Trillion-dollar battery leader Ningde era cut into a new track, behind the power exchange more than "power exchange"

Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: He Mingjun

At 15:30 on January 18, CATL cut into the power exchange track through its wholly-owned subsidiary Times Electric Service. The power exchange track has a long history, and there are not a few companies in the layout, but there are few trillion market value giants that can compete with the Ningde era. This made the market excited, and the day before the official announcement, the capital market even re-speculated the long-adjusted stock price by 600 yuan.

"Power battery faucet + power exchange", this concept combination is very eye-catching. The problem of endurance is the biggest pain point of new energy vehicles in addition to safety issues. Many consumers are discouraged from new energy vehicles, which is related to battery life anxiety to a certain extent, especially in the current situation where the charging and replacing equipment on the highway is not perfect.

Power replacement is regarded as one of the solutions to the mileage anxiety of new energy vehicles. To solve the problem of battery life of new energy vehicles, it is mainly around charging and changing electricity.

Charging is the most straightforward way, but there are problems such as long time consuming, and the industry's concerns about charging modes have never been interrupted. At present, many new energy vehicle owners generally lack the maintenance knowledge of power batteries, power battery detection is only about 1-2 times a year, and in order to pursue charging speed, often use DC fast charging to charge, but fast charging voltage is high, the current is large, will greatly reduce the number of battery charge and discharge cycles, resulting in accelerated battery decay speed, shortened life.

The power exchange mode is divided into two categories - centralized charging mode and charge and swap mode. The former provides battery replacement services for electric vehicles through centralized charging stations for centralized storage, centralized charging, unified distribution of a large number of batteries. The latter takes the replacement power station as the carrier, and the replacement power station has both battery replacement and battery charging functions, including the power supply system, charging system, battery replacement system, monitoring system, battery detection and maintenance management part.

Although the power exchange mode has a theoretical basis, it is not easy to implement in practice. Weilai, Aodong New Energy, etc. are early players, and have not really popularized power exchange so far. Because the battery suppliers of each car company are different, the battery standards are not consistent, so there are not many car companies that provide power replacement services, even if they can be replaced, most of them only provide services for consumers of their own brands.

Break the power exchange dilemma

The addition of power battery leaders is expected to break the dilemma of "difficulty in replacing electricity", and the confidence comes from technology and the market.

Catalonia times have been occupying the top spot in the global power battery market for many years, and the domestic market share is more than 50%, which means that there are many customers who use caterer power batteries. Customers who use the power battery of the NINGDE era can almost seamlessly turn into customers of the power exchange business.

Huaxi Securities Research Report pointed out that the power exchange mode has the advantages of high efficiency, small impact on the power grid, and prolonged battery life, and has the innate conditions for large-scale promotion. After 2020, the investment of the main engine factory will increase, the number of power replacement models will increase, and the layout of the replacement power station will be accelerated; at the same time, the battery factory will cooperate with the main engine factory to begin to establish a battery asset management company, and the upstream and downstream of the power exchange industry chain will further cooperate in depth, and it is expected to open up the industry space such as cascade utilization and battery recycling.

According to the agency's calculations, by the end of 2025, the global total number of WEILAI substations will exceed 4,000; Aodong New Energy plans to complete the construction of 10,000 substations within 5 years; the State Power Investment Corporation plans to increase the total investment scale of 115 billion yuan by 2025, with 4,000 new investment and 228,000 batteries. At present, the power exchange industry is in the early stage of development, and the future growth rate may exceed expectations.

Power batteries are the "heart" of new energy vehicles, with costs accounting for up to 40%, and cost is also a key factor restricting the popularity of new energy vehicles. EVOGO's power exchange solution can significantly reduce or even completely eliminate this part of the cost.

Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, introduced that the "on-demand rental of electricity" implemented by EVOGO of Ningde Times allows users to choose the number of leased blocks, and truly increase or decrease, and realize the freedom of electricity. In other words, consumers only need to pay the cost of purchasing a vehicle other than the power battery, and then directly rent the battery to reduce the burden of car purchase.

The cataline era power exchange business has simultaneously grasped the psychology of car owners and car companies, creating a win-win situation. A new energy vehicle owner told the Times Weekly reporter that he is willing to try EVOGO, according to the Ningde era of power exchange program, the future may be more than 100,000 yuan can buy well-known brands of new energy vehicles with the original price of hundreds of thousands of yuan. The price of new energy vehicles after saving the cost of power batteries will certainly decline, which can win more consumers for car companies.

At the press conference, it was announced that the FAW Besturn NAT combination power replacement version became the first model to join EVOGO. Autohome shows that the FAW Besturn NAT charging version is priced between 145,800 and 151,800 yuan. Some insiders revealed to the Times Weekly reporter that the first purchase of the FAW Besturn NAT combination replacement version is nearly half the price of the charging version.

"Good time and place"

Cutting into the power exchange track, "time and place are favorable and people" are indispensable.

The headquarters of CATL is located in Ningde City, Fujian Province, while Xiamen City, which is hundreds of kilometers away, is one of the pilot cities of EVOGO. In 2016, Xiamen city has begun to lay out charging and replacing equipment, and in November 2020, it clearly proposed that the number of charging and replacing stations will reach 500 by the end of 2022.

At the national level, the implementation of the policy on substations dates back to May 2020.

In May 2020, the substation was written into the Government Work Report for the first time as an important part of the "new infrastructure". In October of the same year, the State Council issued the "New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", which clearly pointed out that the safety standards and laws and regulations related to charging and replacing should be improved, the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure should be vigorously promoted, and enterprises should be encouraged to develop power exchange mode models according to the use scenarios.

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, and 11 cities were included in the scope of the pilot.

The overall promotion goal of the pilot is to promote more than 100,000 power exchange vehicles and more than 1,000 power station replacement stations. In addition, the promotion goals also include breaking through the key technologies of power exchange products, opening up the infrastructure approval process, establishing a supervision platform for power exchange vehicles, improving the standard system of power exchange technology, forming an industrial ecology of power exchange mode, and building a power exchange policy support system.

In November 2021, the first basic universal national industry standard "Electric Vehicle Replacement Safety Requirements" was officially implemented, standardizing the industry from the aspects of improving the mechanical strength, electrical safety and environmental adaptability of electric vehicles.

The promotion of the substation as a "new infrastructure" not only caters to the needs of popularizing new energy vehicles, but also promotes the realization of the double carbon target. In the future, power exchange is expected to become the main energy supply method for new energy vehicles.

AVIC Securities predicts that the number of substations in 2022-2025 is expected to reach 2420, 5566, 11132 and 20038 respectively, and it is conservatively estimated that the number of substations in the mainland at the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" will exceed 20,000.

According to the agency's calculation data, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total investment in new substations will reach 127.6 billion yuan, with an average compound growth rate of 175% from 2021 to 2025; the market space for substation operations will reach 109.1 billion yuan, with an average compound growth rate of 306.71% in 2021-2025.

However, the coverage rate is not the "assessment standard" of the replacement power station. The coverage of the substation is actually a dynamic matching process, the daily operation of the substation still needs to maximize the benefits, and the rational use of resources is to match the demand.

Reduce upstream dependencies

The size of EVOGO will be, no one can give an accurate answer at present. Even within the Ningde era, there are many details that have not yet been perfected. However, the way of operating EVOGO has gradually become clear, and the model of "battery banking" is the first choice in the Ningde era, reducing the risk of heavy asset operations by introducing other investors.

At the end of the video of the press conference, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of THE NINGDE times, held a piece of chocolate in his hand and said: "Come to a piece? The end of the Easter egg video was widely circulated among investors. The chocolate in the video corresponds to EVOGO's "Chocolate Swap Block".

According to Chen Weifeng, the "chocolate power exchange block" adopts the latest CTP technology of the Ningde era and develops mass-produced batteries for the realization of shared power exchange. "Chocolate power exchange block" weight energy density of more than 160Wh/kg, volume energy density of more than 325Wh /L, a single battery can provide about 200 km of endurance, and can adapt to the world's 80% of the world has been listed and the next 3 years to be listed pure electric platform development models.

With such a high energy density, it seems that only ternary lithium batteries can match this value, and Insiders of the Ningde Era also confirmed to the Times Weekly reporter that the current "chocolate replacement block" is a ternary lithium battery.

According to the Times Weekly reporter, the ternary battery is not absolute, mainly depending on the market demand. If there is a demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries in the future market, EVOGO's "chocolate exchange block" can also be replaced with lithium iron phosphate batteries.

EVOGO can realize the "one electric multiple vehicles" full adaptation scenario, from A00 level to B class, C class passenger cars and logistics vehicles are suitable for "chocolate power exchange block", consumers can arbitrarily choose one or more batteries when changing electricity, flexibly match the needs of different mileage, and realize the "battery freedom" of the power exchange vehicle.

The power exchange business completes the use scenarios of the recycling industry chain. CATL acquired Bangpu Cycle in 2015, and built the entire power battery recycling system with Bangpu Cycle as the main body, which has achieved the largest recycling volume in the world, and the power exchange business has expanded the power battery recycling channel to a certain extent, installing the "last piece of the puzzle" for the recycling system.

The layout of the industrial chain has always been a good play of the Ningde era, after landing on the A-share market in 2018, the Ningde era has rapidly expanded its commercial territory through capital support, and the investment scope includes upstream and downstream links from lithium ore, positive and negative electrode materials to manufacturing equipment. This has also won a cost advantage for the Ningde era, so that it is in a more favorable position in the industry.

At the same time, the replacement power station needs to reserve batteries in advance, which indirectly provides new orders for power battery manufacturers. EVOGO's substation covers an area of about 3 parking spaces, the power exchange time is 1 minute, and a single station can reserve 48 batteries, each battery can provide an endurance of about 200km.

In charging mode, each new energy vehicle is equipped with a battery. In the power exchange mode, the power station can directly match the power battery of the corresponding mileage for consumers to maximize the efficiency of power battery use. This also invisibly reduces the market demand for power batteries and reduces the dependence of the power battery industry on the upstream.

At present, CATL will select 10 cities to start EVOGO services in the first batch, and Xiamen is already one of them.