Image source @ Ningde Times official website
Wen 丨 wired travel, author 丨 Zhou Xiongfei, editor 丨 zi night
Change the power track, usher in a giant player.
After three days of warm-up, yesterday afternoon, CATL held a power exchange brand conference, and Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, officially released the power exchange service brand "EVOGO" (Lexing Battery Swap), as well as the overall solution composed of a combination of power exchange blocks, quick change stations and APP.
Screenshot from the press conference
This also means that catheter era officially entered the power exchange track as a power battery supplier, so this news has become an important industry news reported by many media.
In the field of power exchange, the Ningde era can be regarded as a "latecomer".
As early as 2007, a company called Better Place proposed the concept of power exchange, and later developed a set of car chassis power exchange technology, but in the end, because there were not many advantages compared with fuel vehicles, it could only end hastily in 2013.
Also in the same year that Better Place withdrew, Tesla, which had just been taken over by Elon Musk, also launched its own power exchange service, according to Tesla's announcement at that time, the power exchange time was only 90 seconds. However, after the actual operation, it was stopped due to problems such as the inability of different models to be adapted and the low operational efficiency.
After that, the trend of power exchange also blew from overseas to China.
In view of the low mileage and long charging time of electric vehicles at that time, the State Grid Group and Aodong New Energy began to study and layout the field of power exchange since around 2000. At the same time, as one of the new domestic car-making forces, Weilai also determined the energy replenishment method as a power replacement mode at the beginning of its establishment, and officially entered the operation stage in 2018.
By 2020, after the state wrote the replacement power station into the government work report for the first time, in addition to Weilai, new energy vehicle companies such as Xiaopeng and Geely, and traditional car companies such as Changan, Dongfeng and SAIC have also squeezed into the power exchange track.
Although under the impetus of the national policy dividend, the power exchange model has also become an industry outlet, attracting more and more players to enter, but it does not mean that this model has run through.
Take Weilai, who was the first to enter, as an example. Since the beginning of 2018, after 4 years of development, Weilai's power exchange service has indeed achieved large-scale coverage of cities across the country, and car owners have increasingly accepted this service, but with the growth of user scale, Weilai is still in a situation of insufficient income in the operation of the replacement power station.
Similar to Weilai, although Xiaopeng and Geely have entered the power exchange track, they will also encounter difficulties. More importantly, these car companies can only do power exchanges, which can only be aimed at their own models, because the power exchange standards are not uniform, they cannot radiate to more car companies, so that they cannot dilute the cost by increasing the scale of use.
There are Better Place and Tesla in the front, Weilai and Geely in the back, and there are many players who have tried to change the battery, but the mode has not yet fully run. Is there a solution to this problem in the High-profile Ningde Era?
1. The "power exchange" ambition of the Ningde era
After a press conference of about 11 minutes, CATL officially stepped into the track of power exchange.
At the beginning of the press conference, Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, first reviewed the development of the new energy automobile industry. Driven by three major factors: mileage, convenience of power replenishment and purchase and use cost, the field of power batteries has developed rapidly, and has further promoted the development of the new energy automobile industry.
But in his view, as the battery capacity becomes larger and larger, the mileage becomes longer, although the mileage anxiety of long-distance travel is solved, but most car owners will only use about 10-20% of the battery power, and the rest of the power will be wasted.
In order to solve this problem, Times Electric Service launched the power exchange brand EVOGO (Lexing power exchange) and the overall solution of combined power exchange, EVOGO means Evolution + Go, Evolution is the meaning of evolution and evolution, and this solution is composed of three major product systems of "power exchange block, quick change station, app".
Among them, the "power exchange block" mentioned at the press conference is a battery change named "chocolate". According to the official introduction, this battery adopts the latest CTP technology of the Ningde era, with three characteristics: small and high energy, free combination and minimalist design.
"Chocolate" changer single battery weight energy density of more than 160Wh/kg, volume energy density of more than 325Wh/L, a single "chocolate" battery can provide a cruising range of about 200 kilometers, and the use of wireless BMS technology, in the single battery outside only high voltage positive and negative interface, further improve the reliability of the plug-in parts.
To realize the power exchange process, the power station replacement is indispensable.
According to Chen Weifeng, the express change station of times electrical service has four characteristics: small area, fast circulation, large capacity and full climate. Each substation only needs three parking spaces to occupy an area, which can store 48 "chocolate" changer blocks, and each swap block takes about 1 minute to change the power, which can be done without waiting for a long time.
It should be noted that the reason why the "chocolate" battery launched by Times Electric Service is slightly different from the common power battery pack is mainly to achieve the combined use of the power exchange block. According to Chen Weifeng's introduction, consumers can choose to carry one or more batteries according to their needs to meet the travel needs of different mileages.
In the demonstration video of the press conference, it can be seen that when consumers use lexing's battery swapping service, they can choose to carry one to three "chocolate" batteries on the vehicle according to their personal needs, so as to achieve changes in the cruising range of 200-600 kilometers to adapt to the different needs of urban travel and long-distance travel.
Because the "chocolate" power exchange block can achieve dynamic quantity selection, it is also possible to achieve the service mode of "one electricity and many cars".
The source of the Picture Source Ningde Era
To put it simply, unlike the current power exchange services that have been landed by car companies such as Weilai and Geely, which can only be done to change the power for their own models, the power exchange service of Times Electric Service can cover many models of different brands from A00 to B-class and C-class passenger cars and logistics vehicles.
This means that the NINGDE era has become one of the few enterprises on the power exchange track that can serve different car companies. According to Chen Weifeng, this power exchange service can be adapted to the pure electric platform developed by 80% of the world's pure electric platforms that have been listed and will be listed in the next 3 years.
Finally, in terms of APP, according to Times Electric Service, the APP will provide interconnection and service of people, cars, stations and power exchange blocks. According to the official information of The Ningde Times, this APP has now logged into the mainstream mobile application store.
In terms of the ownership of the battery, the Ningde era chose a similar solution to Weilai - car-electricity separation. According to the official introduction of the Ningde era to the connection travel, these "chocolate" replacement blocks belong to the "battery bank", similar to Weilai Weineng.
On the demand side, consumers need to rent these batteries to power the vehicle, NINGDE times official told the line travel, the rental price will be according to different time and location, to provide differentiated prices. However, the specific rental price is not given.
At the press conference, in addition to the release of the power exchange service, the times electric service said that the current model equipped with this power exchange technology is the FAW Besturn NAT combination power exchange version, according to the Ningde times official introduction to the connection travel, and then more car companies will adapt to this power exchange service.
In addition, Times Electric Service also said that in the future, the first batch of 10 cities will be selected to start the power exchange service, and more brands of power exchange models will be released.
EVOGO express station, Tuyuan Ningde era
From the "chocolate" power exchange block to the "one electric multi-car" service, in the industry's view, the Ningde era has not only wanted to do more car companies' battery supply business, but also highlighted its ambition to provide power exchange services for more car companies.
What underpins this ambition is the early layout of the Ningde era.
As early as July 2020, CATL released the first domestic commercial application scenario for changing heavy trucks, according to the official introduction at that time, the landing of this scene is based on the delivery of the first batch of Futian Zhilan new energy heavy truck vehicles, and CATL provides efficient power exchange solutions for the heavy trucks.
A month later, CATL and Weilai, Guotai Junan and other enterprises jointly invested in the establishment of a battery management company, that is, Weineng, to achieve the "BaaS" program launched by Weilai.
Then last year, the Ningde era became more active in the field of power exchange.
In May last year, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, said that the company believes that power exchange and fast charging are better than hydrogen energy in terms of economy and maturity, and is negotiating relevant cooperation with car companies; 4 months later, CATL signed an agreement with Foton Automobile to cooperate around Foton's full range of new energy commercial vehicles' battery banking, substation and other businesses.
In the second half of last year, CATL first established the Times Electric Service in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in preparation for the formal march to change electricity; then at the end of last year, it signed an agreement with the Guizhou Provincial Government to cooperate in the construction of a power exchange network, according to which the two sides will cooperate in depth in the construction of new energy vehicle power exchange network facilities and the improvement of new energy vehicle power exchange capacity.
Yesterday, CATL officially announced at the press conference that it would step into the power exchange track, and said that it would provide power exchange services for multi-brand car companies, and this action of the NINGDE era was once regarded by the industry as perhaps changing the current pattern of the power exchange track.
After all, although there were many players on the track before the Ningde era, not many could run well.
2. The "forerunners" on the power exchange track
"When you're driving on the road with an electric car and the power reserve is close to 50 percent, it automatically prompts you to recharge and takes you to the nearest substation with the on-board mobile navigation system, where it only takes 1-2 minutes to get on the road again with full power."
If you look at such a scene description at present, you may not feel any surprise, or even feel extremely normal, because in many cities and intercity highways in China, you can see the facility of the substation.
But it should be noted that this scenario was first proposed in 2007 by the Israeli company Better Place, when the world's pure electric vehicles were just beginning to take off and fuel vehicles were still in full swing. As a result, after this concept was proposed, not many people in the industry paid attention to the company.
Although it didn't get much attention, it didn't affect Better Place's action.
In order to promote the development of the business, Better Place adopted the business model of "separation of vehicle electricity + mileage billing", and soon reached a cooperation with Renault Automobile of France to achieve the landing of this business model. Simply put, consumers who lease batteries from Better Place need to pay a monthly fee according to the number of miles they drive; correspondingly, when consumers drive Renault's vehicles without electricity, Better Place will also provide these consumers with power replacement services.
Better Place opened its first substation in Tel Aviv, Israel, the year after its establishment, and was seen as the beginning of its commercialization, during which time it also received investment from companies such as General Electric and Morgan Stanley, with a valuation of $2.25 billion.
Better Place substation, source PlugShare
With the injection of funds, Better Place has also accelerated the laying of substations. From 2009 to 2011, it has completed the landing of substations in Japan, Denmark, Australia and other countries, of which Israel and Denmark are the key layout countries.
After such a layout, the company, which had only been established for 6 years, suddenly collapsed, and Better Place had promised Renault to sell 100,000 FLUENCE ZE electric vehicles, at that time, only a few thousand cars were sold worldwide, and with serious losses, Better Place had to file for bankruptcy in May 2013.
You sing me out.
In the same year that Better Place fell, Tesla, a new energy star car company that had just completed the replacement of the leader, quickly entered the power exchange track.
At that time, as a newly appointed CEO, Elon Musk personally demonstrated Tesla's power exchange technology, and declared that "the power exchange technology service will provide users with greater convenience, and Tesla will build a power exchange service station at the end of 2013 at the earliest." ”
After the slogan was shouted out, although Tesla laid out some power stations and replacement vehicles, and declared that the power replacement time was only 90 seconds, Tesla soon announced that it would focus on the field of supercharging, and the power replacement business was shelved.
In fact, just when Better Place and Tesla set off a wind of power exchange in overseas markets, domestic players also explored the field of power exchange almost at the same time.
In 2000, a company called "Aodong New Energy" began to explore power exchange technology, and in 2005, it set up the first power station replacement facility in Lanzhou, and after that, it also provided vehicle power exchange services for the Beijing Olympic Games, Shanghai World Expo and other conferences.
Aodong new energy substation, the source of the Aodong new energy official micro
Although it started early, it was not until 2016 that the commercial operation of Aodong New Energy power exchange officially began, and as of now, the main customers of Aodong New Energy are still only for the To B market such as taxis and online car-hailing, and the private car market has not really run through.
Just 10 years after the layout of Aodong New Energy in the field of power exchange, the State Grid also launched its power exchange business in a high profile, but due to institutional factors, it could not open up the industrial chain to form a commercial ecology, and it had to suspend the power station replacement project in 2014.
Although the State Grid's power exchange business has not been done, it may have also led more domestic companies to explore the power exchange business, including Weilai.
After its establishment in 2014, Weiyuan took the replacement of electricity as the main way to replenish the energy of its own models, so CEO Li Bin also paid a special visit to Tesla co-founder Mark Tapening. Then, at the end of 2017, NIO released its self-developed power exchange technology for the first time at the first NIO Day, and in May of the following year, the first power station was launched in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park.
According to Weilai official disclosure, as of January 17 this year, 792 substations have been laid out nationwide, although it has laid out more substations, and many car owners have expressed their approval of this service, but it cannot be ignored that with the increasing layout of substations, the balance between input and output is difficult to maintain.
Shen Fei, vice president of Weilai, once said that if the operational efficiency is high enough, the input-output ratio of the substation will not be worse than the existing fast charging station. But as far as Weilai's current sales are concerned, they obviously cannot reach it. Because of this, Weilai did not bet all its weights on the field of power exchange, but also actively laid out the charging field.
With the May 2020, after the substation, as an important part of the "new infrastructure", was first written into the 2020 government work report by the State Council, coupled with the leading role of the Weilai substation, more and more car companies have also begun to lay out the power exchange business.
Also in 2020, Geely Automobile officially released its power exchange model, according to Geely's official introduction at that time, the power exchange business will take the lead from the B-end market, and then cover the C-end market, in October last year, Geely announced that in 2025, there will be 5,000 substations covering 100 core cities to meet the power replacement needs of 1 million vehicles.
Geely intelligent substation, tuyuan Geely Holding Group official micro
At the beginning of March last year, a company called Guangzhou Zhipeng Automobile Sales Service Co., Ltd. was formally established, according to the data of the enterprise investigation, this company is wholly owned by Xiaopeng Automobile, in the business scope of this new company, there is an important business of "new energy vehicle replacement facilities sales", in the eyes of the industry at that time, this action means that Xiaopeng Automobile enters the power exchange mode.
In addition to Geely and Xiaopeng, BAIC BJEV, Changan Automobile and SAIC Motor have all laid out their own power exchange business in the past two years. However, similar to Weilai, these "latecomers" are still in the exploration stage after laying out the power exchange business.
For the Ningde era, which is also a "latecomer", is it certain to run through the power exchange mode?
3. Can the Ningde era run through the road of "changing electricity"?
As a "latecomer" of the power exchange track, I can see the "pit" on the road more clearly. And this "pit" is that the cost is high and it is difficult to make a profit.
Take Weilai as an example. According to the late Late Post report, Shen Fei once calculated an account for the Weilai power station: according to the calculation of 6 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity and an average of 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity per unit, a day a replacement power station exchanges 50 singles, and the annual income can reach 500,000-600,000 yuan, which can basically cover the site rent and equipment depreciation.
Weilai replacement power station, the source of the picture Weilai official micro
If calculated according to the law of changing electricity once a week per car, Shen Fei believes that a replacement power station must radiate about 350 cars to support 50 orders a day and reach the break-even point. Considering the current number of substations in WEILAI and the owners who have installed home charging piles, it is slightly estimated that at least 800,000 vehicles of total sales are needed to cover the cost of substations.
However, according to Weilai's official data, as of the end of last year, Weilai's cumulative delivery was only 167,000 vehicles, which is much worse than the target of 800,000 vehicles, which also means that Weilai's power exchange service is still in a situation of "losing money and making money" by the end of last year.
If the reason why car companies do power replacement services fall into losses is that they can only change electricity for their own models, and the base of the vehicle itself is not large and cannot support the scale, then for Aodong New Energy, which has realized the power exchange service for some car companies, the situation is also not very optimistic.
According to Wired Travel, although Aodong New Energy has covered more than a dozen OEMs, it is still insufficient in profitability and is in the midst of losses.
At the end of last year, Changlian issued an announcement announcing that it would invest in Aodong New Energy, and the investment amount was estimated to be 100 million yuan. According to the announcement released by the former, we can see the financial data of Aodong New Energy for 2018-2020. From 2018 to 2020, the revenue of Aodong New Energy was 0.82 billion yuan, 212 million yuan and 190 million yuan, respectively.
In terms of net profit, these three years are all losses, 186 million yuan, 162 million yuan and 249 million yuan, respectively, it can be seen that after a slight narrowing in 2019, the loss will expand significantly again in 2020. Aodong New Energy has lost a total of 597 million yuan in the past three years.
Aodong New Energy's revenue in 2018-2020, screenshot from the announcement of Changlian shares
For such a loss, the relevant operators of Aodong New Energy once told Autohome that the average price of industrial electricity consumption in Beijing is about 0.87 yuan, which is relatively high, resulting in a small profit from the replacement station; coupled with the fact that the replacement vehicle has not formed a scale effect, it is difficult to make the replacement power station breakeven.
Also calculated according to a vehicle changing electricity once, according to autohome reports, Olidong New Energy is located in Beijing's 34 substations, the general replacement vehicles maintain about 70-80 per day, and the number of replacement vehicles in the transportation hub power station is slightly higher at 100 per day.
However, such an efficiency is still lower than the load rate of 300 times a day per power exchange station, and the load rate of 50% per day of a single substation can be achieved breakeven.
In addition to the excessive input-output ratio, the inability to achieve standardization is also a "roadblock" hindering the development of Aodong New Energy's power exchange business.
In 2018, the customers of Aodong New Energy were only the models of BAIC BJEV, and by October last year, the car companies that cooperated with them were only 14 car companies such as FAW, BAIC, SAIC, Changan and Dongfeng, and the way to cooperate with these car companies was to cooperate to create specific power replacement models, and did not establish a unified power exchange standard.
"I hope that policy support can be introduced as soon as possible, and promote the unification of battery standards as soon as possible to clear the way for the development of power exchange." Yang Ye once said publicly that in his view, the power exchange operation enterprises need to further obtain support from land, operation, electricity and other policies.
As a latecomer, the Ningde era saw these "pits" and wanted to run through the road of electricity replacement, which was also a challenge.
Although the Ningde era has now become recognized as the "power battery brother" in the industry, it will also face the reality of unbalanced input and output of the power exchange business. According to Liu Qiang, the person in charge of a domestic power battery company, like a replacement power station in Weilai, its construction cost is about 2 million yuan, and after the completion of the replacement power station, it will also generate operating expenses and site rental costs.
For the Ningde era, although the cost of battery manufacturing and purchase can be omitted, other costs are also a considerable expense.
Correspondingly, in terms of output, the Ningde era is also difficult to guarantee. "At present, FAW Besturn, which cooperates with the Ningde era, can be regarded as a third-tier car company in terms of sales volume, and there is basically not much sound in the market, and it may be difficult to bring power exchange efficiency to the Ningde era, let alone affect the radiation force." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, told Wired Travel.
It is not surprising that there will be such a view. According to the "Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily", as the first demonstration model of the Ningde era to change electricity, the Besturn NAT, it is actually a pure electric product that FAW Besturn is developing for the travel market such as rental and online booking.
This may also mean that the Ningde era will be like Aodong New Energy, the power exchange business will first enter from the B-end market, for this speculation, the connection travel to the Ningde era for verification, the other party said that the B-end and the C-end will be carried out together. However, with the precedent of Aodong New Energy, it is still unknown whether the Ningde era can make a good transition from the B-end to the C-end market.
In addition, the Ningde era is also facing the problem of standardization in the power exchange industry.
According to the introduction of NINGDE times to wired travel, when cooperating with car companies to promote the power exchange business later, car companies do not need to redesign and adjust the chassis, but only need to develop a power exchange bracket adapted to the "chocolate" power exchange block, and you can use the power exchange service of the Ningde era.
Although this adaptation scheme is much less difficult and in the process than retrofitting the chassis, it is not easy to achieve this.
"At present, the new energy automobile industry has entered a critical stage, and it is difficult for car companies with technical and capital strength to completely hand over the initiative related to power batteries, which may only be an attempt of several models." At the same time, if the car company chooses the replacement of electricity in the Ningde era, it is equivalent to saying that the future has accepted its whole system of products and given up the value of the industrial chain in which it manages this field, so that in the long run, the added value of the car company will become very low, because the power exchange is only the first step of Ningde, and he hopes to manage the value of the whole life cycle of the battery. Zhang Junyi, managing partner of Oliver Partners, said to Wired Travel.
In Zhang Junyi's view, based on the above two points of analysis, most car companies will think about the advantages and disadvantages of doing so before cooperating with the Ningde era, and may try to participate, or not participate.
Because of this, although the Ningde era has entered the field of power exchange with a high profile, in the industry's view, it is difficult to run through the road of power exchange, and it is not a small challenge to lead the standardization of the power exchange industry.
However, for the Ningde era, the power exchange mode must continue to be done.
Because only by truly embarking on this road can we work with WEILAI and other car companies to promote the further establishment of global power exchange standards and promote the development of the field of power exchange. More importantly, only by completing the layout of power exchange can the Ningde era form a full life cycle of linking power batteries, so as to gain more advantages in the future industry battle.
Note: Liu Qiang is a pseudonym in the text.