Written by / Tu Yanping
Editor/ Zhang Nan
Design / Zhao Haoran
Following the release of the power exchange brand in the Ningde era, the power exchange track has made waves again.
On January 24, 2022, Chongqing Ruilan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., a joint venture company jointly established by Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology, has completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures and settled in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area.
Ruilan Automobile is positioned as a new potential energy for a new generation of electric replacement travel, and will be engaged in the research and development, sales and operation of automobiles (including but not limited to electric vehicle replacement). It is precisely at the previous "Smart Geely 2025" strategic conference that Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue proposed the upcoming new "power exchange travel brand".
According to the plan, Ruilan Automobile's products will cover cars, SUVs, MPVs, and even logistics vehicles and light trucks, and work together at the B and C ends to meet the needs of different markets such as online car-hailing, private cars, taxis, and logistics vehicles.
In fact, as early as 2017, Geely began the layout of the power exchange mode.
In December 2019, Geely's Hangzhou Yichi New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was renamed Yiyi Interconnection Technology Co., Ltd., which is the operating company of Geely's power exchange business. At present, it has established wholly-owned subsidiaries in Chongqing, Qingdao, Changsha and other cities across the country, and the power exchange service software Easy To Change APP has also been launched.
In September 2020, Geely Technology Group's intelligent substation was unveiled nationwide, and the double-warehouse intelligent substation on display at the scene covered an area of about 126 square meters, with 39 built-in charging slots, and a single station could serve nearly 1,000 trains per day.
In January 2021, Geely's Maple Leaf 80V, geely's maple leaf automobile's first power replacement model, rolled off the production line. This is a compact MPV that will be the first to be launched on the mobility market.
In the field of commercial vehicles, Geely is also building a power exchange ecology.
On July 5, 2021, Geely Commercial Vehicles signed a contract with GCL Energy to reach in-depth cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles and substations, and plans to achieve sales of more than 3,000 Geely commercial vehicle models in the next three years, and GCL Energy will be responsible for the construction of more than 60 substations.
Geely Commercial Vehicles builds a green intelligent power exchange capacity service platform based on the replacement of heavy trucks - all things friendly, and establishes a green power generation distributed energy network composed of super substations and energy storage banks - Sunshine Mingdao, providing customized full-life cycle integrated services for power replacement heavy trucks. Geely's commercial vehicle power exchange service software Jishi Power Exchange APP has also been launched.
On November 8, 2021, Geely's new energy commercial vehicle brand Remote Vehicle released a concept replacement heavy truck, the Remote Xinghan H (Homtruck), and the new car is scheduled to be launched in 2024.
In the field of "power exchange architecture, power station replacement, power exchange vehicle", Geely has thousands of technical patents and participated in the formulation of national power exchange standards.
Geely's exclusive power exchange architecture, GBRC (Global Battery Rapid Change), can cover the product needs of the 2700-3100mm wheelbase market segment, and its modular power exchange station can be changed at an extremely high speed of 60 seconds. Geely proposes that by 2025, 5,000 ultra-fast power stations will be laid out in 100 core cities to meet the power exchange demand of 1 million vehicles.
It can be seen that Geely not only has passenger car replacement models, commercial vehicles for electricity replacement models, but also has a power exchange station, a power exchange service platform, an exclusive power exchange travel brand, and also has a power exchange operation partner, which will initially establish a power exchange ecology.
"We will focus on the research and development, manufacturing and operation of the next generation of new energy vehicle power exchange technology, and provide full-cycle new energy infrastructure services for ecological partners such as new energy vehicle manufacturers, battery suppliers, power exchange operators, travel service providers, and new energy vehicle owners with an open and inclusive attitude." In 2020, the relevant person in charge of Geely Technology Group said.
He also said that Geely Technology Group's goal is to become the first ecological service provider in China that integrates the research and development of power exchange models, power station research and development, power exchange operation and travel services.
CATL's Epoch Electric Service has just entered the power exchange track, and it hopes that "after two or three years, it can build the world's largest service network.".
Obviously, like the Ningde era, Geely also has the same ambition in the power exchange business - to be a platform company.
In the long run, the power exchange service and battery replacement service led by car companies will have a war. Of course, the space for cooperation between the two sides is not completely absent.
Unprecedented positives
There are two ways to replenish energy for new energy vehicles - charging mode and power exchange mode have their own markets.
However, compared with the maturity of the charging business, the power exchange business is still in the early stage of development. As evidenced by the data of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, by the end of 2021, there will be a total of 74,700 charging stations in the top 10 provinces of the national charging station, while the number of replacement power stations in the top 10 provinces of the national replacement power station will be 1298.
However, with the entry of enterprises such as Catalpines and Geely, the development of the power exchange model has shown signs of acceleration.
Previously, BAIC BJEV and WEILAI were representative enterprises of to B and to C power exchange operations, respectively. Now, more and more car companies are also joining in.
On November 11, 2021, the first batch of 100 Hongqi E-QM5 new energy replacement taxis were officially put into operation. With the integrated innovation model of "separation of vehicle and electricity, mileage payment", as of the end of December, the cumulative sales of Hongqi E-QM5 electric vehicles exceeded 1,300.
It is worth noting that Times Electric Service and Ruilan Automobile are both to B business and to C business are done.
At present, the number of power replacement models on the market is gradually increasing. Taking only the catalogue of recommended models for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles (the 12th batch in 2021) as an example, among the 511 models, there are 41 models with electric replacement models, accounting for 8%.
Among them, there are 4 types of passenger cars, including FAW, Weilai, Beijing and other brands of power-swapping pure electric cars and Maple leaf brand-swappable multi-purpose passenger cars.
The remaining 37 models are all electric vehicles with exchanged electric vehicles, including dump trucks, concrete mixer trucks, tractors, semi-trailer tractors and other pure electric vehicle models, involving Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, Beiqi Foton, Jianghuai, China National Heavy Duty Truck, Chery Commercial Vehicle, Shaanxi Automobile, Nanjing Jinlong, Tanghong Heavy Industry and other enterprises.
The support policy of the power exchange mode is also intensively introduced.
In October 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) identified the first to carry out pilot applications of new energy vehicle power exchange modes in 13 cities, including Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Sanya, Chongqing, Changchun, Hefei, Jinan, Yibin, Tangshan and Baotou. The "Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Replacement" will be implemented from November 1, 2021, and the group standard of the "Construction Code for Electric Passenger Vehicle Sharing And Replacement Power Stations" will be released on December 22.
At the two sessions across the country in January 2022, the topic of power exchange also frequently appeared in proposals and suggestions.
CPPCC members and deputies to the National People's Congress from BAIC suggested that we should increase the construction of power exchange infrastructure and formulate a unified plan for the construction of power exchange power stations. Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, suggested lowering the threshold for power exchange, and the government took the lead in formulating and revising local standards such as power exchange safety and power exchange interface, promoting the acceleration of power exchange mode and power station replacement construction, and enriching the power exchange subsidy policy.
Regardless of the participation of car companies or the support of policies, the power exchange model has ushered in an unprecedented positive.
Not the endgame
So, in the future, will the power exchange mode form an alternative or even a reversal of the charging mode?
Jia Ke, editor-in-chief of Automotive Business Review, and Zhao Fuquan, dean of the Automotive Industry and Technology Strategy Research Institute of Tsinghua University, gave their different judgments on the future development prospects of the power exchange model in the New Year's Eve dialogue at the end of 2021.
Jia Ke believes that "in the future, if electric vehicles adopt a battery platform strategy, it is possible to set up several large battery companies, and when this battery is given to the vehicle factory, it is not an asset belonging to the vehicle manufacturer, but the assets of several large battery operating companies." ”
Now the battery company may become a power battery manufacturing and operation company, there is no main engine factory to grab battery resources. At that time, the lower half of the car may be done by the battery platform company, and the car company only needs to consider the upper part of the car, the smart cockpit and smart driving.
Jia Ke believes that if this is the case, "in a sense, it will greatly change the layout of our industrial ecology." ”
Zhao Fuquan believes that "in the current stage of charging difficult, slow charging environment, power exchange has its market space", but can not be infinitely amplified the potential of the power exchange mode, from the technical feasibility, commercial feasibility to achieve a full range of power exchange is not realistic.
In his view, with the continuous improvement of charging infrastructure, the charm of the power exchange model will gradually decline, "due to the personalization of the car, including the competition for product dominance between various enterprises", the future power exchange cannot become a unified solution for the whole industry.
"Just because the country now has an industrial policy of power exchange, it is believed that the world will be the same, all car companies will use the same battery in the future, and the battery will also be managed by someone to do the battery bank, so that the battery operation company and the battery company will form a combination, and the vehicle company will only do the upper body part." - This possibility does not exist. Zhao Fuquan said.
With the power of all sides entering the market, the power exchange track became lively. But to what extent it will change the current industrial ecology needs to be further observed. It's just the beginning, far from the end.