Recently, the domestic brand giant Geely Automobile and Lifan, which has withdrawn from the automotive circle, have begun to "do things", and they have set up a new power exchange travel brand - Ruilan Automobile, which will launch 5,000+ ultra-fast power stations in 2025, and achieve 100+ city coverage, serving more than 1 million + users.
In fact, Geely's wave of operations did not shock me too much, at present, in addition to the high popularity of the car brand, SAIC, Changan, Dongfeng and other mainstream manufacturers have also arranged substations, and even the battery factory Ningde era has launched its own power replacement brand.
The power exchange mode of Ruilan Automobile can achieve 2700mm-3200mm full wheelbase coverage, and the fastest can achieve 1 minute to complete the power exchange, if measured according to this standard, it is even more convenient than the current fuel vehicle.
According to relevant information, since 2020, the newly registered power exchange enterprises have reached 3,000+, but there are not many that really fall into the field, most of them are speculating on the concept, as of October 2021, there are about 1,000 substations that have been completed and operated, of which the number of Aodong swap stations accounts for 56.08%, Weilai accounts for 34.07%, and Hangzhou Botan accounts for 9.85%.
From the current coverage rate of the substation, the power exchange is really only a thunderous rain point, but this may have a significant qualitative change in the next 5 years, after all, the power exchange is the "new outlet" of the country and the car company.
The new energy vehicle power exchange model is not an emerging business model, as early as 2011, the state has planned for this, until 2020, the power exchange ushered in the policy "support".
On April 23, 2020, the Ministry of Finance and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued a new subsidy policy, clearly pointing out that new energy vehicles with a starting price of more than 300,000 yuan will no longer enjoy subsidies, but the vehicles that support the power exchange mode are exceptions, so as to encourage the development of a new business model of "power exchange".
In May 2020, as an important part of the new infrastructure, the substation was written into the "Government Work Report" for the first time, and the power exchange model also ushered in a new situation of development. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has clearly supported the development of the power exchange model.
On July 23, 2020, the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" has been reported, and the relevant departments have vigorously promoted the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure, further improved relevant technical standards and management policies, encouraged enterprises to develop power exchange mode models according to the use scenarios, and will be piloted and promoted in Beijing, Hainan and other places.
On September 9, 2020, 20 units, including The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China FAW Group Co., Ltd., Ningde Times, and Huading Guolian, signed the Joint Statement on Building a "Vehicle-Electricity Separation" Model Ecosystem for New Energy Vehicles, marking the formal establishment of the Vehicle-Electricity Separation Ecosystem.
On October 28, 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice and decided to start the pilot work of the application of the new energy vehicle power exchange mode, and a total of 11 cities were included in the scope of the pilot. The circular clearly requires that "strengthen policy implementation, model exploration, innovation support, and accelerate the formation of replicable and generalizable experiences."
The introduction of these policies can also be seen that the state attaches great importance to power exchange, for the country, power exchange can actually better integrate and utilize resources, so that land utilization, power grid management, battery resource management and other aspects have better social benefits.
Especially for the power grids of large first-tier cities in the new energy vehicle market, it can increase the sales of electricity and reduce the risk of uneven load on the grid. For example, charging the battery in the electricity valley section at night will not waste surplus power resources and be cheap, and if it encounters a sudden urban power deficit, these electric energy can also feed the city power supply (emergency use).
Moreover, the land area occupied by the substation is much smaller than that of the parking lot used for charging, and only 3 to 5 parking spaces are enough.
For car companies, I personally did not find too many benefits, although on the surface it also strengthened the management of battery quality and old battery recycling, but the site rent behind the replacement power station, operating costs and heavy assets of battery and other equipment are a lot of burden for car companies.
Taking Weilai as an example, a substation with a battery at least 5 million yuan, if according to weilai to establish 4,000 substations (including 1,000 foreign) plan, it is necessary to continue to invest 20 billion yuan, plus the average operating cost of each substation needs 400,000 yuan / month, which is simply naked money burning.
According to relevant data analysis, in 2025, China will have more than 20,000 substations, but the amount of investment in previous years is significantly greater than the operating market space, that is, the previous years are loss-making, but after the scale and system, the situation may improve.
So seeing this, you should no longer feel that there is a problem with car companies doing this, right? Especially for car companies with early layout, as long as they provide good services, they can enjoy the privilege of eating crabs first, and they can also leave a good impression on consumers; on the other hand, as long as they do it, there is an "excuse" for increasing investment in the capital market.
In many ways, users are the beneficiaries of the entire power exchange system, because the price of the power exchange model will be lower, and the manufacturer will come up with good benefits in order to promote the power exchange model, such as paying the battery monthly rent in January can have several free power exchanges, converted into kilometers at least a month can also run 2000 kilometers.
Not only that, the time to change the power is short, even if the queue can not wait for a long time, compared to charging at least 20 minutes, it can be said that it is both time-saving and trouble-saving.
However, in the current situation, power exchange is only a service that a very small number of conditional consumers can enjoy.
The first is the problem of few power stations, the distance of service is more limited, if I spend 40 minutes back and forth to change the power, I would rather choose a charging pile within 3 kilometers of my home to charge.
Taking the power exchange pioneer Weilai as an example, Weilai calls the residences within 3 kilometers of the substation "electric district house", with statistical information, as of now, only 29% of Weilai users live in the "electric district room".
Secondly, the current substation can only serve a single brand of models, for example, Weilai's substation can change the power for all its models, and provide battery packs with different capacities, and even some substations can only serve a single model, such as BAIC's substation can only change the EU series, the capacity of the battery pack is the same, and the service restrictions are too large.
Finally, the battery as the core components of pure electric models, frequent power replacement will lead to battery parts wear and loose, once the contact will lead to power interruption and short circuit, serious words will also cause spontaneous combustion or explosion, so whether the safety performance can withstand the test, how to divide the responsibility after the accident, etc., will also bind the promotion of the power exchange mode.
So I can also come to a conclusion that the power exchange mode can only become the "spare tire" of the charging mode in the next 5 years, and even in the next decade it is eligible to break with the charge.
Only under the premise that the number of charging stations is sufficient, there are many power replacement users, the battery charging interface is interconnected, the battery module modeling specifications are unified, and the battery quality is highly safe, can it become the mainstream of the market.
Write at the end
In fact, I am also looking forward to the replacement of electricity energy to become a new energy vehicle owner flow of power supply mode, after all, this can have the same experience as fuel vehicles, but this road is too bad for car companies.
Although "Ning Wang" intends to unify the standards of electric vehicle battery packs, the characteristics of battery capacity, design, safety and so on are still the competitiveness of major brands at present, and it is impossible to be bound by you alone, and the competitiveness becomes uncompetitive.
Even if the battery pack of the domestic brand is unified, Musk will not necessarily follow the customs, so the road of changing the battery is still a long way to go.