When the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 22.6%, NINGDE Times, the world's largest battery manufacturer, decided to stand up and do something.
On January 18, "Times Electric Service", a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, released EVOGO, a power exchange service brand, and launched a combined power exchange overall solution and service composed of three major products: "power exchange block, quick change station and APP". In the vehicle-electricity separation mode, the scheme separates the battery as a shared asset, and tries to establish a standard unified power exchange network.
To this end, CATL has developed a "chocolate power exchange block" to achieve shared power exchange. The energy density of the exchange block exceeds 160Wh/kg by weight and by volume at more than 325Wh/L. A complete battery pack is composed of 3 battery blocks that can be independently loaded and unloaded, and the user can arbitrarily select one or more batteries when changing the power, matching the needs of different mileages, and a single battery can provide about 200 kilometers of endurance.
CATL said that unlike the traditional power exchange mode, the "chocolate power exchange block" can be applied to passenger cars and logistics vehicles from A00 class to B class and C class. The substation can be adapted to the use of "chocolate power exchange block" of various brands of models, opening up the adaptation barrier between the battery and the model, which will improve the operation efficiency of the substation and save social resources.
It can be seen that in the trend of auto parts gradually moving towards standardization, NINGDE times hopes to do the "first crab eater" in the replenishment link - to establish a shared ecology of automotive power batteries.
The "optimal solution" of the energy replenishment
The efficiency of electric vehicles has always been a thorny issue for the entire industry. The mainstream 120kw, double-gun fast-charging pile on the market takes more than 1 hour to fill up with a range of 400 kilometers, but it only takes a few minutes for a fuel car to fill a tank of fuel.
To address the inefficiencies, Tesla chose to use a higher voltage overcharge pile to increase the charging efficiency, and its latest generation V3 supercharge pile takes only 20 minutes to charge in the middle (from 20% to 80%). Weilai Automobile, which is known for its user operation, chose to build its own power station to provide power replacement services for its own car owners.
But this "siloed" situation also raises new questions: Should owners of other brands be abandoned? Is there a solution that allows for rapid energization?
The solution given by CATL is to provide a standardized energy replenishment mode for the industry through a combination of power exchange solutions.
"We are also reflecting, is the battery only a large power and customization of this technical direction?" At the press conference, Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, said that the company's new solution is to separate battery assets and realize the separation of vehicle and electricity. This means that users can rent batteries instead of buying them, and it also means that each battery can be shared.
In the design of the substation, the Ningde era will also be able to accommodate the number of batteries and the efficiency of the replacement of a single substation, almost to the extreme.
At present, a single substation in the Ningde era can store 48 chocolate swap blocks, which is the largest number of battery blocks carried by a single substation in the industry. With a single block of about 1 minute to change the power, the substation can serve 40 vehicles for up to one hour, which is the same as the efficiency of the gas station, which is basically the optimal solution for the current electric vehicle energy replenishment.
In fact, before the Ningde era, Weilai Automobile has already achieved the power exchange mode.
According to NIO's BaaS scheme, users can buy a car without a battery at a cheaper price and rent the battery later. Taking the 75kw battery pack as an example, the initial price reduction amount is 70,000 yuan, and the subsequent monthly rent of the battery is 980 yuan. In BaaS's pricing design, the rent paid by the user for the first 6 years will cover the initial price reduction, and every money the user pays can be used to offset the battery loss cost that increases as sales grow and over time.
However, compared with Weilai's closed power exchange method, the power exchange scheme of the Ningde era is obviously more flexible and oriented to the entire new energy automobile industry, which will greatly reduce the initial operating costs.
According to the statistics of the Ningde era, the daily commuting of new energy vehicle owners in the city will only use 10-20% of the cruising range of the whole vehicle. As a result, the "chocolate bar block" was designed as a "3-in-1" model. In the use scenario of daily commuting, users can choose to carry a single chocolate battery to meet the needs of use while reducing the rental cost of the battery.
In addition, as a battery manufacturer, CATL can make batteries no longer personal consumer goods in providing standardized power exchange solutions for the whole industry, but become power battery assets that can be centrally managed. This means that CATL has the ability to build a full-chain management system for power batteries, including research and development, production, assembly, charging, use, maintenance, monitoring, safety and recycling.
This can only be done by the power exchange program provided by the Ningde era.
"We hope to stand at the level of overall social resources, plan future possibilities, optimize funds, release time, share resources, and constantly explore better solutions to the efficiency of battery asset use." Chen Weifeng said at the release.
Choose, let the market and the user do it
Flexible combination of battery packs, efficient substations and industry-wide solutions, the Ningde era has basically done what can be done.
"The solution given by the Cataline Era is good news for consumers. For the main engine factory, this is not always the case. After the launch of the power exchange brand in the Ningde era, some industry insiders told the titanium media App.
According to the power exchange scheme of the Ningde era, if the main engine factory wants to participate, it means giving up control of the battery, and even the design of the car chassis needs to communicate with the Ningde era. In this way, it is difficult for OEMs that pursue ultra-long battery life and try to establish full-process after-car services.
The history of business is always similar, and the problems faced by the Ningde era are almost the same as those encountered when Didi was founded.
At the beginning of its establishment, In order to integrate the capacity of private cars to construct an integrated online travel, Didi also encountered resistance from taxi companies around the world. Later, the market made a choice, and Didi, who had better efficiency and experience, won the war. In the same way, in the face of the market rules of survival of the fittest, the key to determining the success or failure of the power exchange model is not in the car companies, but in the market and consumers.
"For consumers, in addition to the lower payment costs and higher energy efficiency of the Ningde era, they no longer have to worry about the sharp depreciation of second-hand electric vehicles due to battery loss." A battery industry insider told the Titanium Media App that it will greatly promote the penetration of electric vehicles.
For car companies, the price of cars in the vehicle-electricity separation mode will be significantly lower than that of non-exchanged and fuel vehicles, which is conducive to increasing automobile sales. Moreover, such a program can also reduce the sales costs and research and development expenses of car companies, focus on the intelligent part, and avoid duplicate construction and disorderly expansion.
Finally, the efficiency of the use of social resources will be greatly improved.
"Combined power exchange" + "vehicle-to-electricity separation" is actually an intensive and whole-process management of battery resources. The benefits of this are that the service time of lithium batteries has increased significantly, the battery depreciation formula has changed, and battery assets have evolved from asset burden to value creation units. At the same time, standardization and unification also mean that the entire life cycle of the battery becomes more accurate and transparent, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of battery cascade utilization, recycling, etc., and reduce the dependence on upstream resources.
Moreover, unlike the travel market that Didi was in at that time, the market share of power batteries in the Ningde era cannot be ignored. This increases the likelihood that it will change the rules of the industry's game.
In 2021, the cumulative output of China's power batteries was 219.7GWh, an increase of 163.4% year-on-year; sales were 186.0GWh, an increase of 182.3%; and the loading volume was 154.5GWh, an increase of 142.8% year-on-year. Among them, the catheter era ranked first in the loading volume, with a market share of 52.1%; the second and third places were BYD and China New China (AVIC Lithium Battery), with a market share of only 16.2% and 5.9%.
More importantly, according to the "Notice on the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles in 2022" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 will be reduced by 30% on the basis of 2021. At the same time, the purchase subsidy policy was terminated on December 31, 2022.
This means that the financial subsidy policy for new energy vehicles that has lasted for more than ten years will officially end, and new energy vehicles will also enter the market competition with fuel vehicles. At that time, the energy efficiency of electric vehicles will become an important weight affecting the sales of automobile brands.
"In the post-subsidy era, the market and consumers will make their own choices about the combined power exchange model." said the above-mentioned person.
(This article was first published on titanium media App)