When it comes to "changing electricity", most people may only think of Weilai for the first time. However, with the state's policy support for the power exchange industry, as well as industry giants such as the Ningde era have entered the game, the power exchange industry has gradually become another hot spot in the new energy supplementary industry.
On the evening of January 24, Geely Holdings (0175. HK) announced that Chongqing Ruilan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., a joint venture between Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology, which has jointly invested 600 million yuan, has completed industrial and commercial registration in Chongqing and obtained a business license issued by the Chongqing Liangjiang New Area Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, announcing its official establishment.
According to the information in the statement, Chongqing Ruilan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. has the qualification of independent production and sales of new cars, has its own complete research and development, production, supply and sales system, and its business scope includes auto parts research and development and sales, new car sales, new energy vehicle sales, new energy vehicle replacement facilities sales, etc.
Geely Automobile said that it will fully support the business operation of the new company, and help Lifan Technology to achieve industrial structure transformation and upgrading, the two sides will jointly coordinate travel business resources to match models, and strive to jointly promote the formation of new energy vehicle replacement ecology, and realize the unification of new energy vehicle replacement standards.
The establishment of Ruilan Automobile seems to be sudden, but if you look back at the past of Geely and Lifan, you can find that this company has long been in reserves in the power exchange industry. A few years ago, Lifan Automobile used the model of "sub-box power exchange", and introduced the new technology of power exchange technology into the passenger car market earlier.
At the "Smart Geely 2025" strategy conference held in October 2021, Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue first proposed to launch a new "power exchange travel brand"; in December of the same year, Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology announced that they would each invest 300 million yuan to set up a joint venture; on January 1 this year, the joint venture company with the theme of "Awakening Free Force 2022" was launched; on January 24, the joint venture company was named "Ruilan Automobile".
It is understood that Ruilan Automobile will work together at the B-end and C-end. Among them, the B-end focuses on "low operating costs" and "the most energy-saving" for the field of online travel, and improves operational efficiency with new ecology and new technologies for power exchange; the C-end focuses on "free force" and "happiness" to solve the core pain points of new energy vehicle consumers with more efficient power exchange services. In addition, in the construction of the substation, the new brand will expand the substation "radiation" of the national key cities. According to the plan, by 2025, the joint venture between Geely and Lifan will deploy more than 5,000 intelligent substations.
In the past 2021, the new energy vehicle market has further developed, the total wholesale volume of new energy vehicles in the whole year reached 3.312 million units, an increase of 181.0% year-on-year, the total retail sales volume was 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in passenger car sales has exceeded 10%, and the overall ownership of new energy vehicles has exceeded 7 million units.
The continuous development of the new energy market and the shortage of charging piles are undoubtedly a positive factor for the promotion and development of the power exchange industry.
According to the information disclosed by the official, Ruilan Automobile will follow up based on the GBRC (Global Battery Rapid Change) power exchange platform, planning to cover cars, SUVs, MPVs, and even logistics vehicles, light trucks, to meet the needs of different markets such as online car-hailing, private cars, taxis, logistics vehicles, etc.; and will take Chongqing as the brand "base camp" to expand the replacement power station "radiation" in key cities across the country.
It is reported that the Ruilan automobile brand and related product information will be officially released in the first half of 2022.