On January 21, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments issued opinions on improving the service guarantee capacity of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which mentioned that the innovation and standard support of charging and replacing technology will be strengthened. On the one hand, it is necessary to promote the formation of a unified power exchange standard in the main application areas to improve the safety, reliability and economy of the power exchange mode, on the other hand, it is also necessary to accelerate the promotion and application of the power exchange mode, around the mine, port, urban transfer and other scenarios, support the construction of the layout of special power stations, etc., and accelerate the exploration and promotion of the vehicle-electricity separation mode.
It is difficult for you to imagine such a picture, as the leading domestic power battery company - the founder and chairman of the Ningde era Zeng Yuqun will sit on the car, holding a piece of "chocolate" in his hand, and say to the camera: Come to a piece? The meaning of this piece of "chocolate" actually has different meanings that can be interpreted, one of which is to promote the "chocolate for electricity block" in the Ningde era, and the other is to bring "sweetness" to the owners of electric vehicles.
This shot was displayed at the first press conference held online by Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, 3 days before the National Development and Reform Commission issued this opinion, and Times Electric Service officially released the power exchange service brand EVOGO and the overall solution of combined power exchange. This scheme is composed of three major products: "power exchange block, quick change station, and APP". The general manager of Times Electric Service said that the EVOGO power exchange service will be launched in the first batch of 10 cities, which 10 cities did not say, but from the video of the conference site, there must be Xiamen.
"Ning Wang" is "Ning Wang", and the layout of vehicle-to-electricity separation solutions is certainly not a matter of one day or two days. The core of Times Denso's launch of this service is to help users solve the pain points of mileage anxiety, energy replenishment anxiety and purchase cost. The chief analyst of the new energy automobile industry of CITIC Securities also believes that in the context of the double carbon economy, power exchange has become an inevitable form of promoting the popularization of new energy vehicles in all scenarios, and is an effective supplement to charging.
1. EVOGO offers a new option for replenishment
At present, most electric vehicle owners have no power replenishment methods, nothing more than home charging (slow charging) and public charging piles (fast charging), and a small number of car owners use the way of changing batteries. For the various problems encountered in the process of power exchange, in fact, many have been discussed before, such as common battery adaptation problems, power exchange length problems, new car batteries to old batteries and so on.
From the perspective of the EVOGO brand and product positioning of the times electrical service, its three characteristics of "one electric vehicle, on-demand rental electricity, and rechargeable and replaceable" seem to be able to solve the above problems.
For example, the "chocolate exchange block" is suitable for passenger cars from A00 to C, which basically meets all the pure electric vehicle models currently on the market. At the same time, its replacement power station adapts to various brand models that use "chocolate power exchange block", which is equivalent to solving the problem of battery and model adaptation.
For the problem of power exchange time, EVOGO only has three parking spaces for each standard power station, the single block exchange time is about 1 minute, and 48 power exchange blocks are stored in the power station to ensure that there are replacement blocks that can be replaced at any time. It is worth mentioning that the substation also provides versions of the climatic and environmental conditions in different regions, that is to say, there will be their own substations in the cold north and hot south.
In addition, users can also "rent electricity on demand" according to their actual mileage needs, that is, according to their own usage scenarios and habits, choose the number of rented replacement blocks. "Chocolate power exchange block" is specially developed for the realization of shared power exchange and mass production of batteries, using CATL era CTP technology, a single battery can provide about 200 kilometers of endurance (up to 3 can be exchanged, the mileage of 600 kilometers), and can be adapted to 80% of the world's pure electric platform has been listed and the next 3 years to be listed pure electric platform development models. At the same time, the power exchange block also adopts wireless BMS technology, and there is only a high-voltage positive and negative interface on the outside, which improves the reliability of plugging and unplugging parts during the power exchange process.
Overall, the introduction of EVOGO is more convenient for most EV owners during their car life.
2. Vehicle-to-electricity separation reduces car purchase costs
According to the data of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 2.989 million units in 2021, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year, and the penetration rate reached 14.8%, which was significantly higher than the penetration rate of 5.8% in the previous year, that is to say, the number of new energy car owners is increasing, of which pure electric vehicle models account for a large proportion. In December alone last year, the wholesale sales of pure electric vehicles were 423,000 units, an increase of 137.9% year-on-year, accounting for more than 80% of the sales volume of new energy vehicles.
The differentiation between the sales trend of new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles is a partial substitution effect on the fuel vehicle market, which proves the change in consumer demand through the user's market-oriented choice, and accelerates the pace of transformation to new energy in the automobile market.
What is the most expensive component of an electric car? Batteries, of course. It is understood that the battery system is the component with the highest cost proportion in new energy vehicles, and the cost proportion is close to 40%, so controlling the battery cost can reduce the price of electric vehicles, thereby increasing sales.
You know, the Ningde era in 2021 power battery loading volume ranked first, reaching 80.51GWh, the industry accounted for 52%, what concept? That is, the battery loading volume of the Ningde era is more than the sum of the second to tenth places, that is to say, most of the batteries used for electric vehicles are supplied by the Ningde era, so in the process of promoting the separation of vehicles and electricity, the Ningde era has a scale advantage.
Taking the NIO ES6 Sport Edition priced at 358,000 yuan as an example (at that time, the price was 343,600 yuan after the national supplement), the rental battery solution can be directly discounted by 70,000 yuan, the proportion of which reaches 20.4%, but it costs an additional 12,720 yuan per year on the rental and battery guarantee fee of the battery. Through calculation, it is found that the purchase cost of these two models reaches a critical point in 5-6 years, that is to say, if the car time is not more than 6 years, it is more cost-effective to use the "car-electricity separation" method to buy, and more than 6 years of car time, "vehicle-electricity integration" purchase is more cost-effective, but the use of car-electricity separation method, it is equivalent to "installment payment", the economic pressure will be smaller.
At present, the charging rules of the Times Service EVOGO have not yet been introduced, and if the cost of its replacement block is further reduced, it is undoubtedly very attractive good news for electric vehicle owners.
3. The main engine factory is also changing the power in the layout
If you want to mention the separation of vehicles and electricity, you have to mention Weilai Automobile. At the first NIO Day in December 2017, Li Bin showed the audience for the first time a video of the replacement power architecture mounted by the ES8 and the battery replacement through the Weilai replacement power station within 3 minutes, which once triggered a hot discussion in the industry. Although weilai is not only one that currently provides power exchange services, but it has attracted much attention because it adheres to the power exchange model, as of 2021, Weilai has 789 substations, accounting for 60.8%, covering 31 provincial-level administrative regions and 171 prefecture-level cities, becoming a well-deserved "bellwether" in the field of power exchange services.
It should be pointed out that Weilai and NINGDE times also have cooperation in the field of power exchange, and Both Weilai and Ningde times are shareholders of Wuhan Weineng, a battery asset company. NIO believes that investing resources in the construction of electric vehicle supplementary infrastructure is necessary and beneficial to promote the popularization of intelligent electric vehicles and promote the development of the transportation field in the direction of low-carbon environmental protection.
In addition, Geely released the "Smart Geely 2025" strategy and the "Jiuda Longwan Action" in October last year, elevating the power exchange model to the strategic height of the group. In December, Geely and Lifan Technology jointly announced that the two sides would each invest 300 million yuan to set up a joint venture company, Geely led the research and development of the replacement model, and Lifan was responsible for the layout and production of charging and replacing facilities.
In terms of products, based on the power exchange platform to create a wheelbase between 2700-3100mm of power exchange models, and covering cars, SUVs, MPVs and even logistics vehicles, light trucks and other categories, by 2025, Geely will successively launch 5 pure electric models that can be exchanged; in terms of power exchange, it is planned to build more than 5,000 power stations by 2025, covering more than 100 cities to meet the needs of 1 million vehicles. In addition, the two sides will also coordinate travel companies and power exchange service companies to match models and work together to build a power exchange network ecology.
Written in the end: With the decline of new energy vehicle subsidies until 2023 is completely cancelled, the cost of car purchase has gradually increased, but in the view of many industry insiders, the separation of vehicles and electricity through the power exchange mode can make the purchase cost of electric vehicles lower than that of fuel vehicles of the same level, and solve the problem of new energy vehicle price increases. "Under the background of the rapid growth of new energy vehicle ownership, the power exchange mode with higher energy replenishment efficiency has also become 'hot'."
By 2025, the cumulative planned number of substations will exceed 30,000, and the EVOGO launched by the Ningde era is still just starting out, and in the actual power exchange process, it may face various problems. Weilai and Ningde era have a certain representative, one is the main engine factory, one is the supplier, in general, Ningde era as a supplier engaged in the separation of vehicle and electricity business, rather than disrupting the power exchange mode, it is better to promote the development of the power exchange model to a certain extent, so as to solve the car concerns for consumers and stimulate the development of the overall market for new energy vehicles.