"Grab the public charging pile at four o'clock in the morning": What is the solution to the winter charging problem of the electric vehicle owner?

Following the topic of "charging for one hour and queuing for four hours" of new energy vehicles during the National Day holiday, with the advent of the cold wave in the northern region, the "mileage anxiety" problems such as the "shrinkage" of new energy vehicles under low temperatures, the battery charge is not enough, and users dare not open the warm air have been magnified again.

On December 25, according to CCTV Finance, in the Beijing area, where the charging infrastructure is relatively perfect, there are even new energy car owners who get up at 4 a.m. to grab public charging piles to charge new energy vehicles.

Behind the new energy car owners grabbing the public charging pile is the discussion on the energy supply method of new energy vehicles triggered by the topic of "how to solve the problem of charging new energy vehicles".

It is understood that at present, there are two main ways to charge new energy vehicles and replace electricity. Among them, the high-power fast charging pile also takes an hour or two to fully charge a car; although the power exchange mode only takes a few minutes, due to the increase in the frequency of power exchange in winter, the batteries of some power stations have also appeared in a state of short supply, and many car owners can only charge batteries such as power stations.

"The shrinking battery life in the northern winter is a problem faced by all electric vehicles, and it is already good to have a 60% discount on THEDC mileage." Consumers in the area north of the Yellow River need to consider carefully when buying electric vehicles, and it is best to have indoor fixed parking spaces and charging piles at home. Some people in the automotive industry told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.

However, due to the existence of practical problems such as capacitors, safety, and fire protection, it is not easy to install household charging piles.

"Every time I hear the owner complain to me about the difficulty of installing the charging pile, the mood is very heavy. This year, WM delivered more than 40,000 vehicles, but nearly 20,000 charging piles distributed with the car could not be delivered. On December 20, Shen Hui, the founder of WM Motor, posted on his personal Weibo account that it was difficult to install private charging piles.

The cause of the incident is that a WM W6 owner has been picking up the car for two months, but has not been able to install a private charging pile in the community.

As a charging pile for new energy vehicle infrastructure, the problem of private installation has always existed, which is not only a pain point for users, but also a pain point for car companies, not only a problem faced by A company of WM Motors, including Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, BYD and other brands, tens of thousands of car owners have not yet installed home charging piles.

Whether it is the northern car owner "grabbing the public charging pile at four o'clock in the morning" or "Weima can't send 20,000 household charging piles", behind it, it reflects the contradiction between the explosive growth of new energy vehicles and the difficulty of charging.

Charging difficulties restrict the consumption of new energy vehicles

Charging problems such as low utilization rate of charging piles, difficulty for users to find piles, uneven distribution of charging piles, and inconsistent standards continue to plague the popularity of new energy vehicles. Statistics show that 56% of survey users report that inconvenience and slow charging are the biggest reasons that hinder them from buying electric vehicles.

The reporter visited a community in Beijing and found that there are currently nearly 200 new energy vehicles in the community, of which more than 100 cannot be charged in the community, and can only choose to charge public charging piles a few kilometers away from the community.

There are more than 700 parking spaces in the underground garage of the reporter's community, but only 38 public charging piles. At about 9:00 a.m. on December 27, more than 20 new energy vehicles were still charging.

"At that time, the national policy had regulations that required the installation of public charging piles in accordance with the proportion of parking spaces, and the people who charged the stars entered the site to install." The parking lot manager told reporters that the charging pile in the current parking lot is definitely enough.

According to the statistics of China Charging Technology And Facilities Alliance, as of November 2021, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in the country is 2.385 million units, an increase of 55% year-on-year, and the vehicle-to-pile ratio is about 3:1.

The development speed of new energy vehicles is getting faster and faster than the speed of charging pile layout. The latest data show that from January to November 2021, the national charging infrastructure increased by 704,000 units, the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 2.990 million units, and the new energy vehicles and charging infrastructure were developing rapidly, and the incremental ratio of pile vehicles was 1:4.2.

"Sales of new energy vehicles have exploded, but the development speed of charging and replacing infrastructure is mismatched." Wang Du, vice president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said.

In addition, due to the uneven distribution of public charging piles, the average utilization rate of public charging piles is less than 10%.

"At present, the biggest problem of charging is two points, one is that the construction of infrastructure restricts the transformation of traditional gasoline vehicles to new energy vehicles, especially by 2025 or even 2030, when the stock of the entire new energy vehicle accounts for more than 50%, the pressure will be greater, and even become the bottleneck of industry transformation; the second is that the existing public charging efficiency is low, which can neither meet the needs of users for energy supply, nor can it meet the requirements of commercial operation of enterprises." Earlier, Sun Guangmin, vice president of Ideal Automobile and head of charging network, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.

The optimal solution of "one car and one pile"?

"In first-tier cities, the installation of charging piles is indeed a problem. First of all, there must be parking spaces, and it is difficult to have their own property parking spaces in old communities or urban areas. Second, after having a parking space, persuade the community management unit. There is indeed a problem of insufficient capacitance, which is a minority case, unless every household is installed, the main consideration of the property is to circumvent safety responsibilities..." After Shen Hui posted on Weibo, some netizens said.

Indeed, due to the limitations of multiple objective factors such as capacity and safety, it is not realistic for everyone to install private charging piles.

"Private household charging piles are not allowed in the residential parking lot." A few days ago, the reporter called the property and parking lot management unit in the community to get a reply, saying, "Let's not talk about the wire cost required to install the charging pile, the limitation of the power capacity, from the perspective of fire protection, the requirements of all aspects of the fire protection can not pass, if you need to charge, there are public charging piles in the community that are charged by stars." ”

Statistics show that among the 12,000 residential quarters in Beijing, 2,700 are old communities, with an average household parking space of less than 0.5, and nearly 40% of private electric vehicle parking spaces do not have the capacitive conditions to install charging piles.

On the one hand, the pressure on the grid has increased. Taking 500 households as an example, equipped with 3 transformers, a total power of 3000kva, each household has a capacity of 6kw, and a slow pile of 7kw is calculated, and the realization of "one car and one pile" requires the community to add 3 transformers, equivalent to the specifications of 1000 households.

At the same time, from an economic point of view, the expansion needs to increase the number of cell transformers, each cost of about 200,000, plus the cost of rearranging cables and other costs, the expansion cost is as high as hundreds of thousands. For consumers, according to the industry conventions of 150 meters of wiring distance upper limit and 30 meters of free wiring distance "rules", a considerable number of owners face high wiring costs and pipe protection costs.

In addition, because the entry of charging piles into the community will increase the management difficulty and safety risks of the community, the lack of interest-driven properties is generally not very positive about the attitude of building piles in the community.

"'One car and one pile', in fact, is a bit of a waste of resources, to solve the new energy user charging anxiety or to see the scenario." Start from different scenarios to solve the charging problem. Earlier this year, Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that solving the problem of new energy vehicle consumer charging requires many parties to call for the introduction of corresponding specific guidance policies, fully mobilize the relevant resources of the whole society, and focus on promoting the construction of charging piles in the community and the improvement of energy replenishment facilities, in order to facilitate and meet the user experience.

In terms of technology, the current consensus in the industry is to promote high-power high-voltage fast charging technology, reduce the charging waiting time, and unify the interface to improve adaptability.

"High-power high-voltage fast charging is not only a breakthrough in technology, it is possible to form a breakthrough in the business model." At present, the charging station of the operator's early layout is difficult to make a profit due to the low utilization rate, and under the low level of operation services, the user is not satisfied with the charging station, but the operation station is difficult to invest, forming a vicious circle. Faster charging will not only bring consumers a better experience, but also bring higher benefits to operators. A few days ago, Gao Xiang, vice president of the New Energy Research Institute of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, said at the partner dialogue session of the 2021 Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution Ecological Forum.

At the same time, it is also necessary to optimize the layout of charging infrastructure, provide consumers with efficient and convenient charging places, pay attention to highways, social public charging stations, etc., and solve the problem of rapid energy replenishment from the planning.

Government-enterprise coordination enriches the way of replenishment

In the face of the "charging anxiety" of new energy vehicle users, as the main body of new energy vehicle production and development, many new energy vehicle companies are also gradually exploring various solutions to solve the problem of user energy replenishment, through self-built / third-party cooperation to access public charging piles, self-built super charging piles / super charging stations, self-built replacement power stations and power exchange leasing services, joint ventures to establish charging pile construction layout companies, free or fee-based brand exclusive home charging pile installation, provide various types of characteristic mobile energy supplement services, etc., to enrich the multi-scenario energy replenishment methods.

Among them, Tesla and Xiaopeng built their own supercharging stations, Weilai charged and replaced "two legs to walk", and Weima was the first to lay out public charging infrastructure. According to the data, the current public charging network applicable to WM has covered 32 provincial-level administrative regions and 361 cities across the country, and users can use more than 440,000 public charging piles in the country through the "Instant Guest" APP, covering more than 40% of the total number of public charging piles in the country.

Compared with public charging piles, the development of community household charging piles is still a blue ocean, and after the introduction of effective solutions, its commercial value and people's livelihood value are immeasurable.

It is worth noting that in order to accelerate the improvement of the service guarantee capacity of charging and replacing infrastructure and support the development of the new energy automobile industry, in May this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration drafted the "Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Charging and Replacing Infrastructure (Draft for Comment)", which requires the improvement of the charging pile construction promotion mechanism in residential communities and the overall promotion of the construction and transformation of charging piles in residential communities; if there are installation conditions, the residential community management unit and the owners' committee shall not obstruct the construction of piles by users.

At the same time, promote the construction of charging piles in existing residential communities and strictly implement the requirements for the construction of new residential communities. Newly built residential communities should implement 100% fixed parking spaces reserved charging pile construction and installation conditions.

In addition, charging operation enterprises or residential community management units are encouraged to accept the entrustment of owners to carry out the "unified construction and unified operation" of charging piles in residential communities, uniformly provide paid services such as planning, construction, operation and maintenance of charging piles, improve the safety management level of charging piles and the proportion of green electricity consumption; encourage new models such as "sharing nearby parking spaces" and "multiple vehicles and one pile".

It is worth noting that in the "new blue ocean" of community energy replenishment that consumers are currently concerned about, WM is working with real estate enterprises such as Agile to deepen the layout of household charging piles, ensure that 100% of its newly built residences are equipped with parking spaces or reserve construction and installation conditions, plan public charging areas in new communities, and diversify and provide a variety of flexible energy supplementation means such as slow charging, fast charging, and super fast charging.

"Optimize the layout, reduce the time for car owners to find charging piles, refer to the gas station model everywhere, no matter where the owner is, you can find an available charging pile within 5 kilometers, and improve the average utilization rate of charging piles." Liu Kai, director of the Technology and Certification Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said, "The government and enterprises work together to build and share management, in order to truly make new energy vehicles run." ”