Written by / Long Shihui
Edited / Kilig
Design / Zoi.
When you read this article, you may have already driven a pure electric car home for the New Year.
From the news reported by the media, it can be found that in the more than ten days since the spring festival curtain opened to the present, the charging station in the high-speed service area has not appeared in the "grand situation" of "charging for 1 hour and queuing for 4 hours" in the eleventh year last year. And the peak of travel before the Spring Festival in the next year, there is a high probability that there will be no such embarrassment, because big data tells us that the travel army before the Spring Festival is always scattered, and the pressure of the high-speed charging station is greater than usual, but it will not wait in line for a long time, especially if the wrong peak goes out early or drives a little later, the anxiety of replenishment is not too obvious.
But if you hold the mentality of pure electric vehicle Spring Festival self-driving tour "one horse Pingchuan" to enjoy the holiday, then it is too good to think.
By the end of 2021, China's new energy vehicle ownership is 7.84 million, but the charging infrastructure is only 2.617 million, and the vehicle-to-pile ratio has reached 3.2:1, which is several points higher than the 2020 data (2.9:1). The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2021 is close to 15% (this year is expected to be 22%), but there are only 1.147 million public charging piles, and they are still bad and remote, and the actual value of the hit is even lower.
Such data, I believe who sees it will also take a breath of cold air. Escape the charge on the way home without guilt, as long as you go out to catch a popular tourist attraction during the holiday, the return trip encounters a peak period, and experiences a long wait in front of the charging pile, which is also a disaster.
Please ask the "electric daddy", when can we achieve "endurance freedom"?
Once it comes to the long holiday festival, the tragic transformation of electric vehicles into electric "daddies" is no longer news. Especially in the autumn and winter of the Eleventh Golden Week and the Lunar New Year, coupled with the unstable factor of low temperature, it is a very risky thing to drive an electric car in the middle and long distance.
A friend of mine, whenever he talks about the "history of blood and tears" of his pure electric SUV outing last Spring Festival, always wants to cry without tears. From Guangzhou to Shaoguan Xinfeng is only 220km away, a 400km SUV in full power, took 190km high speed to reach the destination, the table shows that the endurance is only 50km. So, he opened the "Pandora's Box" of endurance anxiety, every day in the New Feng self-driving tour, first go to the charging station to report, each charging station only has 2-3 fast charging ports, there are always 3-4 cars in front of the queue, "even if 20 minutes full of 80%, even the waiting time has to be more than 1 hour, my state in those days is 1 hour earlier than the family, recharge and then pick up people to leave." At that time, almost all the riders in line had the same experience as me, waiting for the charging gap, and the scene was easily held as a spit conference. ”
At present, when it comes to pure electric endurance performance, there are almost two poles of performance. On the product side, NEDC service life of more than 700km EV models abound, 1000km endurance models have also been launched on the market, from the perspective of the industry, pure electric vehicle "endurance anxiety" has been a problem that can be cured. But for car owners or potential buyers, the primary concern about buying EVs is still focused on battery life and refueling. Previously, the winter new energy vehicle user survey released by J.D.POWER also explains this problem, nearly half of the owners have never driven the official NEDC mileage, and under low temperature conditions, they can accept up to 10% of the endurance attenuation. Obviously, the "endurance freedom" provided by EV models on the market is far from enough, and as long as the proportion of "more monks and less porridge" of the car pile is not solved, the contradiction will be aggravated with the higher the penetration rate of EV models.
Therefore, at present, it is not convincing to talk about the endurance of EV models, rather than discussing the car scenes such as energy consumption per kilometer, endurance attenuation and energy replenishment; it is true that this grand problem cannot be solved by car companies alone, especially the infrastructure construction of the energy supply link, involving the participation of power companies, charging pile manufacturers and operators, and local governments.
Now the charging pile operation is a heavy asset industry, the hardware cost of the early investment in construction is high, the usual operation of land rent, personnel wages, market activities, the cost of playing the price war is not small, 5 years of charging pile lease period, the average use of 3-4 years to recover the cost, the remaining 1 year is the profit period, the short return cycle is enough to make the operator happy.
In fact, from the electric vehicle national subsidy gradually retreated in 2018, the relevant departments proposed the annual slope of the national subsidy cost, subsidies to the charging infrastructure, but in fact, the effect is not great, and even the contradiction in the proportion of vehicle piles is further aggravated, it is understood that in 2019, the utilization rate of charging pile areas is only 10%, the utilization rate of Beijing, Shanghai and other restricted cities is only 2%-3%, and in the third quarter of 2021, the overall utilization rate of the charging and replenishment industry is only about 3%-5%, and the vehicle pile contradiction, Is it only to blame the EV models that sell too well?
A game of different routes
If you take a longer-term view, the development of ultra-long endurance technology and accelerated charging pile layout may only be two ways to solve the "battery life anxiety", smart car companies, in the era of new energy vehicles to transform into travel service providers, have begun to solve the problem.
"Ultra-long battery, layout of power stations, the development of supercharged piles, more and more car companies to accelerate the layout, now do not know which is the most correct choice in the future, so many car companies are rain and dew, the average pressure treasure." An industry insider mentioned.
In contrast, the concept of 1000km "ultra-long endurance" is more of a psychological implication. From a practical point of view, as long as the general 500km endurance of fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles are enough to meet most scenarios, and medium- and long-distance vehicles, 1000km do make the "endurance freedom" of EV models more refreshing, but as long as the charging pile mentioned above is tight and the endurance attenuation problem exists, it is still not cured. From the perspective of the market environment, the vast majority of people travel only 50km per day, and car companies are more keen to use PHEV technology to achieve the goal of 1000km, balancing price and practicality, so that the endurance worries that do not exist in the plug-and-mixed book are even more lofty.
So the layout of the power station, the development of super charging piles, these two difficult business, but also show a car company's long-distance running ability, to an 800V DC fast charging pile as an example, can be charged for 5-10 minutes, the endurance increased by 200km, basically to solve the vast majority of EV once to replenish the needs, single can also "eat" a whole residential building of power distribution, so this is not a single car company can coordinate things, especially in the modern infrastructure backward big city old town, to rely on the resources of the power sector and the support of the local government, It shows that car companies take the initiative in the industrial chain.
At present, the best development of the super charging pile business is Tesla, by the end of 2021, Tesla has built more than 7600 super charging piles in China, with more than 1,000 sites, significantly ahead of other new power brands. However, these charging piles only support Tesla models to charge, the reason is of course the consideration of the technical moat of the car company, but there are also great limitations, especially "Wei Xiaoli", BYD, Great Wall, Geely and other active preparations for 800V high-voltage technology new cars, the trend of supercharge pile construction is also more obvious this year. However, from the perspective of efficient use of resources, the different hardware of each family undoubtedly makes such a good form of energy "painting the ground as a prison".
On the other side of the power exchange track is more emerging, the layout of the deepest and widest Weilai car, now the national replacement power station is only 777 seats, and according to the feedback of Weilai owners, the power exchange experience is not fast and rapid, Weilai car owners increase and the reserve battery is insufficient, queuing to change the power and the general fast charge is almost the same. Moreover, under the general trend of increasing battery density and increasing EV mileage, the necessity of power replacement has also been questioned. Of course, we can see the state's support for this technology from the policy of replacing the power model and not retreating, but it is not easy to open this technical track with a Weilai plus a BAIC. The good news is also that last year, Xiaopeng, Nezha and other new forces launched the vehicle-electricity separation model, Ningde times also launched the EVOGO power exchange brand, it is understood that the overall solution for power exchange is adapted to 80% of the models, but the power exchange mode also has the shortcomings of heavy asset investment, passenger cars often pull out the battery also has certain safety risks, whether the future power exchange has become a trend, can not rush to conclusions.
Write at the end
The 1:1 target of the continental vehicle-to-pile ratio will be achieved in 2030, and the total investment in the charging pile market in the next ten years will climb to the trillion level, and it is probably at that time that people's anxiety about EV replenishment will be cured.
In other words, there is no current solution for the power-up mode of EV models that is satisfactory to everyone. As an EV owner, you also have to learn to "give and get" during the holidays, plan the energy replenishment route in advance, and charge the electricity when the battery margin is still relatively abundant, so as not to let yourself fall into passivity. Admittedly, if you still have a gas truck, you can drive directly to the road trip and you will be finished, and the above problems can also be ignored.
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