"Come on a piece?"
Zeng Yuqun, the founder and chairman of NINGDE Times, personally drove an electric car, held a piece of chocolate in his hand from the replacement power station, and smiled at the video camera.
This is a scene in the final Easter egg video of the Ningde era power exchange brand online conference on January 18, and the chocolate held by Zeng Yuqun refers to the core product "chocolate exchange block" in his own power exchange system. At this press conference, CATL officially released the overall solution of power exchange service brand EVOGO Power Exchange and Combination Power Exchange. The entry of the power battery brother has brought new fluctuations to the originally slightly silent electric vehicle replacement market.
An industry expert believes that "bad business", can Ning Wang do a good job?
How does King Ning do the power change?
In order to do power exchange services, CATL specially registered a wholly-owned subsidiary "Times Electric Service" in August 2021, with a registered capital of 200 million yuan and the legal representative is Chen Weifeng, the general manager of the company, who also released and introduced the CATL power exchange brand at the press conference.
Specifically, the power exchange solutions and services of the Ningde era are mainly composed of three major products, namely the power exchange block, the quick change station and the APP.
The power exchange block is shaped like chocolate, named "chocolate change block", which is a mass-produced battery specially developed in the Ningde era to achieve shared power exchange. In terms of specific parameters, the weight energy density of the replacement block exceeds 160Wh/kg, the volume energy density exceeds 325Wh/L, and a single battery can provide an endurance of about 200 kilometers. Behind the "small and high energy" is because the Ningde era adopts the latest CTP technology, in addition to the replacement block is also equipped with wireless BMS technology, the external only high-voltage positive and negative interface, greatly improving the reliability of plug-in components.
Different from Weilai's whole package power exchange, the chocolate power exchange block of the Ningde era can realize the "on-demand rental electricity" sub-box power exchange method according to the user's mileage needs, and the user can freely choose one or more batteries to change the battery. It can also be applied to different models, including passenger cars from A00 class to B class and C class, as well as logistics vehicles. CATL said that the chocolate replacement block 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 three years.
In terms of substations, the ningde era of the express station covers an area of three parking spaces, and each standard station can store 48 replacement blocks. As for the power exchange time, CATL said that the replacement time of a single block is about 1 minute, and the replacement power station can be adapted to various brand models that use "chocolate power exchange block". The APP provides interconnection and service of people, vehicles, stations, and blocks.
In general, the characteristics of the power exchange scheme in the Ningde era are three aspects: one electricity and multiple vehicles, on-demand rental electricity, and rechargeable and interchangeable. That is, EVOGO can change the power of different types and brands of vehicles, and can also flexibly choose the number of replacement blocks according to demand. In addition, it can also support the energy replenishment method of charging, which is compatible with the existing home charging and fast charging.
Can you open a new era of power exchange?
At present, the main domestic power exchange companies represented by Weilai are car companies, as well as third-party power exchange operators such as Aodong and Botan. Among them, WEILAI's power exchange service is an important part of its energy service system NIO Power, mainly providing services for its own car owners; while Aodong is mainly aimed at the B-end market.
Power battery manufacturers enter the field of power exchange, and the Ningde era is still the first. Not to mention that the Ningde era is still the absolute hegemony in the field of power batteries, 2021 in the domestic loading share accounted for 52.1%, occupying half of the industry, its entry naturally caused a lot of shock in the industry, Weilai responded to this, welcome to the electric vehicle owners easy to use and convenient travel innovation and business model.
Catalonia times chose to enter the power exchange, inseparable from the rapid growth of the new energy vehicle market, in December last year, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles has reached 22.6%, began to enter a new stage of explosive growth.
The development of new energy vehicles is still facing problems such as mileage, convenience of power replenishment and purchase and use costs, etc., how to resolve them? CATL believes that in the mode of vehicle-to-electricity separation, the battery is independent as a shared asset, which is a good solution.
For the ownership of battery assets, rental prices and maintenance issues after the power exchange, CATL said that it will be operated and maintained by the battery bank. NINGDE Times and WEILAI jointly established Wuhan Weineng Battery Asset Co., Ltd., operating Weilai's BaaS battery service, and later Nezha also reported cooperation with Ningde Times on related battery banks.
With the establishment of the era of electrical clothing and the release of the power exchange brand, CATL has formed a closed loop of the whole life cycle value chain from research and development, manufacturing, use and recycling, which can not only promote the intensive and efficient use of resources, but also provide consumers with a more convenient experience and accelerate the popularity of electric vehicles.
Although the NINGDE era power exchange mode has the advantages of battery resources and other aspects, it also needs to face certain challenges to further promote the power exchange mode.
First of all, whether major car companies will join the Ningde era power exchange camp There is a huge game. At this press conference, CATL only announced a cooperative power exchange model, that is, the FAW Besturn NAT combination replacement version launched by FAW Besturn. In this regard, CATL calls on more partners to join together.
The second is the issue of profitability, and if you want to make a profit, you must achieve large-scale development. The pre-construction and post-operation and maintenance of the substation need to invest a large amount of money, which is bound to distract some energy and financial resources for the Ningde era, which is still undergoing capacity expansion. At present, the Ningde era only selects the first batch of ten cities to start the power exchange service, which is still a long way from the real large-scale operation, and this process is also the process of slow exploration in the Ningde era.
Che Yun Summary:
Previously, there was a saying in the industry that changing electricity was a "bad business". However, there are some people who do not believe in evil, that is, to do a good job of bad business.
The biggest advantage of Ningde to do power exchange is the unification of battery standards. At present, the Ningde era occupies more than 50% of the domestic power battery market, and it is most appropriate to do the unified battery standard.
In addition, if the battery assets are held through the battery bank, it means that the car companies that use the unified power exchange module do not need to purchase batteries, which saves a lot of money for the car companies. The price is that car companies abandon personalized battery pack design.
However, CATL has not yet announced the charging model and price of specific power exchanges.
A person in the power exchange industry told Che Yun, "Ningde's power exchange technology has not seen too many surprises, in addition to the cooperation of battery technology and car companies, it also needs large-scale verification." ”