The super fast charging and power exchange mode are the choices of car companies and consumers, and there are no advantages or disadvantages in itself. The only infrastructure cost to worry about is as long as the company can afford it
▲ Image source IC
Wen | Li Yang
Edited | Shi Zhiliang
Ten years ago, the State Grid implemented the power exchange model, which ended without a problem; ten years later, it has once again become the power exchange model of the darling of the new infrastructure of the new energy industry, which has once again been questioned.
The so-called electric vehicle power exchange mode refers to the business model of centralized storage, centralized charging, unified distribution of a large number of batteries through centralized charging stations, and battery replacement services for electric vehicles in battery distribution stations.
In May 2020, as an important part of the new infrastructure, the substation was written into the government work report for the first time, expanding the "construction of charging piles" to "increasing charging piles, substations and other facilities"; in the same year, on July 23, the State Council press conference, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology made a detailed positive interpretation of the new energy power exchange model, which also means that the power exchange mode will usher in a broader development prospect.
The facts are consistent with the policy orientation. Changan, Dongfeng, SAIC and other national teams have squeezed into the camp of the power exchange mode; following Weilai Automobile, xiaopeng, Nezha and other new car-making forces have also begun to move towards the road of power exchange mode. As a leading power battery company, Ningde Era has also begun to actively cooperate with car companies to establish battery management asset companies and join the outlet of power exchange.
As for BAIC BJEV, which was the earliest to lay out the power exchange model, it signed a cooperation agreement with the State Grid to study the battery purchase, rental, operation, cascade utilization, recycling and other links under the business model of vehicle-electricity separation of the replacement model, and formulate a battery life cycle management and operation plan.
Obviously, since the new energy vehicle power exchange model has been supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments, the concept of power exchange has been accepted by the market and has quickly become a new outlet. Among them, WEILAI alone will add 605 new substations in 2021, and the number of substations will reach 777.
However, the rotation of electricity outlet set off by car companies is being questioned by many public opinions, and its core logic is that if the battery cannot be standardized, the power exchange mode cannot be discussed. Fuel vehicles still have 95, 97, 98 and many other models of gasoline, without a national unified standard power exchange mode, is it really not advisable?
You know, the power exchange vehicle also has the ability to charge. An industry consensus is that the most important way to replenish energy for electric vehicles in the future is actually to use household charging piles to charge, which can meet more than 90% of travel scenarios. The so-called power exchange, super fast and full of only a few extreme cases of vehicle energy replenishment needs.
At present, super fast charging has a huge load on the power grid and cannot be intensively built in the short term; there is no replacement power station for standardized batteries, and it cannot be popularized on a large scale in the short term, but it does not prevent both from becoming the choice of car companies and consumers.
Because whether it is super fast charging or power exchange mode, it is a non-mainstream energy replenishment method to make up for the shortcomings of household charging piles. It does not need to be popularized on a large scale, but it must be rationally arranged to meet the needs.
Taking Weilai Automobile as an example, as long as Weilai's vehicles use a unified standard, Weilai Replacement Power Station can serve all Weilai car owners, and will not be affected because Tesla and BYD battery standards are different. Fast charging and power replacement are the choices of car companies and consumers, and there are no advantages or disadvantages in themselves.
Restart the battery swap mode, what is the difference ten years later?
Power exchange is not an industrial model that has risen in recent years, as early as the early stage of the development of China's new energy automobile industry, power exchange and charging are the development paths of confrontation.
Liu Zhenya, then general manager of the State Grid, announced in a high-profile manner at the company's 2011 work conference that the State Grid determined the basic commercial operation mode of electric vehicles as: mainly for power exchange, plug-in and charging as a supplement, centralized charging, and unified distribution.
At that time, the State Grid's idea of "cutting peaks and filling valleys" was very clear: building charging and replacing power stations near substations could avoid a large impact on the distribution network, and at the same time, in urban centers where land resources were tight or the power grid was difficult to expand and transform, centralized battery charging stations could be built by relying on substations in the suburbs. This solves the two major bottlenecks of land resources and distribution networks.
However, the ideal is plump, the reality is bone, "peak shaving and valley filling" not only failed to usher in the full response of the upstream and downstream of the industry, but was greatly questioned in the industry.
Miao Wei, then minister of industry and information technology, said in an interview with Commercial Vehicle News that the new energy automobile industry will not be led by the nose of the power grid company; Wang Binggang, the head of the national new energy vehicle innovation engineering expert group who was still alive at the time, said that the Chinese people who pay attention to the integrity of private property cannot accept the consumption mode of non-stop power exchange; more importantly, almost all vehicle companies have expressed doubts about the power exchange model.
Looking back, the biggest reason for the failure of the power exchange mode at that time was that its commercial basis was the unification of the standard specifications of the power battery, and the new energy industry had just sprouted, and the entire upstream and downstream were exploring the industrial development mode, only open multi-line development, continuous trial and error, in order to explore the correct and feasible path. Whether it is the technical direction or economic benefits, there is a huge uncertainty in the power exchange model, and how can it dominate the development of the new energy industry?
However, time shift is easy, after ten years of exploration, the development of new energy vehicles gradually clear, at the same time, the bottleneck of charging stations is becoming more and more prominent, even 800V super fast charging, there are their own limitations. Under the current technical conditions, only by changing the power can we compete with fuel vehicles in terms of convenience.
With the increasing number of new energy vehicles on the road, the advantages of the power exchange mode in efficiency have become more and more prominent, which is also the fundamental reason for restarting the power exchange mode ten years later. At the same time, there are many advantages to the power exchange mode.
The first is that the battery charging and maintenance link is entrusted to the replacement power station, which means that the power battery will often be monitored, cared for and managed by professionals, which is conducive to extending the battery life; more importantly, the owner directly avoids the most dangerous period of the current electric vehicle - charging (most of the current battery spontaneous combustion accidents come from the charging period).
On the one hand, the popularity of the power exchange mode is conducive to the development of the echelon utilization of the power battery and reduces the cost of the whole life cycle of the battery; on the other hand, the separation of vehicle and electricity can provide a richer business model, such as buying a car and renting a battery, which greatly reduces the threshold for car purchase.
Finally, through distributed energy storage, "peak shaving and valley filling", reduce the burden of the urban power grid; at the same time, the charging station has higher efficiency, which is conducive to urban planning, according to Huang Chunhua, general manager of Aodong New Energy Marketing Center, Aodong 3.0 model replacement power station, covering an area of about 200 square meters, energy efficiency is more than 50 times that of the charging pile in the same area.
Therefore, unlike the power exchange model promoted by the State Grid ten years ago for the purpose of "cutting peaks and filling valleys", this wave of new infrastructure replacement is fully promoted by car companies and battery companies based on the real needs of the market.
Subject to standardization, is the power exchange mode desirable?
It is undeniable that the power exchange mode has important value for the promotion and development of the current electric vehicle, but its drawbacks are also very obvious: the standardization of battery specifications has always been a mountain on the power exchange mode.
Enterprises fight alone, provoking the power exchange mode beam is not realistic, only when each enterprise reaches a unified standard, that is, the battery exchange between multiple brands, the power exchange mode can go to maturity, but it involves the unification of product specifications, in which the interests of various enterprises are extremely difficult to balance.
Therefore, for the power exchange model, not all car companies are keen to participate, both battery companies and vehicle companies BYD said, "The power exchange is currently involved, including listening to and participating in some industry associations, exchange meetings and so on." The technical difficulties of power exchange are not large, mainly the formulation of standardization and the standardized production of battery manufacturers. ”
Obviously, before the breakthrough in the unified standardization of battery specifications, many car companies still hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the power exchange mode. Based on this status quo, Luo Huanta, president of Dadong Times (Shenzhen) Information Consulting Co., Ltd., told a passenger (ID: carcaijing) that the current public travel field of fixed places such as buses and taxis is moving towards standardization, and the power exchange model has the opportunity to grow, but the C-end consumer market is unlikely to be popularized in the short term.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the All-China Passenger Transport Association, also said that the replacement of the power station into the new infrastructure will effectively promote the development of the public sector such as taxis and online car-hailing, but in the field of private cars, charging is still the main direction in the future.
Even as the largest substation operator in China, Huang Chunhua of Aodong New Energy also admitted to the travel passenger (ID: carcaijing) that the power exchange mode needs to be gradual from To B to To C. Through the To B to switch power station layout network dense, the power exchange model is more and more abundant (individual user choice diversity), battery standards are gradually unified, in order to truly face the To C business.
The era of power exchange to To C is coming ahead of schedule, and the power exchange mode is moving from To B to To C, and there is no need for a unified standard for the use of batteries nationwide. Just as fuel vehicles can use 95, 97, 98 and other multi-model cars, in terms of power exchange technology, the current replacement power station can serve multiple models at the same time.
Huang Chunhua told a passenger (ID: carcaijing) that "a Odyssey 3.0 model replacement power station covers an area of about 200 square meters, with 28 rotating batteries, 3 minutes to change the power, and can serve up to 420 times a day; at the same time, through the battery compartment management and self-developed locking mechanism technology, it can be realized to replace the power for different models."
With the rapid increase in the ownership of new energy, the ownership of some single brands is enough to support the operation of the replacement power station, not to mention that a replacement power station can serve multiple models at the same time.
Obviously, although standardization is the premise of large-scale popularization of substations, small-scale construction and service of individual brands of substations do not force the need for national battery standardization.
More importantly, the power exchange vehicle also has a charging function, and the power exchange is a supplement to charging. Weilai Automobile emphasized to the travel passenger (ID: carcaijing): "In terms of energy replenishment, power replacement is a supplement to charging, and Weilai does not engage in charging and replacing confrontation." ”
As long as NIO's vehicles use a unified standard, NIO Replacement Power Station can serve all NIO owners and is not restricted by other model standards. In the future, with the increase of vehicles with power exchange function, WEIlai Replacement Power Station can also use the above battery compartment management and locking mechanism technology to serve other brands of electric vehicles.
Super fast charging and power exchange, are the choice of car companies and consumers, there is no advantage or disadvantage, it can be determined that for a long time in the future, new energy vehicles slow charging is the mainstay, fast charging, power replacement as a supplementary pattern will not change.