| Toretto
The era of intelligent electric vehicles is coming, and more and more new business models are gradually unveiled, and the hotly discussed Battery as a service (Battery and Service, referred to as BaaS) is one of them.
Trillion Ning Wang used a piece of "chocolate" to stir up the new energy vehicle market.
Recently, Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, released the power exchange service brand EVOGO and the overall solution of combined power exchange, and launched a "chocolate power exchange block" with a single battery life of about 200 kilometers. According to the official statement, it can be adapted to the pure electric platform development models that are 80% of the world's 80% already on the market and will be launched in the next three years.
A quick change station for era electric suits
Previously, Li Bin, chairman and CEO of Weilai, had calculated the size of the battery asset management market in this way, assuming that China has 200 million electric vehicles with exchangeable electricity, and each vehicle pays an average of 10,000 yuan per year for battery rental fees, which is an industry with an annual revenue of 2 trillion yuan.
This is a market with enough imagination space, Weilai, BAIC New Energy, Geely and other car companies have long been laid out, and start-ups such as Aodong New Energy are also emerging, and the ningde era official announcement has entered the bureau, adding a fire to the power exchange market.
A new outlet for battery service
Changing power is not a new thing. More than a decade ago, Israel's Better Place company began to explore the power exchange mode of pure electric vehicles, and the partner at that time was Renault. However, due to the limitations of user size and high cost, the start-up company that tried to change electricity declared bankruptcy in 2013. Carlos Ghosn, then CEO of Renault, said directly: "The change of electricity is dead."
In China, BAIC BJEV is one of the first car companies to study the power exchange technology, and began to formally establish a project for development in 2012, and its first power exchange model actually uses part of the technology of Better Place. However, the electricity exchange market is generally relatively quiet.
Until the emergence of Weilai, once again let the market pay attention to the business of changing electricity.
"In the electric vehicle industry, battery asset management is the biggest business." Therefore, the battery service model (Battery as a service) based on power exchange technology is the bureau that Li Bin began to deploy at the beginning of the establishment of Weilai.
"We're an automotive company first, and then we're a technology company, a technology company, and we're also an energy-related company, and we're a lifestyle company." After the ep9 conference of Niolai's supercar model in November 2016, Li Bin defined NIO in this way.
One position that many overlooked at the time was "energy-related companies." However, in late 2016, Zheng Xiancong, then executive vice president of WEI, told HD Auto, "We will set up an energy management company." ”
In his view, the energy density and mileage of the power battery can be upgraded to a higher level every three years, and Weilai must ensure that the vehicle purchased by the user will not depreciate rapidly.
The power exchange technology, network and service are the basis of Weilai BaaS, and the test of the BaaS model can actually be traced back to the battery life upgrade in 2019.
At the opening ceremony of the third NIO center in Shanghai in April 2019, Li Bin, chairman and CEO of NIO, announced the plan to upgrade from battery 70kWh to 84kWh.
At that time, Li Bin told HD Auto that they did not call this upgrade a "battery upgrade", but used the term "endurance upgrade", which is because "the former is an asset disposal, a one-time transaction, while the latter is a service that opens up Weilai's service system and tries to form a closed-loop business model."
On August 20, 2020, NIO officially released the battery rental service BaaS, the plan at that time was: users who choose this mode to buy NIO cars do not need to buy battery packs, and the price of the motor vehicle sales invoice does not include the price of the battery packs, and the price of the vehicle can be reduced by 70,000 yuan. The battery of such vehicles is leased on a monthly basis, and the monthly service fee of the 70kWh battery pack is 980 yuan, and the non-service worry-free user must pay another 80 yuan per month battery protection fee.
That is to say, BaaS users only have the right to use the battery, there is no ownership, Weilai has no property rights, and the ownership of the battery belongs to a third-party company - Wuhan Weineng Battery Asset Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Wuhan Weineng").
The battery asset management company was incorporated on August 18, 2020, and its shareholders include Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Hubei Science and Technology Investment Group Co., Ltd., Guotai Junan International Holdings Co., Ltd. and Weilai (Anhui) Holding Co., Ltd., each with a capital of RMB 200 million, each holding 25% of the shares.
In the BaaS service provided by WEILAI, Wuhan Weineng is responsible for purchasing battery packs, and then entrusts Weilai to provide users with battery rental operation services.
On the same day as the release of BaaS, Nezha Automobile announced that it would cooperate with a number of battery factories such as CATL and Huading Guolian to launch a vehicle-to-electricity separation model, tentatively named "Battery Bank". Xiaopeng Automobile also officially launched a battery rental plan on September 11 of that year.
The wind of battery service began to blow. One of the shareholders of Wuhan Weineng is the Ningde era, which has now launched the "chocolate exchange block" and entered the power exchange industry.
Vehicle-to-electricity separation first
The technical base of BaaS is power exchange, and the core of its business model lies in the separation of vehicle and electricity. When releasing the combined power exchange solution, The Times Electric Service also placed special emphasis on "in the vehicle-to-electricity separation mode".
Weilai and Xiaopeng Automobile have officially launched a battery rental plan, but there are still differences in careful analysis of the separation of vehicles and electricity between these companies.
The scheme proposed by Xiaopeng Automobile and Nezha Automobile is similar, that is, when buying a car, consumers buy two products, the body and the battery, can be paid in installments, the battery lease has no down payment, and the installment time is longer, after the lease expires, the battery is still owned by the consumer.
Taking Xiaopeng Automobile's battery rental plan as an example, the user car price of this scheme is immediately reduced by 60,000 yuan to 75,000 yuan, with a minimum 30% down payment on the body, a term of 6 periods, and an annual interest rate of 4.5%, while the cost of battery rental is 780 or 980 per month, and the time limit is 84 periods.
The two new car manufacturers did not choose to change the power, that is, they did not realize the separation of the body and the battery products, nor did the special battery asset company hold the battery assets, and the ownership was not separated.
Perhaps for this reason, Xiaopeng Motors did not use the term separation of vehicle and electricity, after all, their battery leasing is essentially a financial solution, rather than a service and business model innovation.
Before the launch of BaaS in August 2020, NIO also adopted a financial solution to provide battery rental services for customers.
In the 2018 BATTERY rental plan of Weilai, the car price was reduced by 100,000 yuan, the user paid 1280 yuan per month, and after 8 consecutive months of payment, the battery belonged to the user. "Because it was to use Weilai's own funds to do this thing, and then the funds occupied were a little too much, and they couldn't move, starting from last year, it was adjusted to 1660 yuan per month, paying 60 months." Li Bin admitted at the BaaS conference at the time.
With the emergence of the new BaaS service and battery asset management company, The financial solution of Weilai has been cancelled, in the new model, the ownership of the battery will always be Wuhan Weineng, and the owner of the car will have to pay the rent of the battery all the time if he wants to use the car.
Even after a used car transaction, the next owner must take over the rental service and cannot acquire battery ownership. Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Weilai, made such an analogy, just like buying a second-hand house, after moving in, the water and electricity bills must also be renewed.
In this model, Weilai is not only the seller of the body, but also the middleman of the battery rental business, each sale of a car, you have to issue two invoices, one is issued to the user's motor vehicle sales unified invoice, the other is issued to Wuhan Weineng power battery invoice.
The so-called true or false of battery separation is based on whether the separation of body and battery in product and property rights can be achieved, rather than a simple financial solution. Li Yixiu, president of Aodong New Energy, pointed out that battery assets can be shared and used, so that the battery can be changed from property rights to the transaction of use right, so as to maximize the management and value of the battery throughout the life cycle.
Looking back, the premise of the real car electrical separation is that the vehicle itself supports the power exchange mode. Coincidentally, starting in 2020, the power exchange began to receive support from the government level.
On July 8, the First Department of Equipment of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a symposium on the promotion and application of new energy vehicle power exchange models, and BAIC, Weilai, Geely, GAC, Dongfeng, Changan, Ningde Times, Hangzhou Botan, Aodong New Energy and other car companies, battery manufacturers and power exchange operators all participated.
It was only recently when the policy allowed private sales of vehicles with products and property rights separated from electricity that NIO officially announced baaS services.
But it is not easy to really achieve this, BAIC BJEV in the early days is to start from to B, that is, pure electric car or taxi to replace the power, even in the Ningde era, EVOGO's first partner FAW Besturn NAT combination power version of the model is mainly for the online car market rather than private cars.
Are private consumers really willing to pay for the "separation of vehicles and electricity"?
Who pays for the replacement?
"I would choose the BaaS service." A young owner who was interested in buying NIO told HD Auto that BaaS had a lower down payment, and he used his monthly rental fee as a fuel bill, and did not consider how many years later he would pay more than the traditional car purchase model.
Taking the car purchase price reduction of 70,000 yuan and the monthly payment of 1060 yuan as an example, regardless of inflation, 66 months almost reached the equilibrium point, that is, after 5 and a half years, baaS car purchase cost is higher than the traditional car purchase method.
Of course, as a long-term development strategy, power replacement is not optimistic about all participants.
Tesla actually studied the power exchange mode in the early years, and now the relevant videos released by the official can be searched on the Internet. But it has already turned its course. "Power exchange technology is not the best, Tesla starts from the first principle of technology." Liu Yang, principal of tesla training institute, told HD Auto that they believe that the essence of battery technology is that batteries can be used for a long time and fast charging speeds to meet customer needs.
Zhu Jun, deputy director of the SAIC Group Technology Center, once said that if the battery system can reduce the initial purchase cost through financial leasing, which is cheaper than fuel vehicles and the cost of the whole life cycle is lower, then electric vehicles and fuel vehicles may be more competitive than each other. But he doesn't think it's necessary to change the battery, "what is being done now is for a certain model, and this can't be the climate."
Therefore, from the perspective of reducing the initial cost of car purchase, the separation model of car and electricity in the financial service type like Xiaopeng Automobile may be more able to meet the needs of users: the down payment is lower, and the battery fee is paid in interest-free installments for 7 years. However, choosing this model, consumers can not enjoy discounts, and the overall cost of car purchase may not be much different.
Although charging and power exchange complement each other, the status of power exchange in the entire system is geometric, and even in the longer term future, the two sides have formed an alternative relationship, and it is not known whether one party completely eliminates the other.
On the other hand, the need for private power exchanges has always existed.
In November last year, Li Yixiu, president of Aodong New Energy, compared "power replacement" to "charging treasure" and "Meituan takeaway", the two major market scenarios have similarities with power exchange, charging in the room has almost no cost, but many people will still use a few dollars a charging treasure in restaurants and other places, and some people's "core needs are eager for convenience, can quickly solve a certain need of users, and business becomes very valuable." ”
Whether it is Li Yixiu's point of view or Li Bin has always emphasized, power exchange and charging are not alternative relationships, the two are complementary relationships, and better form a huge and perfect automotive energy service system.
At the same time, the market should pay more attention to the fact that with the power exchange as the entry point, the participants in the intelligent electric vehicle industry are actually educating users and accepting the concept of "service", not just a hammer to buy a car. Previously, Weilai's BaaS reduced the initial cost of car purchase and lowered the threshold, which is a positive for consumers, but more importantly, the separation of vehicle and electricity in both products and property rights cultivates the habit of users to continue to purchase services.
However, in the short term, even if consumers are willing to pay for the power exchange service, the provider of the power exchange service such as car companies will also bear a lot of financial costs.
As Li Bin said, by the car company alone battery asset management, the financial cost is too high, will "not move", looking for a partner is a must, now Ningde era wholly owned the era of electric services, a company can have enough financial resources to support such an asset-heavy business model.
Maybe finding more partners is a better option.
As a supplier involved in the industrial chain, car companies are still quite jealous of the Ningde era. In the eyes of many car companies, Huawei wants the "soul", the skateboard chassis wants the "body", and the Ningde era now wants their "heart".
It's not easy for this battery faucet to find more close partners. Relevant people in the Ningde era also said bluntly to HD Auto that they are also talking with more car companies, but for the OEMs, "if they are willing to invest financial resources and support this matter strategically, they will sooner or later make their own replacement power stations." ”
After all, this is not just a story of power replacement, the sales and service of decommissioned batteries, energy storage combined with the power grid, the value mining of big data, etc., the whole life cycle of battery services has a lot to do.
It will be a whole new battlefield, and the battle has only just begun.
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