Per reporter: Huang Xinxu Per editor: Pei Jianru
"My most impressive charging experience was at 1 o'clock in the morning, after returning from overtime, I found that the charging piles near the community were in use, and I drove nearly 7 kilometers to find the charging piles to charge. When I arrived, I found that it was full of ride-hailing drivers, and some drivers were asleep in the car while waiting. As a new energy vehicle owner without a private charging pile, Li Fei has not been able to get rid of the anxiety of replenishment.
Drivers asleep in the car while waiting for the vehicle to charge Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Another new energy vehicle owner, Cao Yang, has also been worried about installing private charging piles. "Installing private charging piles is very troublesome because our community has problems such as electricity load and line modification costs, and I have not successfully installed them so far." Cao Yang told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.
In fact, the problem of "Li Fei" is not unique. Recently, CCTV Finance reported that many new energy users in Beijing are facing the problem of replenishment, and even some car owners are queuing up at 4 a.m. to grab public charging piles. Some car owners complained: "Charging in winter is the same as stealing mines!" ”
A series of supplementary problems such as "insufficient installation rate of private piles", "long distance of public piles" and "few public piles" have once again attracted the attention of the public. However, in contrast to the anxiety of new energy replenishment, the penetration rate of domestic new energy vehicles is constantly improving. Data show that the penetration rate of China's new energy vehicle market in a single month has risen to 20%. Some analysts believe that next year, China's new energy vehicle market penetration rate will reach 30%.
In the face of the continuous development of the new energy vehicle market, how to alleviate the anxiety of new energy replenishment in the actual car process of car owners?
Owners say it takes luck to find a charging pile
"Finding charging piles at night is a common thing, and now I know the layout of charging piles near the community, and I have also practiced the skills of efficient route planning." Driving a new energy vehicle often has some 'thrilling' moments, and once when I found the charging pile, the vehicle had an endurance of only 5 kilometers. Li Fei said.
Late at night looking for charging piles Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Cao Yang believes that finding a charging pile requires some luck. "Some charging apps only indicate which charging piles are idle, and when I drive there, I will find that these charging piles may be damaged, or some charging piles have very low current." Cao Yang told reporters.
Charging pile failure Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Charging in the shopping mall near the work unit has become a common choice for many new energy car owners without private charging piles. "The electricity bill during the day is already expensive, and there is also a high parking fee in addition to the electricity bill, so in my experience, the cost of new energy vehicles is not much less than that of fuel vehicles." Li Fei said.
What makes "Li Fei" most anxious is when driving new energy vehicles for long-distance travel and travel. "Once when a group of us went to the mountain to play, the endurance of my vehicle was 550 kilometers, and when I drove to the foot of the mountain, the vehicle showed that the endurance was only 150 kilometers. In the process of going up the mountain, due to the drop in temperature, the vehicle walked about ten kilometers away, and the endurance of the table suddenly fell to 50 kilometers. So I quickly went down the mountain to find the charging pile in the scenic spot, and felt that the proportion of the car pile was very different during the time of using the new energy vehicle. Wang Xin said.
Late-night charging Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
According to the statistics of the China Charging 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. Fu Yuwu, honorary chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, believes that by 2025, the national vehicle-to-pile ratio is expected to reach a state of 1:1.
"We need to pay attention to the diversified development of public charging piles and private charging piles, and the rational allocation of charging resources." For example, new energy vehicle users can not install their own private charging piles, highway queues waiting for long charging and other issues, are the embodiment of unreasonable allocation of charging resources. Fu Yuwu said.
Charging pile installation is full of resistance
In order to alleviate the anxiety of replenishment, "one car and one pile" seems to be the most ideal state, but in real life, this is not the case.
"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 cars, but nearly 20,000 charging piles delivered with the car could not be delivered. On December 20, 2021, Shen Hui, founder, chairman and CEO of WM Motor, expressed his helplessness on the social platform. Weilai also said that the installation rate of Private Piles in Weilai is only about 60%.
Cao Yang is one of the users who cannot install private charging piles. "Before buying the car, I was sold two documents, one was the parking space certificate and the other was the meter certificate. Both forms require the community property stamp. I thought it was a simple thing, but it turns out I wanted to be simple. Cao Yang said.
Charging pile installation registration certificate Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
Cao Yang has a long-term rental parking space, and the parking space certificate is not difficult to open. However, the issuance of meter certificates has made Cao Yang repeatedly hit a wall. "Our community is an old community, the main reason for the property rejection is fire safety and electricity load concerns, I ran back and forth 2 communities have been rejected." I also found the park property where I worked, and they said that the installation of charging piles needed to be rewired, the process was troublesome and the cost was too high, and suggested that I go back to my own community to install. Because of various factors, it has been half a year since I picked up the car, and I have not yet installed a private charging pile. Cao Yang said.
As Cao Yang said, the installation of private charging piles in many communities does have objective reasons for insufficient capacity and high costs. Taking the 1000 household community as an example, the original 6 transformers, the total power is 6000kva, the capacity of each household is 6kw, and the slow charging pile is 7kw, "one car and one pile" is equivalent to an additional of about 1000 residents, which poses a challenge to the load capacity of the original power grid in the community.
If the capacity of the cell is expanded, the expansion cost is not a small amount. From a simple calculation, the cost of a transformer is about 200,000 yuan, coupled with the need to rearrange the cable and other work, the expansion cost of each transformer will be further increased. How to allocate costs is an unsolvable problem in front of the residential property.
"At present, the daily use of new energy vehicles in the city where they live is basically not a problem, in terms of charging pile installation, the old community needs to be further transformed, and the procedures for charging piles in the new community also need to be simplified and optimized, so as to further enhance the service of new energy vehicle supporting facilities." Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, said.
The anxiety of new energy vehicle replenishment needs to be alleviated urgently
At present, the market share of domestic new energy vehicles is constantly expanding.
From the perspective of sales data, data from the Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that from January to November 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China was about 2.514 million units. Among them, the sales of new energy vehicles in November were about 378,000 units, up 122.3% year-on-year. At the same time, the indicators for new energy vehicles in various regions are still being released. Taking Beijing as an example, the relevant person in charge of the Beijing Passenger Car Indicator Office revealed that according to the provisions of the document, the proportion of household new energy indicators will increase next year, and it is expected to increase from 32,000 in 2021 to more than 37,000.
The corresponding charging infrastructure is not perfect. According to data released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of September 2021, the member units of the alliance have reported a total of 1.044 million public charging piles, including 428,000 DC charging piles, 616,000 AC charging piles, and 414 AC-DC integrated charging piles.
Image source: Per reporter Huang Xinxu photo
In fact, in order to alleviate the anxiety of new energy vehicle replenishment, relevant departments have successively issued relevant policies.
For example, on December 21, 2021, the Beijing Urban Management Commission issued an announcement on the "Opinions on Strengthening the Construction and Management of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities in Residential Areas" for public comments, effectively solving the construction problems of charging facilities in residential areas (including self-use charging piles and public charging piles), standardizing operation and maintenance management, and actively promoting the charging service model of "intelligent and orderly slow charging, supplemented by emergency fast charging", and promoting the promotion and application of electric vehicles.
In March 2021, the central government issued the State Council on the implementation of the "Government Work Report" and proposed to increase charging piles, substations and other facilities.
Also in March 2021, Shanghai issued the "Implementation Opinions on Further Strengthening the Construction and Operation Management of Public and Private Charging Facilities in the City", proposing to fully implement the requirements for the development of charging piles in the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", focusing on fast charging, the principle of first piling and then driving, and making every effort to solve the problem of charging piles. Beijing plans to encourage the sharing and utilization of private charging piles and reduce the idle rate of private piles. While accelerating the construction of charging facilities in residential areas, Beijing will also do a good job in power supporting services, and encourage the sharing and utilization of self-use charging piles.
As a key part of the new energy vehicle replenishment, car companies are also trying to alleviate the user's energy replenishment anxiety by building energy replenishment facilities and scientific and technological means.
For example, Xiaopeng Automobile launched 111 supercharging stations in November 2021, covering 70 new cities. By the end of 2021, the cumulative number of supercharging stations of Xiaopeng Automobile has reached 661, covering a total of 228 cities; the latest plan released by Weilai shows that Weilai plans to have more than 1,300 substations, 6,000 supercharge piles and 10,000 destination charging piles nationwide in 2022; the V2G technology launched by WM Motor is an energy storage solution of "peak shaving and valley filling"; Zhiji Automobile is promoting the landing of wireless charging.
"Users actually don't want to charge fast, and the user's pain point is that charging doesn't add trouble." Therefore, Zhiji Car spends a lot of energy to promote wireless charging, so that the vehicle can be replenished as long as it is parked in the parking space. At the same time, we have also introduced public charging piles into our charging network. And turn the data into really fresh hot data, the place where the user goes must be a good charging pile. Liu Tao, co-CEO of Zhiji Automobile, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter.
Cui Dongshu believes: "The overall structure of the future charging infrastructure should be mainly private charging piles, supplemented by public charging piles. The ratio of private charging piles to public charging piles should be 9:1. With the construction of infrastructure such as charging piles, as well as the free charging policy introduced by some manufacturers, the energy replenishment anxiety of new energy vehicles will be further alleviated, and new energy vehicles will have greater advantages in later use. ”
(Note: At the request of the interviewees, Li Fei, Cao Yang, and Wang Xin are pseudonyms.) ）
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