Zeng Yuqun personally brought the goods.
The power-changing track has ushered in heavy players.
After many days of warm-up, on January 18, Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, officially released the power exchange service brand EVOGO and the overall solution of combined power exchange. The combined power exchange solution is composed of three major products of "power exchange block, quick change station and APP", which can be adapted to the models developed by 80% of the pure electric platforms that have been listed in the world and will be listed in the next three years.
Under the plague of energy replenishment anxiety, the power exchange mode has a short time to replenish energy, and the efficiency is comparable to that of fuel vehicle refueling, which can improve the charging convenience of the owner, and also has the advantages of reducing the cost of car purchase and reducing the charging cost by using the peak-valley electricity price difference.
At present, those who can provide users with power replacement services are Weilai, BAIC, SAIC, Geely, Changan, FAW, GAC, Dongfeng and other car companies. Among them, WEILAI has the widest power exchange territory, and by the end of 2021, Weilai has built a total of 778 substations around the world.
Despite the many benefits, the power exchange model also faces many difficulties, and the huge cost of capital alone makes the company carry the burden forward. Shen Fei, vice president of power management of WEILAI Automobile, once estimated that according to the calculation of 0.6 yuan per kilowatt hour of electricity and an average of 50 degrees of electricity per unit, 50 power changes a day and a year can earn 500,000-600,000 yuan. Only by meeting this standard can we basically cover the site rental and equipment depreciation costs of the replacement power station.
According to the calculation of each vehicle changing electricity once a week, a replacement power station must radiate about 350 vehicles to cover the cost. In other words, if Weilai's 778 replacement power stations are to be self-financing, more than 270,000 electric vehicle users are needed. At present, Weilai's sales base is still far from the same. According to official data, by the end of 2021, NIO's cumulative delivery volume reached 167,000 vehicles.
It provides a range of up to 600 km
There is no doubt that power exchange is a heavy asset business, why did the Ningde era have no hesitation in joining the power exchange army?
Because the field of power exchange has begun to show a strong "money scene". Founder Securities expects that by 2025, the total sales of power replacement models will exceed 3 million, and the scale of supporting substations will exceed 28,000 seats, corresponding to a market size of 76.5 billion; batteries will be about 55GWh, corresponding to a market size of 38.8 billion.
"The separation of vehicle electricity means that one car and one battery will become one car with multiple batteries. On top of the original demand, the power battery will usher in incremental demand, and the manufacturers of all aspects of the power battery will continue to benefit. Founder Securities analyzed. As a leading enterprise of power battery, Ningde times is naturally willing to promote the power exchange business to become bigger and stronger.
CATL named the power exchange block "Chocolate Power Exchange Block" and adopted the latest CTP technology of the CATL era. The "chocolate exchange block" has a weight energy density of more than 160Wh/kg and a volume energy density of more than 325Wh/L, and a single battery can provide an endurance of about 200 kilometers. Consumers can arbitrarily choose the number of replacement blocks according to the actual driving needs, and bicycles can use up to 3 energy replacement blocks, that is to say, a single power exchange, Ningde era can provide users with up to 600 kilometers of endurance.
As the carrier of the power exchange mode, the fast change station in the Ningde era has four characteristics: small area, fast circulation, large capacity and full climate. The standard change station of the Ningde era only needs 3 parking spaces, the replacement time required for a single power exchange block is about 1 minute, and 48 power exchange blocks can be stored in one change station to ensure that there are full power blocks for users to replace at all times. At the same time, the substation can also be provided with versions adapted to the climatic and environmental conditions of different regions.
Source: Ningde Era Official
The CATL Power Exchange APP provides users with the interconnection and service of people, cars, stations and blocks.
Similar to NIO's thinking, batteries will be separated from vehicles as shared assets and will no longer be personal consumer goods.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Ningde era, the rental price of the "chocolate exchange block" is distinguished according to the time, location and environment, and the lease price is different in different situations. The user's rent is collected by the battery bank, the holder of the battery asset, and the rent also includes insurance fees to deal with safety issues caused by power exchanges. For the Cataline era, the launch of the power exchange strategy undoubtedly provides a new export for shipments.
For those models that support power exchange, CATL will not only equip a car with power batteries, but also provide additional power battery reserves in the replacement power station, and its power battery supply is expected to double.
More importantly, the ambition of the Ningde era is not just to be the first in the field of power batteries. Through the previous investment layout, CATL is trying to build a power battery empire with a whole industry chain, get rid of dependence on oil, and set off an energy revolution.
Zeng Yuqun, founder and chairman of CATL, once said that CATL will focus on promoting breakthroughs in three major application markets: first, rely on power batteries and new energy vehicles to get rid of dependence on mobile fossil energy - oil; second, rely on lithium battery energy storage power stations + renewable energy to generate electricity, get rid of dependence on fixed fossil energy; third, promote "electrification + intelligence" to cover various application fields and scenarios such as construction machinery, mining ships, etc.
Based on the imagination of the above three major application markets, CATL has invested heavily in power batteries, energy storage, lithium battery materials, lithium battery intelligent equipment manufacturing, charging and replacing, automatic driving, new energy vehicles and other fields, and is eager to open up the complete closed-loop process of power battery manufacturing, power battery installation and power battery recycling.
In order to realize the above grand vision, the Ningde era is one of the links step by step, involved in the field of power exchange. The Ningde era found that most private car owners will only use 10%-20% of the battery capacity of electric vehicles in daily use scenarios, but in order to meet the needs of occasional long-distance travel, they often choose to buy cars with larger battery power and pay a lot of sunk costs.
In order to maximize the utilization rate of the power battery, the Ningde era has introduced a combination power exchange mode (that is, the owner can flexibly choose to assemble 1-3 power exchange blocks according to the actual travel needs). At present, most of the market share in the power exchange market is occupied by Weilai Automobile, Aodong New Energy and Hangzhou Botan.
According to official data, by the end of 2021, WEILAI has 778 substations, accounting for 60.8%; Aodong New Energy has 402 substations, accounting for 31.0%, and Hangzhou Botan substations have 107 substations, accounting for 8.2%. Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, said that the EVOGO power exchange service will be the first to start in 10 cities, but did not disclose the specific list of cities.
Can "King Ning" break down the barrier of power exchange?
Although the power exchange mode takes into account both efficiency and convenience, it has not yet become the mainstream energy replenishment method. The failure to standardize battery specifications is always a big mountain on the way forward in the power exchange mode.
"Due to the different suppliers of power batteries, the battery specifications and standards matched by different pure electric vehicles are also different; even the electric vehicles produced by the same car company, due to different model models, the design of the battery is also different, and the battery specifications between car companies are far from the same." It is difficult for a single substation to be compatible with many different power batteries. Auto analyst Zhong Shi told Future Auto Daily.
Taking the "Product Specification Size of Power Batteries for Electric Vehicles" as an example, there are as many as 145 types of batteries specified, and the battery module structure varies according to the design of different models.
The Ningde era is expected to rely on its own advantages in the field of power batteries to promote the rise of the power exchange model.
Official information shows that EVOGO, the ningde era power exchange service brand, has realized two "one electricity and multiple vehicles" full adaptation scenarios. The "Chocolate Bar" can be applied to passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 to B and C. The substation can be compatible with various brand models that use "chocolate power exchange block", which breaks through the adaptation barrier between the battery and the model, and realizes the freedom of choice of the power exchange model.
The relevant person in charge of the Ningde era said that most of the models developed based on the electrification platform are adapted to the "chocolate power block" and do not need to make too many changes.
However, it is not easy for the Ningde era to do a good job in the power exchange business.
First of all, in the field of power exchange, production capacity is a major challenge. According to the semi-annual report of catheter times, as of the first half of 2021, the capacity utilization rate of CATL is as high as 92.2%. Even so, the power battery of the Ningde era is still in short supply, Zeng Yuqun once helplessly complained at the shareholders' meeting, and the frequent urging of car companies customers made him almost unbearable.
Source: Visual China
The use of power exchange mode has higher requirements for battery reserves. In addition to providing batteries to users, it is also necessary to ensure that the reserves of the battery blocks of the replacement power station are sufficient, which requires the rapid expansion of production capacity in the Ningde era.
In addition, on the road of power exchange, the Ningde era also needs to face huge capital expenditures. At the press conference, CATL did not disclose what the input cost of the replacement power station was. According to Soochow Securities, the unit investment in passenger car replacement equipment is about 2.6 million yuan. For the Financial Ningde Era, the upfront investment is not a problem, what is important is how to quickly enter the profit stage.
Nio has not been able to achieve profitability in the power exchange business so far. As the first early adopter of the power exchange model, Better Place Company was bankrupt after only 6 years of establishment because it had only one renault customer. The Ningde era needs more car companies to join their own power exchange alliances and achieve profitability through large-scale operations. But it won't be easy.
For car companies, power replacement involves the problem of unified specifications of power battery products, and it is extremely difficult to balance the benefits and losses. Although the adaptability of the "chocolate replacement block" is very high, "the power battery is the core component of new energy vehicles, and each car company has its own design style and standards, and it is not necessary that these car companies will hand over the initiative of the battery to the Ningde era." Auto analyst Zhang Xiang thinks.
In order to grasp the battery initiative, more and more car companies are trying to develop their own power batteries. The most representative is Tesla and BYD, and the role of car companies is changing from battery manufacturers' customers to friendly businessmen. Seeing that the Ningde era is a big family, this may not be the ending that everyone is happy to see.
At the press conference, CATL announced the first batch of products that use EVOGO power exchange service - FAW Besturn NAT combination power exchange version, and said that more brands of power exchange models will join EVOGO in the future. How to persuade more car companies to join the power exchange camp is also a problem.
The author | Su Peng
Edit the | Li Huanhuan