Exclusive dialogue Tong Zongqi: The core of competition in the charging infrastructure industry is service capabilities

In 2021, the mainland new energy vehicle market will grow explosively, with annual sales exceeding 3.5 million for the first time. The penetration rate and ownership of new energy vehicles have increased significantly, which has also driven the rapid development of the charging infrastructure industry.

According to data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, the number of charging infrastructure in the mainland will increase by 936,000 units in 2021. Among them, the increase in public charging piles was 340,000 units, up 89.9% year-on-year; the number of charging piles equipped with vehicles surged, reaching 597,000 units, up 323.9% year-on-year.

However, the problem of charging anxiety still plagues some consumers, and news such as the National Day high-speed queue for 4 hours to charge for an hour, and the electric vehicle owner grabbing the charging pile at four o'clock in the morning appears from time to time. Obviously, the charging infrastructure industry is still facing a series of problems, but it is certain that with the increasing number of new energy vehicles, this will be a huge blue ocean market.

How is the development of charging infrastructure in mainland China? What are the application difficulties and practical challenges? How can charging operators solve the problem of profitability? What is the future development direction and trend of the charging industry?

With the above questions in mind, on January 20, 21st Century Business Herald reporters exclusively interviewed Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance.

"The construction of charging infrastructure in the mainland was in the stage of advanced investment and construction during the 13th Five-Year Plan period, and it is currently changing from 'staking land' to refined operation services." Tong Zongqi said that service capabilities will be the core of future competition in the charging infrastructure industry.

The Spring Festival holiday is approaching, will the holiday charging problem reappear, and how to solve it? Tong Zongqi suggested that at this stage, if new energy vehicles are to be used as a long-distance travel tool, users must plan for charging and travel in advance.

In response to the more difficult "community pile problem", he introduced that it is currently being resolved through four ways, such as unified construction and management, private pile sharing, community public charging, and storage and charging integrated station.

The following is the content of the interview, with abridgements.

From racing to refined service

21st Century Business Herald (hereinafter referred to as "21st Century"): In 2021, how will the construction and development of charging infrastructure be?

Tong Zongqi: During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the mainland's charging infrastructure was in a stage of advanced investment and construction, and by the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it was actually growing rapidly last year.

However, the field of charging infrastructure is very subdivided, and for models in different segments, travel scenarios and charging scenarios are not the same, which will lead to different piles in the ratio of each different charging field station.

According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in the country is 7.84 million, and the current number of charging piles is more than 2.6 million units, which is basically at the overall level of 3:1, which has improved steadily compared with previous years. However, now it is more from the "staking" in the early stage of the development of the industry to the transformation of refined operational services, and the follow-up should also maintain this state.

21st Century: Is the 1:3 vehicle-to-pile ratio reasonable?

Tong Zongqi: Whether it is the aforementioned 1:1, 1:3 or other ratios, it does not make much sense. Because of different models, the segments are different.

The utilization rate of taxi charging stations is more than 50%, and the maximum can reach 70%; but the utilization rate of private car charging piles, or the average utilization rate of social vehicles for public charging facilities, may be less than 10%.

This proportion can not accurately reflect the proportion of new energy vehicles and charging infrastructure development, now the entire new energy vehicle ownership is more than 7 million, while the number of Chinese cars is 300 million, the proportion of new energy vehicles is still very small. Everyone should pay attention to how to solve the problem of vehicle charging in different segments and how to ensure the ability of charging services.

In addition, more attention should be paid to the application scenario. For example, the scene of community charging, the charging scene of bus logistics vehicles, and the "light-storage-charging-inspection" integrated demonstration station that is promoting demonstration applications are focusing on how to develop multiple industries and multiple synergies.

Puzzle solved

"21st Century": How to solve the problem of charging in residential areas?

Tong Zongqi: Judging from our statistics and surveys, about 50% of car owners in the country are currently unable to install charging piles in the community. For car owners, the most convenient charging is two places, one is the community, and the other is the destination. Destination charging can solve the charging needs of 20-30% of car owners, and 20-30% of car owners can only charge in places such as public charging stations.

To solve the problem of charging in residential areas, there are now four main ways.

First, unified construction and management. When the developer builds a new residential area, it is necessary to plan a parking space for unified charging pile construction and unified management.

Second, private pile sharing. For some old communities, especially those without fixed parking spaces, or communities with solid parking spaces but due to insufficient capacitance and insufficient number of charging piles, private pile owners can share the pile when they are not charging, so that other owners of the community can charge, and even some communities can be open to the public at some specific times.

Third, public charging of the community. Operators build some suitable charging stations outside the community to serve the charging of several surrounding communities.

Fourth, the storage and charging integrated station or the storage and charging integral pile. It is not a traditional DC pile, which has 2-4 battery packs, when charging, it may be 40 kilowatts is enough, and there is not much impact on the capacitive load of the cell, but when discharged, it can output 200 kWh of electricity. When idle, you can recharge the power yourself, and then discharge it when there is a vehicle to charge.

"21st Century": After years of development, what problems in the current charging infrastructure industry need to be improved?

Tong Zongqi: First, policy support. Because the entire charging infrastructure is in the stage of advanced investment and construction, the overall operational capacity of enterprises in the industry is relatively difficult, and it needs the support of relevant policies of the state and local governments, including subsidies, taxes and other aspects. Second, connectivity. It is not to say that the whole country should become a network and use an APP, but at least local areas can be interconnected. We hope to do some aggregation platforms to regulate and guide the business behavior of enterprises. Third, do a good job. Whether it is a car company or a charging station or an operator, we must put the service first and think about how to provide better charging services for car owners. Including how to guide customers to charge, how to provide better service for car owners during the charging process. To refine the positioning of each charging station, what kind of charging services should be supported to better serve car owners.

Fourth, from the user's point of view, consumers need to change their thinking. For new energy vehicle buyers, we must first pay attention to whether the charging pile can be installed in the community, whether the unit can charge, where the charging is convenient, and then buy a car after solving the problem of charging pile. In addition, you must plan well before traveling, such as seeing whether the remaining power can meet the mileage demand of future travel, if not enough, where do you need to charge? Which charging station needs to be queued? Which gun is available? Whether it is a holiday or a normal day, charging needs to be planned in advance.

"21st Century": In 2021, the high-speed charging difficulty of holiday travel has aroused concern, how to solve the holiday charging problem?

Tong Zongqi: First, to improve the service capacity of charging, many of the charging piles on the highway are 120 kilowatts of double gun configuration or lower, and even super charging piles above 180 kilowatts are very few. It is necessary to build high-power DC piles and supercharge piles, and higher power charging piles should be borrowed to improve charging service capabilities.

Second, the car owner rationally plans to travel. If it is a long-distance trip, my first suggestion is to focus on fuel vehicles or public travel. If you want to use new energy vehicles as a travel tool, you must plan the charging route in advance.

A hundred flowers bloom and the head gathers

21st Century: How profitable is the charging infrastructure industry now?

Tong Zongqi: For charging operators who operate vehicles, profitability will be better, because their charging pile utilization rate has reached the level of 30-50%.

The average interest rate of a charging pile reaches more than ten percent, and it should be possible to have a cost recovery cycle and achieve profitability. But now the average of the entire industry is far below 10%, so operators in different fields are not the same.

In the field of rental network booking, the daily travel mileage and charging routes of vehicles are relatively fixed, and the profitability of these charging stations is still relatively strong; as an operator of public charging in the community, the profitability will be weaker.

If you only do charging services, the profitability of some operators will generally be relatively poor, but if it is charging + services, providing some value-added services such as rest, amusement facilities, and car washes, the overall can be profitable. Therefore, we hope that in the future, operators will do a good job in services, develop more business models, and improve the status quo of survival.

"21st Century": When it comes to operators, there are many different kinds, how do you think about the competition between them, will this industry gather to the head like other industries?

Tong Zongqi: The charging infrastructure is relatively special, and the regional characteristics are very obvious. In terms of operators, in addition to enterprises with heads, there are many local enterprises, that is, commonly known as small and medium-sized micro operators, which develop well in small areas.

In the long run, China's charging infrastructure industry will certainly be a situation of "a hundred flowers blooming, but the head is gathered". The head enterprises include special calls, star charging, state grid, south network and so on.

Next, maybe some third-party platform companies will emerge. In addition, for the problem of community charging, it can stand up in the scene of community charging, develop suitable products, business models, and technologies, and such enterprises should be able to stand out.

"21st Century": PetroChina and Sinopec have also joined the charging infrastructure construction industry, how to evaluate the layout of the two in this field?

Tong Zongqi: The addition of PetroChina and Sinopec can accelerate the development of the industry. First, the land problem is solved, there is no need to repeat the construction, and the relative reuse rate is relatively high. Second, the number of employees does not need to increase, and existing personnel can be trained to work. Third, they have some service facilities in themselves to facilitate the provision of services to electric vehicle owners.

But at present, they do charging and replacing power stations, and they are still the same traditional business model as before, opening a convenience store, providing services such as car wash, and there is not much flexible model.

However, if you want to build 5,000 charging and replacing power stations, you can't build 5,000 are all a model. It is necessary to understand the travel mode, charging method and even lifestyle of existing new energy vehicle owners. Now all fuel car owners, that is, potential electric vehicle owners in the future, they need to understand what kind of pain points these fuel owners have for electric vehicles, and what kind of charging service experience they want. These energy companies must have these raw data, or cooperate with some car companies.

The power exchange business model still needs to be passed

"21st Century": In the past two years, the power exchange has been strongly supported by the national policy, but there is still a view that the power exchange is only suitable for operating vehicles, what do you think about this?

Tong Zongqi: The power exchange industry should be divided into two categories, one is passenger cars and the other is commercial vehicles.

In the field of commercial vehicle heavy-duty trucks, as far as short-distance heavy trucks with a daily travel mileage of less than two or three hundred kilometers are concerned, especially in the relatively closed vehicles such as port logistics parks and terminals, and the routes are relatively fixed, there are application scenarios for power exchange, and it will land faster. But medium and long-distance heavy-duty trucks, more suitable may be fuel cells or other forms.

In the field of passenger cars, in the operation market of the to B-end, there is a need for power exchange scenarios. But for private car owners, at present, I think that power replacement is part of the demand of some people in some scenarios, and it will not become mainstream at this stage, but it is only one of the technical routes for new energy vehicles to replenish energy. What kind of people would choose to switch now? The first type is that the family can not install piles, the unit has no place to charge; the second type is the middle class and above the people, from their work style, lifestyle, time is more important.

"21st Century": On January 17, CATL released the replacement brand, how to evaluate the NINGDE era into the power exchange?

Tong Zongqi: Power exchange is now divided into two technical routes, one is the whole package of power exchange, including Weilai, Aodong, BAIC and other enterprises; the other is the sub-box power exchange, representing Hangzhou's Botan Technology. After the Ningde era came in, the route of Botan Technology in Hangzhou was basically the same as that of the box exchange. The addition of such a large-scale power battery enterprise in the Ningde era is definitely a good thing for the power exchange industry.

"21st Century": Some people think that the Ningde era can make the power battery into a standard product similar to the No. 5 and No. 7 batteries, what do you think?

Tong Zongqi: It still depends on its business model and the choice of car companies. Now one of the reasons why it is more difficult to change the power is standardization, not to mention different car companies, even if the same car company, may be from A00 to A class, B class, C class car, battery pack can not be unified.

Because Pack (battery pack), BMS (battery management system), etc., as very differentiated products of automakers, are used to improve performance and attract consumers. If the battery pack is the same, it will affect the architecture of the vehicle, other sensors, the size of the tier 1 parts controller, the layout of the wiring harness, and the re-opening of the mold of the whole vehicle. You need to think about how the business model should be done.