On January 18, Red Star Capital Bureau learned that CATL (300750. SZ), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Times Electric Service, released the overall solution of EVOGO (Lexing Power Exchange) and combination power exchange service brand.
At the online press conference, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of THE NINGDE era, held up a piece of chocolate in his hand and personally stood on the platform, which represented the core of the shared power exchange business of the NINGDE era - the chocolate exchange block.
This single battery can provide a range of about 200 kilometers, and is suitable for models developed by 80% of the world's pure electric platforms that have already been listed and will be launched in the next three years. The supporting substation can be adapted to the various brands of models that use the battery, and the single block can be replaced for about 1 minute, and 48 replacement blocks can be stored in the station.
CATL said that it will start the first batch of power replacement services in 10 cities, and officially announced FAW Besturn as the first brand cooperative car company.
Judging from the information at the press conference, CATL is trying to become a power exchange service provider for all car companies.
However, it is recognized in the industry that the current power exchange model has difficulties such as high construction cost, low degree of standardization of power exchange, and difficulty in balancing the interests of all parties. Is it a good time for the Ningde era to choose this time to enter the game and change electricity?
The battery block "free combination" is aimed at 80% of the world's car companies
At present, the players in the power exchange market mainly include Aodong New Energy, Weilai (NIO.US) Automobile, Beiqi Blue Valley, Dongfeng Motor (600006. SH), Changan Automobile (000625. SZ) and so on. Among them, in addition to Weilai Automobile, other players are mainly taxis and online ride-hailing cars that serve the unified model. Although Weilai announced its opening to the entire industry in July last year, not many car companies responded.
Like Weilai Automobile, CATL also wants to be a power exchange service provider for all car companies. But unlike Weilai's single-pack batteries, the battery packs of the Ningde era can be freely combined.
At the press conference, CATL proposed to separate the battery as a shared asset in the vehicle-to-electricity separation mode. According to reports, the energy density of chocolate exchange blocks is 160Wh/kg, and the mileage supported by each block is about 200km. Consumers can choose one or more batteries at will when changing the power, flexibly matching the needs of different mileages.
"The power exchange mode of the Ningde era has a great feature, it is very flexible, users can rent electricity on demand, and consumers only need to rent an electric block to commute in the daily city." If you want to travel long distance, you can choose two or three electric blocks, and truly increase or decrease to achieve freedom of electricity," said Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service.
According to the Ningde era, the chocolate power exchange block can be adapted to 80% of the pure electric platform developed by the world's listed and listed in the next 3 years, and can be applied to passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 to B and C, breaking through the adaptation barriers between batteries and models, and realizing the freedom of choice of power exchange models.
CATL also provides a supporting substation, which can carry 48 electric blocks, and one block is fully charged for about 1 hour. The whole process of power exchange takes less than 3 minutes, and it takes only 1 minute to replace a battery, without manual care. Based on this calculation, in theory, the substation can provide a full-process power exchange service for 480 vehicles per day.
At the press conference on January 18, details such as power replacement costs and battery rental costs were not disclosed. CATL said it would disclose it after the actual landing of the business.
Under the policy of dongfeng, the industry is optimistic about changing electricity, and the Ningde era has long been laid out
The power exchange mode is one of the general directions of the current development of electric vehicles, and it has received strong support at the policy level.
On April 23, 2020, the four ministries and commissions of the state clearly pointed out that they support the development of new business models such as "separation of vehicles and electricity". In addition, in order to encourage the innovative development of new business models such as "power exchange", for new energy vehicle products that adopt the "power exchange" model, the new energy passenger car subsidy does not implement the 300,000 yuan price limit requirement.
The 2021 government report proposes to vigorously develop substations and support the "separation of vehicles and electricity" model.
In May 2021, the National Energy Administration, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, studied and formulated the Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Charging and Swapping Infrastructure (Draft for Comments), proposing to accelerate the promotion and application of the power exchange model and support the construction of dedicated substations.
In October 2021, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work on the Application of the New Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Mode", and decided to start the pilot work of the application of the new energy vehicle power exchange mode, with 11 pilot cities.
The industry is generally optimistic about the development potential of the power exchange industry. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in the country will reach 7.84 million, accounting for 2.60% of the total number of vehicles.
The research institute expects that in 2025, more than 16,000 new substations will be added, and the investment in new equipment will exceed 60 billion yuan. According to Guo Shougang, deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2021, the mainland has built a total of 75,000 charging stations, 2.617 million charging piles, and 1298 replacement power stations.
The Ningde era also has a layout in the field of power exchange.
On June 12, 2019, CATL joined forces with Ant Financial and Hello Travel to set up a joint venture with an investment of 1 billion yuan to test water and electricity exchange services in the two-wheeled electric vehicle market.
In July 2020, the heavy truck for power exchange jointly built by CATL and Futian Zhilan New Energy was delivered in Beijing, becoming the first commercial application scenario of heavy truck replacement. The following month, CATL cooperated with NIO to establish a new company to promote the business model of "separation of vehicle and electricity" and launch battery rental services.
At the 2020 annual performance briefing, Zeng Yuqun said, "We believe that power exchange and fast charging are better than hydrogen energy in terms of economy and maturity", and said that they have negotiated cooperation with car companies. In September of the same year, CATL signed an agreement with Foton Motor to cooperate in Foton's battery banking and substation business of a full range of new energy commercial vehicles.
In August 2021, Times Electric Service, the bearer of the power exchange business and a wholly-owned subsidiary, was established. On December 24, 2021, CATL signed an agreement with the Guizhou Provincial Government to cooperate in the construction of a power exchange network. According to the agreement, 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.
High investment and low return, the power exchange business model is questionable
Although the development potential is huge, there are still many doubts about the business model of power exchange. Better Place, the first Israeli company in the world to do power exchange, went bankrupt in 2013, and the WEILAI Auto Replacement Power Station has been unable to make ends meet for a long time... In the consumer market, the high-investment and low-return power exchange model seems to have not yet been able to run through by players.
Take NIO As an example. From the very beginning, the new car-making force has been firmly committed to changing the power supply road. 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 landed.
As of January 15, NIO has laid out 791 substations nationwide. NIO plans to expand the number of substations to 1,300 by the end of 2022.
Nio's power exchange business is widely recognized by car owners and is considered to be one of the most valuable services. But this high-investment project is still too early to become profitable.
Red Star Capital Bureau previously learned that the cost of a Weilai replacement power station is as high as millions of yuan. According to the late LatePost report, Shen Fei, vice president of Weilai, has calculated an account: according to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity, an average of 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity per unit, a day a substation to change 50 singles, a year's income of 500,000-600,000 yuan, basically can cover the site rent and equipment depreciation.
If you calculate according to the electricity replacement of each vehicle once a week, a replacement power station will radiate about 350 vehicles to support 50 orders a day and reach the breakeven point. Considering the current number of substations in WEILAI and the owners who have installed home piles, at least 800,000 units of total sales are needed to cover the cost of substations.
By the end of 2021, nio's cumulative deliveries were only 167,000 units.
At the end of 2021, BBT Shares (603648. SH) announced that it will invest in Aodong New Energy. According to the announcement, from 2018 to 2020, the revenue of Aodong New Energy was 0.82 billion yuan, 212 million yuan and 190 million yuan, respectively. The three-year net loss was 186 million yuan, 162 million yuan and 249 million yuan respectively, with a total loss of 597 million yuan.
The person in charge of the company once told the media that the average price of industrial electricity consumption in Beijing is about 0.87 yuan, which is relatively high, resulting in a meager profit of the substation; the lack of power station customers is also a major problem that the power exchange model is difficult to profit, in the 34 substations operating in the city, the general replacement vehicles maintain about 70-80 vehicles per day, the number of replacement vehicles in the transportation hub power station is slightly higher than 100 per day, but the load rate is also far lower than the nearly 300 times of power exchange per station within 24 hours, and the load rate of a single substation reaches 50% to be able to achieve breakeven.
Which brands may cooperate with CATL to exchange electricity?
The outlook is not optimistic
It can be seen that only if the frequency of power exchange is high enough, the power station can achieve profitability. At present, only FAW Besturn's NAT models use the Cataline era power exchange service. CATL did not announce the promotion of other cooperative brands.
However, auto industry insiders told Red Star Capital Bureau, "The prospects for cooperation between CATL and other brands are not optimistic, involving core technologies and industry discourse." ”
"Weilai, Xiaopeng and other car companies that have built their own power replacement systems will not cooperate with the Ningde era." Tesla does not do power changes. BYD (002594. SZ) is a competitor with CATL. Changan, BAIC, Dongfeng, Geely and other large group car companies will not give up their own interests and core technologies, and may only test the water with individual models. Only small car companies that urgently need the fame of the Ningde era to increase sales can reach cooperation with the Ningde era in a short period of time. The above-mentioned industry insiders said, "In addition, there are the income of the battery pack industry chain, the insurance and financial benefits related to the battery pack." ”
Soochow Securities Research Report said that the standardization of charging technology interfaces has promoted the popularization and promotion of plug-in mode electric vehicles, and the importance of unified standards is self-evident, but the current low degree of standardization of power exchange hinders the further development of power exchange modes.
Liu Hao, an analyst in the automotive industry, told Red Star Capital Bureau that the low degree of standardization of power exchange is currently the biggest obstacle. Not only are the power exchange methods of different models different, but the battery standards of each house are also different.
There are types of lateral pull-out power exchange, multi-cabinet power exchange, chassis power exchange and so on. The "Electric Vehicle Power Battery Product Specification Size" stipulates as many as 145 kinds of battery models, involving a large group of battery manufacturers and material suppliers.
Even if Aodong New Energy has reached cooperation with 14 car companies such as BAIC and Dongfeng, it is still in the form of cooperation with special models, rather than unified battery standards.
On May 10, 2021, the recommended national standard of the first national power exchange standard - GB/T40032-2021 "Electric Vehicle Replacement Safety Requirements" was approved and issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China, and began to be implemented on November 1, 2021.
The standard stipulates the safety standards, test methods and inspection rules unique to replaceable electric vehicles, and does not involve key standards such as power exchange methods and battery standards. The standard specifies the minimum number of power exchanges of 5000 times (snap-on type) and 1500 times (bolt type), respectively; it is clearly required that the DC circuit insulation resistance of the power exchange system should be greater than 100Ω/V, and the AC circuit insulation resistance should be greater than 500Ω/V.
The main drafting units of the standard are BAIC BJEV, Weilai, Geely and Great Wall. It can be seen that these car companies are actively fighting for the right to speak in the power exchange model.
Perhaps in the next drafting unit of the national standard for power exchange, there will also be a figure of the Ningde era.
Red Star News reporter Wu Danruo
Edited by Yang Cheng
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