Battery swap mode, will end the gas station?

Source: Superpowers

"I just don't understand, why are you still buying a gas truck now?" How nostalgic will you be to buy a gas car? For example, oil trucks, I can't think of it at all now, except to smell some gasoline, what else is good? ”

At the NIO Day 2021 held on December 18 last year, Li Bin, founder and CEO of NIO, said this, stimulating fuel car owners, who believe that "Li Bin has drifted".

Li Bin also said a key sentence involving the development of electric vehicles at that time, but it was drowned in the "smell of gasoline".

This sentence is: "Speaking of charging anxiety, it is basically the heart of gasoline car users to operate electric vehicles." ”

Putting aside the debate itself, charging anxiety is the pain point that has been the birth of electric vehicles, and it is also the main obstacle to the popularity of electric vehicles. At present, there are two routes to solve the charging anxiety: one is to change the power, and the other is to charge quickly.

"Relying on the above two means, the easy era of electric vehicle charging can be like a fuel truck with a gun to refuel is not far away." Wang Xin, an engineer at the Jianghuai Automobile R&D Center, believes that Li Bin's words do not sound so easy to be accepted, but he said the general trend, "Some things are coming, unstoppable."

The wind of the power exchange policy does not stop blowing: the subsidy for the replacement model is not limited by 300,000 yuan

The situation is stronger than the people, and this is particularly evident in the change in management's attitude towards power exchanges.

In 2020, substations and charging infrastructure will be listed side by side in the government work report. In July of the same year, the sale of vehicles and batteries separately in the power exchange mode was also relaxed, and car buyers could choose to buy only vehicles and rent batteries.

This means that the legal barriers to the "separation of vehicles and electricity" have been cleared.

In order to cooperate with the encouragement of the power exchange model, the Ministry of Finance and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles" that year, which clearly proposed to support the power exchange mode that encourages the "separation of vehicle and electricity": the power exchange model is not subject to the upper limit of the price of less than 300,000 yuan (including 300,000 yuan).

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) for the first time in the "Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products Announcement" (Batch 333) of the vehicle publicity, the expression "power-changing pure electric multi-purpose passenger car" appeared for the first time, and the words "vehicle-electricity separation" were marked in other parts of the announcement.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology then conducted frequent research and held symposiums to discuss the main difficulties in the promotion of the power exchange model. On this basis, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice in October 2021 to organize the pilot of the power exchange model, 11 cities were shortlisted, and a number of passenger car companies laid out the power exchange and completed the announcement of the power exchange model.

It was at the time of the launch of this pilot that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology explicitly encouraged enterprises to set up battery asset management companies to improve the utilization efficiency of the whole life cycle of power batteries. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also encourages local governments to introduce support policies for the application of power exchange vehicles, and study and introduce financial insurance products suitable for the development of power exchange models.

The tide of electricity replacement has re-emerged: the players will build more than 20,000 power stations in 3 years

From the perspective of the industrial chain, in the exchange of electric warfare, there are at least 6 types of market entities with resources in hand, which are diverse and complex.

The first is the equipment manufacturer. A-share power exchange related listed companies include GCL Energy, Hanchuan Intelligence, Bozhong Seiko, Shandong Weida and HKUST Intelligence. Among them, Shandong Weida is the supplier of Weilai, the pioneer of power exchange, and the rest are currently "part-time" to do power exchange.

Battery manufacturers have also joined the war. Public reports show that CATL signed an agreement with the Guizhou Provincial Government on December 24 last year to build a power exchange network; on January 15 this year, CATL issued a poster of "Energy, Swap Out", indicating that it may have a big move in the field of power exchange.

The third category is independent power exchange operators. Operators involved in the power exchange business, such as Aodong New Energy, have been working in this field for nearly 20 years.

The fourth category is the main engine manufacturers, that is, the car companies that produce complete vehicles, of which Weilai and BAIC are represented by a positive and resolute attitude.

Power exchange involves site approval and related supporting facilities, Sinopec PetroChina has a natural advantage, the two have more than 50,000 gas stations in the country, naturally do not want to lose such a "geographical advantage".

In addition to cooperation with a number of enterprises, Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of Sinopec and secretary of the party group, revealed that Sinopec is accelerating the transformation from traditional oil products to "oil, gas, hydrogen, electricity and non- " integrated energy services, focusing on the development of business such as power stations, and planning and laying out 5,000 charging and replacing power stations during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

Another barrel of oil is not far behind. Last year, PetroChina's first second-generation charging and replacement power station was inaugurated and put into operation in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, and the first "refueling + power exchange" integrated energy supply station was built in Chongqing in cooperation with Chang'an New Energy.

In the field of power exchange, the sixth type of market entity that holds power resources - the State Grid, can not be said to be early in the field of power exchange, but the process is quite tortuous.

As early as 2006, when electric vehicles were in their infancy, the State Grid organized the research and development of charging and replacing facilities, and in 2007, it proposed a business model based on power exchange. State Grid is also the chairman of the Charging and Service Professional Committee of the China Enterprise Electric Vehicle Industry Alliance.

Five years later, the State Grid changed "mainly to change electricity" to "guide power exchange", the main power is fast charging, and allow social capital to cooperate and compete with Taiwan.

Despite the great transformation, the State Grid has invested in the construction of more than 10,000 charging and replacing power stations so far, of which hundreds of power stations have been replaced by 2014. Recently, the information seen in the media shows that the State Grid has returned to the field of power exchange again through various cooperation.

In April 2021, announced that by 2025, the company plans to add a total investment scale of 115 billion yuan, promote 200,000 heavy trucks, and hold 4,000 new substations; Geely Technology Group plans to operate 5,000 intelligent substations worldwide by 2025; Sinopec plans to build 5,000 charging and swapping power stations by 2025; WEILAI will build 4,000 substations in 2025; NINGDE Times and the Guizhou Provincial Government signed an agreement to jointly build a power exchange network...

According to the plans announced by the current companies, in addition to the repeated data of cooperation, according to incomplete statistics, by 2025, there will be at least 20,000 new power stations in China. The corresponding operating market size of the market is expected to reach 263.1 billion yuan, and the substation equipment market will reach 69.3 billion yuan.

Electricity changes have been turbulent: companies have been photographed on the beach

Looking back at the global power exchange market, it has gone through four stages.

In the first stage, 2007 or even earlier, there are already companies at home and abroad leading the power exchange model, and Aodong built the world's first charging and replacing experimental station as early as 2005. The State Grid also started earlier.

It is worth mentioning Better Place, which started in Israel. The California-registered company, whose main business is in Israel, landed in Tel Aviv, Israel in December 2008, and only 21 substations were built in Israel by the time of bankruptcy.

After spending $850 million raised, the company's remaining assets were sold by the receiver for $450,000 in November 2013 after two failed bankruptcy attempts.

In summarizing the reasons for the failure, the US media summarized it as follows: the use rate of substations is much lower than expected, the world's paving investment is too large, and the management is poor.

Tesla has also tried swapping power, and the Model S was originally designed as a rechargeable and replaceable model. At the 2015 shareholders' meeting, Musk made Tesla's decision to abandon the power exchange.

In the second stage, in 2012, the passenger car replacement mode led by the State Grid carried out the power exchange mode of the standard box mode. As mentioned above, the State Grid has gone through twists and turns, from power exchange to main attack charging, and recently "returned" to appear.

In the third stage, from 2015 to 2018, BAIC and NIO promoted the power exchange model in the public market and the private market, respectively. At this stage, the battery cost has dropped significantly, the cycle life has increased, and the economy has improved, but because it only serves one car company, it cannot be shared, it has not been supported, and it has not been able to enjoy station construction subsidies and operating subsidies.

In the fourth stage, since the beginning of 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has begun to encourage the pilot of the power exchange model, and promotes "mine clearance" for power exchange from the aspects of policies, regulations and unified standards.

What is the wind of power exchange: there are many benefits in theory, and the technology has been barrier-free

If you count from 2006, it has been 15 years since the power exchange was proposed. In addition to companies such as Weilai Automobile, which mainly serves its own car owners, and Aodong New Energy, which mainly focuses on operating vehicles (To B), there are few companies in the market that are eye-catching.

Everything goes back to square one: what is a power exchange? What is the essence of power exchange?

Power replacement means that car companies leave a replaceable battery space when designing models, so that the owner can replace the battery to replenish energy according to demand after entering the market, or upgrade the battery due to battery decay.

This mode of separating vehicle electricity has obvious advantages.

Compared with fast charging, power exchange has an overwhelming advantage in energy replenishment efficiency. At present, the slowest power exchange time can be controlled within 5 minutes, up to no more than 10 minutes, Aodong New Energy's latest fourth-generation replacement power station has achieved a full process of 1 minute, the power exchange process only takes 20 seconds, the vehicle is replaced and left, the owner's experience is as convenient as fuel vehicle refueling, or even faster.

Also determining the efficiency of the power exchange is the battery stock of the power exchange station. From the development of the first generation of substations, the battery stock has changed from the original 5 to 8 battery packs to the current 20 or even 30 pieces, and the flagship substation has more stocks.

Taking passenger cars as an example, according to the current replacement of a battery pack, the first generation of WEILAI Automobile's replacement power station can store 5 batteries, and the design service capacity is 72 times a day, and the actual operation can reach up to 120 times. If the stock of batteries reaches 30, the actual operation limit can reach 720 times.

In addition to the efficiency of replenishment, the operator of the substation is more professional than the average car owner in battery management and maintenance, "letting professional people do professional things", eliminating the time-consuming and energy costs of the owner in maintaining the battery.

Compared to traditional gas stations, the substation occupies a smaller footprint and is more efficient in land use.

BAIC BJEV will also realize open sharing with the society. In the commercial model of separation of vehicle and electricity value, it takes only 4 hours to build a substation, the equipment covers an area of only 67.5 square meters, less than 5 parking spaces, and can serve up to 300 private cars per day. This is equivalent to building a 75-storey parking and charging tower on 5 parking spaces, which is very impressive for land and distribution resource utilization.

In addition, experts pointed out that compared with fast charging, the power exchange will have a small impact on the power grid after decomposing the charging time, and basically will not cause additional costs for power grid stability.