According to a data from CCTV's "Chaowen Tianxia", the 7-day Spring Festival holiday in 2022 is expected to send 130 million passengers nationwide by railway, highway, waterway and civil aviation, an increase of 31.7% over the same period in 2021 and a decrease of 69.2% over the same period in 2019 (before the epidemic). Among them, the cumulative traffic volume of highways in the country is expected to reach 239.46 million vehicles, an increase of about 9% over the same period in 2021 and a decrease of about 13% over the same period in 2019.
During the eleventh period of 2021, Beijing News Shell Finance has made relevant reports on the problem of electric vehicle queuing and charging in the highway service area. After 4 months, another long holiday has arrived, and the situation of queuing up in the service area of the electric vehicle highway seems to have improved.
Why do electric car owners seem to have no original "complaints"? What tips have they accumulated in high-speed traffic? Shell financial reporters communicated with 15 car owners who returned home during the Spring Festival, and they shared their "Spring Festival electric vehicle travel stories".
In the process of communicating with the owners, the Shell financial reporter noted that the 15 car owners interviewed knew the high-speed queuing of electric vehicles during the National Day in 2021, and made a lot of preparations for this. Methods such as planning routes and charging in advance, staggering peak travel, and controlling the maximum speed, such as eight immortals crossing the sea, each shows its magic.
There have been "lessons from the past", and staggered peak travel may become the mainstream
"Our home is in Beijing, back to the hometown of Feng County, Xuzhou, Shandong, the whole journey is less than 700km, and my car is estimated to be able to run 400km at high speed in winter." In order to avoid the charging queue in the middle of the journey, my husband and I set off at 4:00 a.m. on the twenty-eighth day of the New Year, and the two people changed their doors and arrived at the plain service area at 7 o'clock to charge once. At that time, there were few people, 12 fast charging piles are expected to be enough, when charging, we can also squint in the car for a while, 2 hours to make up the electricity, the car is also warm, we save the point, the second half of the journey can be smoothly home. Ms. Liu, a owner of gac aviation AION S PLUS, introduced to reporters, "In fact, next time you may be able to leave later, we have not seen a lot of charged electric vehicles on the road after charging." ”
Of the 15 riders, half chose to travel at the wrong peak, and most of them chose to leave before the Chinese New Year's Eve, which was relatively early.
Due to the staggered peak travel, some riders have been charging and replenishing energy all the way. Courtesy of the rider
"Big festivals, we all know that it is not easy to walk, I choose to travel at the wrong peak." Mr. Li is a Guangzhou citizen who traveled to Guangxi in his car, Weima W6, during the Spring Festival. Mr. Li, who departed on January 25 and returned on February 3, only saw a queue once during the 2300km journey, when there were 4 cars waiting in line to charge, so he chose the next service area.
"Now it is very convenient to charge in Guangdong, even if the high-speed charging station is queued, we can get off the highway, basically we can find the charging location." Mr. Li told the Beijing News shell financial reporter.
In addition to staggering peak travel, planning route travel and charging locations in advance is also the focus of attention of riders. Some highways are very popular, but the charging piles along the way are relatively limited, and the family cannot stagger the peak travel because of various factors, and some electric vehicle owners choose to charge at high speed.
Mr. Hu, a car owner of Xiaopeng P7, told reporters that because his lover's job is more special, he must return to Beijing on the sixth day of the first year and arrive at the unit in the seventh day of the first year. He and his wife paid attention to the charging stations around the highway when they set off, and even personally got off the highway on the way back to investigate the relevant locations. "My family lives in Taiyuan, Shanxi, from Beijing to Taiyuan is about 480km, we are full of high speed and air conditioning, if there is a little traffic jam, then the car is likely to not meet the requirements, must be charged in the middle." We took a look, there are charging stations in the high-speed service area along the way, leave some electricity to drive past, even if the first station has a placehold, it is enough to find the second one. ”
Policy support has increased, and more charging and power exchange facilities have been put into use
The data of the Association predicts that the sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China are expected to exceed 6 million in 2022, and the penetration rate will reach about 22%. With the rapid growth of electric vehicles, the understanding and understanding of electric vehicles by relevant state departments and consumers has become clearer.
Support policies related to electric vehicles in the mainland have been continuously introduced. According to reports, in response to the peak charging of new energy vehicles on the Spring Festival Expressway reflected by the State Grid Electric Vehicle Service Company before the festival, all parts of the country were also deployed in advance during the Spring Festival holiday.
For example, the 28 newly built charging stations in Guangdong were all put into operation during the Spring Festival, and all of these charging stations were equipped with 160kW fast charging piles, and each station could charge 4 new energy vehicles at the same time; in the Shenhai Expressway From Kaiyang to Yangmao Road, according to the large traffic flow, the relevant departments also increased the charging pile configuration according to the share of 4 piles per station.
In addition, according to public data from the China Charging Alliance, in December 2021, member units within the alliance reported a total of 1.147 million public charging piles, an increase of 55,000 units from the previous month and an increase of 42.1% year-on-year. A large number of charging piles have also been continuously rolled out throughout the country, providing convenience for new energy vehicle users to replenish energy.
In addition to the continuous construction of charging stations, the replacement power station has also developed rapidly and brought great convenience to users. Among the 15 respondents, 5 users who were more comfortable returning to the Spring Festival because of the layout of the power station on the highway were also the owners of Weilai Automobile.
According to the data, WEILAI Automobile's 223 high-speed substations provided users with 37,700 times of service during the Spring Festival, such as the Shenhai Expressway Rugao Service Area, the Beijing-Tibet Expressway Baige Service Area, the Zhuyong Expressway Dongyang Service Area and other places. A Weilai ES8 owner told Shell Financial Reporter that through Weilai's power exchange service, he rushed all the way from Shijiazhuang to Sanya and is still changing electricity on Sanya Roundabout.
Some electric vehicles are charged in the service area. Courtesy of the rider
Another ES6 owner, Mr. Zheng, also gained a good travel experience through power exchange and charging. Mr. Zheng started the return journey from Longyan to Jiaxing on February 4, a total of 1,050km. He started his journey at 8:30 a.m., and after driving 350km he chose to charge in the Guihu Lake service area of fuzhou north toll station. The charging time is about 40 minutes, and the recharge is 60.5kWH.
After lunch in the Guihu service area, he and his family continued to set off, and after about 2 hours and 40 minutes, he arrived at the Cangnan service area replacement station and completed the battery replacement. "The contrast between the highway power exchange is really too strong, and changing the power to see other brands of cars is still charging, it is inevitable to have some happiness." Mr. Zheng told the Beijing News shell financial reporter.
After that, Mr. Zheng replaced the battery in the Qingjiang service area, and after a full 14 hours, he arrived at the Jiaxing community at 10:38 p.m. In the future, with the continuous increase of battery capacity and the rollout of substations and charging stations, it is entirely possible for car owners to enjoy the experience of long-distance travel on holidays in the future.
However, some car owners said that when he returned to Shanghai from Lishui, Zhejiang Province, he passed through the Dongyang service area, and the waiting time for queuing for power exchange also reached 40 minutes, and there was still some pressure on the power station in some sections and peak periods.
Congestion is reduced or due to reduced traffic flow, how to solve the difficulty of queuing still requires multi-party collaboration
Although the riders interviewed by Shell Financial Reporter mostly avoided congestion and charging queues, there are still some users who have encountered the dilemma of queuing.
A Tesla Model 3 owner, Mr. Li, told Shell Financial Reporter that he experienced a "bad journey" on the Wushen Expressway from Changsha to Shenzhen. On the Wushen Expressway, he successively passed through the Chaling Service Area and the Yanling Service Area, but the charging situation in the two service areas was not optimistic, in order not to queue up for charging, he had to get off the highway and look for charging stations in the surrounding counties and cities. This trip made Mr. Li's pressure on the holiday travel a few points greater: "If you travel, it is best to miss the peak, there is really no way to wrong peak, just plan the charging route, be prepared, next time must not be so toss yourself." ”
Although there are still some users who are plagued by queues due to high-speed replenishment, the experience of electric vehicle users during the Spring Festival seems to be better than that during the eleventh period. In this regard, automotive analyst Zhang Xiang told Shell Financial Reporter that after the problem of charging difficulties on National Day was widely reported, the user's travel considerations were more comprehensive, and the government and operators were also optimized.
Zhang Xiang said that according to the ministry of public security's previous data forecast, the average daily traffic of the expressway during the eleventh period of 2021 will reach 48 million vehicles, with a total of about 336 million vehicles on the 7th. The traffic volume during the Spring Festival in 2022 is about 240 million vehicles. This makes the load of the charging station less than during the National Day.
Zhang Hong, secretary general of the New Energy Vehicle Branch of the China Automobile Circulation Association, told Shell Financial Reporter that new energy vehicles will increase by 200% year-on-year in 2021, and the annual ownership growth will reach 3 times year-on-year, but charging equipment has not achieved synchronous growth. Therefore, whether it is because of the large traffic flow during the holidays, or the cold climate in the north, new energy vehicles are powered, there are still problems such as few charging facilities, slow charging, and non-universal facilities and payment methods. It can be said that the growth of new energy vehicle charging facilities has not kept pace with the growth of new energy vehicle sales. The chip shortage will be further alleviated this year, sales still have room to rise, and the imbalance between supply and demand of charging facilities may be more serious.
Zhang Hong said that if you want to solve the charging difficulty, the core is to accelerate the construction of charging facilities for new energy vehicles. Zhang Hong introduced that this link has been promoted by the State Council to the height of new infrastructure in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and firmly believes that the central government will have specific implementation arrangements worth looking forward to, whether in terms of policy inclination or increased investment.
Zhang Hong believes that local governments have great potential in the construction of charging facilities, such as increasing the subsidy policy for the construction of charging piles, promoting charging facilities manufacturers or car companies to accelerate the popularization of charging facilities; for car companies that have built their own brand charging or power exchange facilities around the highway, they can comprehensively consider, open the door, and accept other brands of vehicle charging to alleviate the pressure of insufficient charging facilities.
For the high-speed energy replenishment scenario, Zhang Hong mentioned that relevant enterprises can take the initiative to lay out high-power fast charging to reduce the waiting time for users to replenish energy; on the other hand, strengthening the construction of service areas can improve the experience of users waiting for energy replenishment while generating income. In addition, more reward and punishment measures can be added to the problems of oil truck occupancy, charging pile damage and not updating and repairing in time, so as to promote relevant enterprises to improve service quality.
In addition, Zhang Hong suggested that multi-party cooperation should adopt an intelligent solution and strive to make the payment means, that is, the APP, generalized, so that all vehicles can find charging piles and complete charging without difference, so as to avoid the situation that car owners are piling up in the high-speed service area because they do not understand the surrounding situation.
Beijing News Baker financial reporter Bai Haotian Editor Xu Chao Proofreader Guo Li