【Core Wisdom Driving】Can the big action of "Ning Wang" blow up the "power exchange" wind?

Set micro-network news, winter is coming, the endurance of electric vehicles to meet the challenge. At present, the pain points of public charging piles such as low charging power and uneven distribution are exposed in low temperature weather in winter. In order to solve the problem of the endurance of electric vehicles and make electric vehicles as convenient as refueling, the solution of replacing batteries is also emerging.

On the afternoon of January 18, CATL will hold an EVOGO power exchange brand conference. Can the release of a new brand layout in the field of power exchange in the Ningde era promote the industry to accelerate into the power exchange mode and blow up the industry's "power exchange" wind?

Replace the energy faster

At present, there are two main ways to realize the energy replenishment link of electric vehicles, one is charging, and the other is to replace electricity. When electric vehicles were first promoted, two ways of replenishing energy were tried by enterprises. However, from the perspective of the development history of electric vehicles, due to the immature technology of power exchange at that time, the cost investment was too large, and after Renault, Tesla and other companies have announced failures, charging has gradually developed into a mainstream trend in the market.

To this day, charging is still the main way of replenishing new energy vehicles. According to the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, the wholesale number of new energy passenger cars from January to December was 3.312 million units, an increase of 181.0% year-on-year. According to the data of the Charging Alliance, as of November 2021, the member units of the alliance have reported a total of 1.092 million public charging piles, an increase of 30,000 units from the previous month, an increase of 57.1% year-on-year.

With the breakthrough of China's electric vehicle penetration rate in 2021, the pain points such as low charging power and uneven distribution of public charging piles have become more prominent. While the layout of new energy vehicle charging piles needs to be accelerated, faster energy replenishment methods have become an urgent need of consumers.

Judging from the current development of the industry, there are two main ways to quickly replenish the energy of new energy vehicles, high-power fast charging and power replacement. Among them, with the maturity of technology, the speed and efficiency of power exchange have increased significantly compared with before.

Taking NIO As an example, on April 15, THE FIRST SECOND-GENERATION REPLACEMENT POWER STATION OF NIO WAS OFFICIALLY OPENED AT BEIJING SINOPEC Chaoying Station. From the actual experience, in terms of efficiency, the second generation of Weilai substation has improved significantly compared with the first generation. The second-generation station has a power replacement speed of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and can provide up to 312 power exchange services in a single day. In addition, the construction cost of the second generation of NIO substation is lower than that of the first generation, and the number of batteries to be accommodated has increased to 13.

In terms of power exchange, NIO will accelerate its deployment in 2021, and NIO will build 778 substations around the world.

The pain point of power exchange: the standardization problem is difficult to solve

In fact, in addition to Weilai, the domestic passenger car market, actively layout the field of power exchange main engine factories is very few. Ni Feng, deputy secretary-general of the Standardization Committee for Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities in the energy industry and deputy director of the Experimental Verification Center of the State Grid Electric Power Research Institute, believes that power exchange is more suitable for dedicated application scenarios, such as some operating vehicles. Charging technology is more suitable for passenger cars, including private cars, official cars, these application scenarios are more random, the demand for automobile diversity is more occasions.

"It's determined by their technical characteristics." Ni Feng pointed out that charging involves relatively fewer technical problems than power exchange. Charging is mainly to solve the problem of energy replenishment; and in addition to charging the battery, the power exchange also requires some other equipment, such as the equipment for battery replacement and the equipment maintained in the power station. In addition, the power exchange requires a backup battery, because the principle of power exchange is to reduce the time of energy replenishment by using the backup battery.

However, there is a very big problem in power exchange at present, which is difficult to solve by standardization, and the problem of standardization is a very important reason for affecting the development of power exchange technology now. Charging is mainly a problem of the interface, so the development of charging technology is limited by standardization than the power exchange technology, and a large reason for the development of charging technology is the battery. However, the standardization problem of power exchange is very difficult to solve, and there is no way to build a power station to cover all the scenes.

TUV Rheinland's senior engineer told the author, "In actual use, the battery specifications of different car companies can not be unified is a great resistance, different car companies require battery factories to produce different battery specifications, and because the battery accounts for a large proportion of electric vehicle costs, different car companies and battery manufacturers can not let go of this part of the interests." In addition, there are differences in the attitude of different car companies to change electricity, and the large area of power exchange is large, resulting in car companies being unable to build supporting power stations. ”

Ni Feng said that some manufacturers are now pushing and replacing the mode of electricity, individual manufacturers may be able to create a model, provided that manufacturers can first afford the cost of power replacement, of course, the problem of rising costs can be solved by capital operation.

Can the Ningde era blow up the electric wind?

From the perspective of the development process of power exchange, the basic car companies that try to push and replace the power mode are car companies. As Ni Feng said, the premise of power exchange is that manufacturers must first be able to withstand the rising cost of power exchange. One of the key costs is the backup battery in the substation. For the main engine factory, it is a "gain is not worth the loss" approach, and increasing the number of batteries means that they have to increase a high expenditure on the recharge link.

However, increasing the number of batteries is a positive for battery factories, which is equivalent to indirectly selling more batteries. The "wealth" is rich, coupled with the "power exchange" service promoted by the Ningde era, which has the largest domestic market share, and the success rate of promoting power exchange is also much higher than that of other battery factories. On the one hand, the ultra-high market share of the Ningde era makes it have battery products in most car companies, and it is the "most suitable candidate" to solve the problem of power exchange standardization. On the other hand, the batteries required for the construction of the replacement power station are provided by their own families, and the cost is relatively more advantageous and more conducive to battery management.

In fact, before the release of the new brand, in order to better land the business, the NINGDE era made sufficient preparations in the field of power exchange. On August 20, 2021, CATL established a times electrical service subsidiary in Xiamen, Fujian Province, as the bearer of the power exchange business.

On December 20, 2021, Times Electric Service established a regional power exchange business company in Jilin Province. CATL reached an overall cooperation in the power exchange business with various regions from the group level, and the times service was responsible for the specific landing of the power exchange business, and established a corresponding regional management company to build a three-dimensional business network of "CATL era - times service - regional branch".

On December 24, 2021, CATL and the People's Government of Guizhou Province signed an agreement on cooperation in the construction of a power exchange network in Guiyang City. According to the agreement, the two sides will cooperate in depth in the construction of new energy vehicle power exchange network facilities, promote the improvement of new energy vehicle power exchange capacity, and promote the high-quality development of the new energy industry, and jointly build a double highland of Guizhou's new energy market and industry.

CICC expects that after Jilin and Guizhou provinces, the power exchange business of the Ningde era will accelerate regional expansion, and is expected to take the lead in Fujian, Jiangsu, Sichuan and other advantageous regions, and quickly promote it nationwide.

It is worth noting that the power exchange target of the Cataline era is for all car companies. However, the market position of the NINGDE era in the industry is strong, and downstream car companies have to follow the rules of the game delineated by the CATL era to obtain battery supply, including the "cash commitment" that Zeng Yuqun once said, that is, car companies need to share risks in production line construction, production capacity guarantee and Ningde era through advance payment.

So, in the process of implementing the power exchange model, will car companies still follow such rules of the game? Can the Ningde era smoothly blow up the electric wind? And to be observed. (Proofreading/New)