This article is from the WeChat public account "Light Cone Intelligence", author: Sun Guangxin, editor: Wang Yisu, Pencil Road is published with permission.
On the afternoon of January 18, CATL officially released the power exchange brand EVOGO, entering the next new energy outlet "power exchange".
EVOGO consists of three products: power changer block, quick change station, APP.
The power exchange block is the power battery part, which is named "chocolate power exchange block" because of its shape, which is the best and most core part of the Ningde era. The weight density of each replacement block exceeds 160Wh/kg, the volume energy density exceeds 325Wh/L, a single battery can provide an endurance of about 200 kilometers, and the owner can rent on demand, according to their own needs to rent 1 or more replacement blocks.
The actual area of the express change station is about 3 parking spaces, and the power change time is about 1 minute. Each change station reserves about 48 power exchange blocks, which can realize automatic power exchange.
(EVOGO interchange concept map)
CATL also announced the REPLACEMENT VERSION OF FAW BESTURN's NAT combination, a member of the EVOGO "Little Green Ring" family, and will select 10 cities to start the first batch of power exchange services.
Although the press conference was only 11 minutes long, there were more information points revealed. Why did CATL choose such a product design method, and why did it choose to take the lead in cutting into the taxi scene? Can the power exchange mode of the Ningde era work through?
Relying on compatibility, improve the utilization rate of substations
There is a lot of controversy about the power exchange mode, one of which is the compatibility issue.
Although the batteries currently used in new energy vehicles are mostly lithium batteries, but the battery models are varied by different enterprises, only in the "electric vehicle power battery product specification size" stipulates 145 kinds of battery models, and the battery module structure is different according to the model design. Coupled with the fact that there is no completely unified battery standard in China, it is difficult for the cars of different car companies to share battery products and power exchange equipment.
According to media reports, as of the end of 2020, the average utilization rate of first-tier cities such as Beijing is only about 20%, and under the premise of vehicle matching, the utilization rate of a single substation can reach 60% to 70% to achieve breakeven.
Therefore, if non-car companies like the Ningde era want to establish a replacement power station, the first thing to solve is the compatibility problem of the power battery, which will eventually affect the utilization rate of the replacement power station.
In terms of adaptability, CATL said that the chocolate exchange block can already be adapted to 80% of the models developed by the pure electric platform that have been listed in the world and will be listed in the next 3 years, and have realized two "one electric multiple vehicles" scenario, which is suitable for passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 class to B class and C class.
It is understood that the energy density of the 150kWh battery that Weilai will soon put into use is 360Wh/kg, which is significantly better than the charging speed of a single piece of chocolate in the cruising range. This also means that under the same circumstances as other factors, the charging frequency of the fast change station in the Ningde era is significantly higher than that of the weilai replacement station.
From the product design, it can be seen that the goals of the two substations are completely different.
Nio's substation currently only serves NIO owners, and the business volume of a single substation depends entirely on the number of nearby NIO owners, with a certain after-sales service nature, so it can obtain income by providing value-added services. According to the official website of Weilai, Weilai car owners can purchase an energy worry-free package of 10,800 yuan a year and enjoy services such as one-click power-up 15 times a month, that is, the service commissioner will drive the WEIlai car to be powered to the location of the charging and replacing facilities to start charging. In order to meet the positioning of its high-end brand, Weilai uses the best possible service and the fewest possible times to meet the power demand of car owners.
(From NIO official website)
But for EVOGO, the stickiness of users is much worse, and it is more necessary to ensure profitability by increasing usage. Reduce the minimum cost of power exchange and increase the frequency of power exchange - this is the reason why the Ningde era adopts the power exchange block mode and rents on demand.
In addition to the power exchange block, EVOGO's quick change station has indeed achieved a breakthrough in power exchange efficiency. The single power exchange time of the EVOGO express change station is about 1 minute, compared with the 3-5 minute power exchange time of other substations such as Weilai, the former's power exchange efficiency is faster. With the popularization of the power exchange mode, the number of new energy vehicles has increased, and the faster power exchange speed can better cope with the time period and location with large demand for power exchange.
EVOGO's relatively small footprint also requires faster power exchange speeds. Affected by cost factors, the substation generally does not use too large an area, which leads to limited parking space, and it is necessary to increase the speed of the power exchange to reduce the queuing time. Weilai reduced the power replacement time from 8 minutes to 4.5 minutes, which took 2 years and 8 months.
However, the frequency of power exchange of the replacement power station is also related to the charging efficiency of the replacement power station. The charging system is also an important part of the replacement power station, if the charging efficiency can not keep up, it can not meet the demand for power replacement. However, at this press conference, CATL did not publish the relevant information of the charging system of the express change station, and it was impossible to analyze it.
From the existing information, although EVOGO in the Ningde era does not have an advantage in the mileage, with the advantage of high compatibility, it may be able to make a breakthrough in the use efficiency, and it still has a certain competitive advantage in the power exchange industry.
Avoiding mainstream car companies, why can Ning Wang only advance taxis?
At present, the substation has been applied in many use scenarios such as private cars, taxis, buses, short-distance heavy trucks, etc. From the perspective of the layout of the Ningde era in the field of power exchange in the past, the Ningde era has tried in the above several main aspects, but until this conference, the Ningde era of power exchange brands have really obtained the opportunity to land, this opportunity comes from the taxi field.
It is understood that FAW Besturn NAT is a pure electric vehicle model that FAW Besturn is developing for the rental, online and other travel markets, and the five models launched by the new car are all built by taxis: Didi customized, T3 customized, rental, net patrol integrated rental and market expansion.
Why Taxis?
First of all, even if the Ningde era stands at the top of the industrial chain and has nearly half of the market share of new energy batteries in China, it cannot determine how the power battery system of automakers is designed.
Since batteries are the core components of the automotive industry, battery power systems are one of the core competitiveness of automobiles. The change of this system will involve a series of core business issues such as the design, production, and product positioning of the entire car. At present, it is impossible to make major changes for the sake of the problem of power replacement that is not mainstream.
In addition, for automakers, once the battery standards are unified in order to develop the power exchange model, it means that some core technology platforms need to be opened, and the competitive advantage of car companies will be reduced, so many large automotive manufacturers either want to build their own power stations, or do not want to join the ranks of power exchange.
Second, if the power station wants to be profitable, the frequency of power exchange is an important influencing factor, and the use of taxis and online ride-hailing vehicles is greater.
"The mileage of new energy taxis is too short, and if they are not charged in the middle of the way, they cannot cope with the operating mileage of about 300 to 400 kilometers a day." Yang Guoping, deputy to the 15th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, director of the Legal Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the Volkswagen Transportation Group, said that a new energy vehicle takes 40 minutes to charge even fast charging, and slow charging takes 6 hours. This has seriously squeezed out the operating hours of drivers and affected their operating income.
In terms of short-distance travel within the city, private cars solve more of a commuting problem, and the frequency of use and mileage are inherently lower than taxis or ride-hailing cars that need to be running for a long time. Therefore, taxi ride-hailing has obviously more frequent power exchanges and higher requirements for energy supplementary efficiency.
Third, taxis and online ride-hailing cars are often customized in batches, with large demand and low performance requirements. For the Ningde era, the difficulty coefficient of getting a low-end production line of 1 to 2 automobile OEMs is greatly reduced.
At present, the top three domestic power exchanger companies Aodong New Energy, Botan Technology, and GCL Energy are all the first to enter from this market.
By the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in Shanghai has exceeded 620,000. In September 2021, Shanghai's new energy vehicle sales accounted for 47.19%, far higher than the national average of 10%, close to the world's highest level. However, compared with the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, the number of cars and power stations that can be replaced is pitiful. At present, there are more than 2,000 taxis in Shanghai that adopt the power exchange mode, and 18 replacement power stations have been completed and used, and 7 power stations are under construction and equivalent power.
But this is after all a relatively niche market, and the entry of Ning Wang will make the competition for taxis and online ride-hailing more intense.
In addition to taxis and online car-hailing, heavy trucks may be another area of power exchange that hopes to break through in the Ningde era. It is understood that in July 2020, CATL cooperated with Futian Zhilan New Energy to create a heavy-duty truck for power exchange delivery in Beijing, becoming the first domestic heavy-duty truck replacement commercial application scenario.
Heavy trucks are different from passenger cars, mainly used in intercity transportation and other long-distance transportation fields, although in the case of outlets have not yet been rolled out, heavy trucks are still difficult to get better electricity exchange services through the fast change station of the Ningde era, but with the landing of fast change stations in more and more cities, with the existing cooperation experience and market competition, heavy trucks may also become one of the important application scenarios in the future of the Ningde era.
The ambition of the Ningde era is not only in the battery
Data show that in 2020, the mainland has built the number of substations 555, in 2021 the mainland has built about 1200 substations, it is expected that in 2025, the number of new domestic substations will reach more than 9,000, from which it is estimated that by 2025, the market size of the mainland substation will reach 12 billion yuan.
After 2020, the state and local governments have introduced more policies to encourage the development of power exchange as a supplement to new energy infrastructure in the adaptation scenario, and continue to introduce standards and norms for the industry, and the voice of battery standardization is getting higher and higher.
The main players of the power exchange are also actively expanding the scale of the power exchange station. It is estimated that by the end of 2025, the global total number of WEILAI substations will exceed 4,000, of which about 1,000 substations in markets outside China; Aodong New Energy plans to complete the construction of 10,000 substations within 5 years; plans to increase the total investment scale of 115 billion yuan by 2025, with 4,000 new investment and 228,000 battery sets.
The development prospects of the power exchange industry are broad, and the Ningde era, as the main supplier in the upstream of the power exchange industry, naturally wants to share more. But this puts forward high requirements for the cash flow of the Ningde era, in addition to the Ningde era, I am afraid that there is no second battery manufacturer dares to directly involve the replacement power station.
The power exchange itself is a heavy asset model, and the construction cost of the power station, the manpower and operating costs in the later stage are not small expenses.
According to the model of Huaxi Securities, with a fixed investment (including batteries) of 5 million yuan, a depreciation period of 10 years, land rent and labor costs and other operating costs of 600,000 yuan / year, each charge is 70kWh (optimistic), charging service fee is 1.8 yuan / kWh calculation, the number of daily power exchanges needs to reach about 20 times to achieve the basic breakeven, in the case of daily charging times reach 50 times, the net interest rate of a single charging station can reach 42%, and the investment recovery period is 5.21 years.
Even if the advantages of the Ningde era in terms of cost are taken into account, in the case that the scale advantage of the outlets is not rolled out, the Ningde era may not meet the expected risk in the number of daily charging, and there may not be an advantage in the charging service fee, coupled with the different actual prices of commercial electricity in various places, the cycle of return on investment in the early stage is relatively long, which will also cause pressure on the cash flow of the Ningde era.
In the first three quarters of 2021, the net inflow of cash flow generated by the operating activities of CATL was 28.686 billion yuan, an increase of 178.35% year-on-year, and as of September 30, the monetary funds of CATL were 807 million yuan, an increase of 18.00% over the end of 2021.
In addition, the self-built replacement power station in the Ningde era also poses certain challenges to its own production capacity. In the specification of the huge fixed increase project approved by CATL on January 12, CATL said that the current production capacity cannot meet the future market demand, and the total production capacity of CATL in the first three quarters of 2021 is 106.41GWh, but the output has reached 103.54GWh.
In addition, the Ningde era layout of the power exchange industry may have other plans. With the gradual implementation of the double carbon target, the first batch of new energy batteries gradually arrived at the time of decommissioning, lithium battery recycling and reuse has become a topic of concern for many people, and the layout of the power station can open up the industrial chain such as cascade utilization, dismantling and recycling for the Ningde era, and further penetrate the business to the end of the industrial chain.
As the first battery manufacturer in China to enter the power exchange industry, it is worth looking forward to how quickly the road to power exchange in the Ningde era can be passed, but no matter what the result is, it will promote the entire power exchange industry to accelerate product innovation, thereby promoting the development of the industry. The power exchange industry also needs more players from other areas of the power exchange industry chain to jointly promote the healthy and rapid development of power exchange.