach great importance to." ”
▲Wei Yi, Managing Director of Country Garden Venture Capital
This year, Hive Energy has raised 16 billion yuan in the B round of financing, and Country Garden Venture Capital has actively participated in this round of financing. "We see that Chinese car companies are actually very responsive to electrification and intelligence, and Chinese car companies may become Japanese car companies in the 70s and 80s in the future, and promote electrified and intelligent cars to the world." Wei Yi believes that under this trend, the power battery will be in an explosive growth trend in the next few years, which is also the reason for choosing this track.
Wei Yi also said that new energy vehicles will actually promote further upgrading of infrastructure. "We are a comprehensive view of the entire new energy vehicle market, the future of new energy vehicles equipped with enough charging piles, will drive sales, but at the same time we as an investor in the real estate industry, will see so many charging piles can be combined with energy storage? We go to see energy storage is not simply to look at the charging pile, to prepare a charging treasure, but from the user side to look at energy storage, will be combined with photovoltaic building integration, storage and charging integration, and even microgrid, the power generation end, storage end, electricity end, with the best algorithm to the cheapest, the best quality electricity equipped to the user, really help users generate value. ”
Second, it is necessary to use a long-term perspective to see the difficulty of charging, and new energy vehicles have leveraged trillions of dollars of value
Speaking of the charging difficulties faced by new energy vehicles during the holidays, Yu Xiang, co-founder of Fast Power, said that holiday charging is difficult like China's Spring Festival, and it is necessary to look at this problem for a long time. As of November this year, China's vehicle-to-pile ratio has reached 3:1, which is a very leading ratio in the world. However, the utilization rate of many charging piles is very low, so it has caused a lot of waste of resources.
▲Yu Xiang, co-founder of Fast Power
Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, believes that solving the charging problem during centralized travel is not the number of charging piles, because the average utilization rate of the current charging infrastructure is less than 10%, and the utilization rate of highway charging piles is even lower. This year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles have reached a new high of more than 3 million vehicles, which also requires a change of concept, and long-distance car owners must plan their own routes before traveling. "Although the State Grid has been in the layout of highways, there is a problem of charging difficulties during the concentrated time period, which will continue to exist for a long time, and can only be improved as much as possible." He said.
Tong Zongqi believes that fast charging is a key means to improve this situation. He said that the state is vigorously developing the public fast charging network, accelerating the popularization of the coverage of the highway charging and replacing network, including the State Grid and other related enterprises are also increasing investment in the highway fast charging network. In the long run, the public charging scene is still dominated by fast charging, including super charging, and there are many car companies that provide a fast charging platform with a cruising range of more than 1,000 kilometers and support 800 volt charging, which can truly achieve the goal of charging and running hundreds of kilometers in a short period of time.
For how to solve this problem, Yu Xiang provides a solution: through a third party from the perspective of software to do better resource allocation. Yu Xiang believes that more publicity and digital means are needed to help charging piles and new energy vehicles have more linkage, so as to help car owners choose a better charging scheme, optimize the resource allocation of charging piles, improve the utilization rate of charging piles, and alleviate the problem of charging difficulties for car owners.
Both believe that it is necessary to use a long-term, development perspective to look at the difficulty of charging and the future transformation of new energy vehicles on the industry, society and even the economy.
Tong Zongqi said that subsidies for charging infrastructure should be sustained, and subsidies for new energy vehicles are declining. But on the other hand, the national policy is to accelerate the construction of support for charging and replacing infrastructure, and will also subsidize support from financial funds.
Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance
"At the operator level, the overall profitability is still relatively poor. A good charging and replacing power station is to provide more complete services, not only to charge and replace, but also to have lounges, convenience stores, etc. Grab the owner's charge break for more than 40 minutes and try to provide him with more services. Tong Zongqi said that the services provided need to be focused on by operators in the next step, including how to refine management and provide better services, especially the owners of new energy vehicles can actually pay for these services.
Yu Xiang believes that the development of new energy vehicles is not only to drive the development of the charging market, but also to leverage the great changes in energy, economic and social structure.
He said that 50% of the new energy passenger cars sold in 2021 will be sold to cities with non-restricted purchases and non-restricted licenses. This means that the entire industry has begun to enter the market from the original policy drive, and the entire market is becoming more and more vigorous. The development of new energy vehicles has first brought about the transformation of China's energy structure from traditional fossil energy to new energy.
Secondly, the development of new energy vehicles will bring countless opportunities. Under the new energy vehicles, charging is a trillion-level market. But new energy is not only driving the development of the charging market, including the recovery of batteries, chips, batteries, the operation and maintenance of charging piles, the evaluation of residual value, the detection of batteries, etc., which are several trillion-level or even more than 10 trillion-level markets that may be driven by new energy vehicles in the future.
Yu Xiang revealed that all large power generation enterprises in China are vigorously investing in energy storage, which is another field driven by new energy vehicles. "The development of new energy vehicles will lead to great changes in the energy structure, economic structure and the entire social structure." He said.