The dispute over the way to replenish energy: "Spring is coming" to change electricity?

NIO swapped power station. Beijing News shell financial reporter Wang Linlin photo

The heat of the electricity exchange market has risen again.

"I've been doing power swaps for 20 years, and spring is coming." Zhang Jianping, co-chairman of Aodong New Energy, said so at the end of 2020. As he said, the spring of the power exchange market is coming.

At the beginning of 2022, CATL announced its entry into the power exchange market, and its wholly-owned subsidiary Times Electric Service released EVOGO, a power exchange service brand, and simultaneously released the overall solution of combined power exchange. A few days later, the National Development and Reform Commission and other seven departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Promoting Green Consumption" to clearly strengthen the construction of supporting infrastructure such as charging and replacing electricity, and promote the pilot work of applying the new energy vehicle replacement mode; the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other ten departments jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", proposing to promote the power exchange model in mining farms, ports, urban transfer and other scenarios according to local conditions.

Minsheng Securities said that with the entry of battery giants, the power exchange model is expected to usher in new opportunities; Everbright Securities Research Report believes that the layout of the power exchange market in the Ningde era will accelerate the promotion of battery standardization work, or will drive the development of the entire power exchange industry. Charging and replacing who is the future of new energy vehicles has also become the focus of discussion in the industry.

Power exchange mode is not a new technology in the field of pure electric vehicles, in the absence of market scale, power exchange mode can hardly achieve profitability, want to expand the scale must achieve the unity of battery standards, and unified standards are not easy; whether the power exchange mode is feasible or not has also become the focus of attention in the industry.

Fast charging for half an hour is still too long, charging and replacing who is the future?

With the continuous improvement of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China, the problem that the user's energy replenishment needs have not been fully met has become increasingly prominent.

According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, domestic new energy vehicles will sell 3.521 million units in 2021, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share will reach 13.4%. At the same time, there are also hidden worries under the prosperity, according to the data of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, the number of charging infrastructure in the country will reach 2.617 million units by the end of 2021; in addition, the charging pile market has problems such as uneven distribution of charging piles, incompatible charging interfaces, and "zombie piles" due to inadequate management and maintenance.

Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, said that mileage anxiety, energy replenishment anxiety and purchase costs are pain points that plague consumers of new energy vehicles. The sampling survey of true lithium research shows that the long charging time has indeed become a problem of increasing concern to consumers, and the overall energy anxiety has shown an upward trend; although the fast charging technology of 80% of the half-hour full has been applied in a large number of applications, but compared with the traditional car refueling, the half-hour is still too long.

Mo Ke, founder of True Lithium Research, said that due to problems such as charging time, faster charging solutions have emerged, and the power exchange mode has begun to receive more and more attention. Wang Zidong, director of the former National 863 Electric Vehicle Major Special Power Battery Test Center, said that the root of the energy replenishment anxiety is the inconvenience of the energy replenishment, and the current development of pure electric vehicles does not match the development of the supplementary energy, and the energy replenishment methods are diversified, not only the charging pile.

Judging from the two main ways of new energy vehicle energy replenishment at present, namely charging mode and power exchange mode, the current charging mode is still the mainstream energy supplementation mode, and the power exchange mode is relatively non-mainstream.

ACCORDING TO THE ANALYSIS OF CITIC SECURITIES, from the perspective of the battery end, the charging applicability is wider, and the power exchange ecology is more vertical; from the perspective of the vehicle end, the power exchange mode has the advantages of the cost advantage of the energy replacement experience and the operation of the car field, and the ownership of the battery in the charging mode belongs to the owner himself; in addition, the power exchange standard has not been unified, and the charging is relatively liberalized.

In addition, from the perspective of investment efficiency, CITIC Securities said that assuming that the investment amount of the charging mode corresponding to the bicycle replenishment facility is only about 9,000 yuan, and the average investment in the corresponding bicycle is about 25,000 yuan, the investment efficiency and downstream applicability of the charging mode are higher than the power exchange mode, which is more widely promoted at this stage.

Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automobile Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, believes that the power exchange mode is only a supplement to the charging mode, and the power exchange mode damages the basic interests of car companies to a certain extent. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, believes that there is always a property rights problem in the power exchange mode, if it is to be popularized, price-sensitive users will not choose, charging in this group is still the main mode; high-end users and users in special scenes will choose the power exchange mode.

CITIC Securities expects that in the next 5 years, the domestic new energy vehicle energy supplement market will still maintain a pattern of charging as the mainstay and power replacement as a supplement; but from the perspective of equipment investment demand, it is expected that the power exchange mode will have 5 years and 10 times + growth space, which is significantly faster than charging; in the short term, considering that the policy shift is not long and the specific details have not been introduced, the business model and operation mode of power exchange have not been completely straightened out and are still in the exploration period.

Blowing the policy east wind, enterprises are scrambling to enter the game

Power exchange is not a new technology for pure electric vehicles to replenish energy.

In 2007, Better Place Electric Vehicle Replacement Company was officially established, and a year later, the first replacement plant landed and signed a cooperation agreement with Renault to provide 100,000 Fluence ZE electric vehicles. According to the vision depicted by Better Place, the battery can be replaced in 1-2 minutes in the Battery House of Better Place; but it eventually fell into an operational crisis due to insufficient profitability and other factors, and it collapsed in 2013. Ghosn, CEO of Renault At the time, publicly stated that the power exchange model was a dead end.

In 2013, Tesla, the originator of the new car-making force, once showed its 90-second quick change technology, once again making the phone change topic the focus of hot discussion in the automotive circle, but in the end, Tesla CEO Musk believed that the power exchange compatibility was low and the operation efficiency was low, so he also withdrew from the power exchange market. From the perspective of the domestic market, the failure of the international forerunners in the power exchange market has not stopped the layout of domestic enterprises, the first to bear the brunt of the State Grid and Aodong New Energy.

In 2000, Aodong New Energy began to lay out, and in 2005, the first charging and replacing experimental station was set up in Lanzhou; however, over the years, Aodong New Energy has been more serving the public car field, and the private market has not been opened. In 2011, at the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" National Major Scientific and Technological Achievements Exhibition, the State Grid Power Exchange Project made its debut and showed the whole process of replacing the power for Zotye Automobile and Haima Automobile pure electric vehicle models, but the power exchange project was suspended in 2014 due to the inability to open up the industrial chain to form a business model.

From the perspective of the development of the domestic new energy vehicle market, although the development of the power exchange market has not kept up with the development of the pure electric vehicle market, it has not fallen to the bottom. In recent years, the policy of the power exchange industry has been frequently raised, and enterprises have concentrated on layout.

In 2020, the Ministry of Finance and other ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles", which stipulated that the price of new energy passenger vehicles before subsidies should not exceed 300,000 yuan, but the replacement vehicles are not subject to this provision; in the 2020 government work report, the construction of substations was included in the construction of new infrastructure infrastructure for the first time, and the policy began to encourage the application of the power exchange mode; in the same year, the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" mentioned that the application of the power exchange mode was encouraged.

At the end of October, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology decided to start the pilot work of the application of new energy vehicle power exchange mode in 11 cities; in November of the same year, the first basic universal national industry standard GB/T 40032-2021 "Electric Vehicle Replacement Safety Requirements" formulated by the mainland automobile manufacturing industry in the power exchange industry was officially released.

With the help of policy Dongfeng, various enterprises began to lay out in the power exchange market. In 2019, WEILAI Automobile announced that the first car owner can enjoy a lifetime free power exchange, so WEILAI Automobile has also become the first car company to provide free power exchange services for individual users; in addition, Beiqi Blue Valley, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, Nezha Automobile, Changan, Geely, Yutong Bus, Guojin Automobile, Shenwo Bus, Valin Automobile, Wanxiang Group, China Southern Power Grid and other related enterprises have successively laid out the power exchange model.

Not only that, Sinopec has also begun to lay out the power exchange model, and has reached cooperation with Weilai Automobile and Aodong New Energy. Western Securities believes that the capital market is more optimistic about the performance of the new energy vehicle market, the power exchange model can be promoted in different cities, and the profit is predictable; Everbright Securities believes that the policy is inclined to the field of charging and replacing, which is conducive to forming a benign business model of charging and replacing, strengthening infrastructure construction, and further opening up the space for industrial development.

Apparent prosperity and shackles on the wind

A securities analyst focusing on the battery field said, "In different periods of industry development, car companies have different needs. In the early stage of the development of new energy vehicles, the high-efficiency power exchange mode can increase consumer acceptance of it; in the development process, the power exchange mode is considered to be too expensive, so the charging mode has become the mainstream; and after the subsidy slope, the power exchange mode can effectively reduce costs without subsidies in solving the long charging time and alleviating the mileage. ”

From the appearance point of view, with the outbreak of the wave of new energy vehicles, the scale of pure electric vehicles has also risen rapidly, while the demand for infrastructure has further increased, and the superposition of favorable factors such as the tilt of the policy east wind has allowed the power exchange model to find the soil for development. As one of the energy replenishment methods of pure electric vehicles, the advantages of the power exchange mode are obvious, such as short energy replenishment time, low cost of car purchase for consumers, prolonging battery life, and alleviating electricity pressure.

However, whether the business of changing electricity is good or not has naturally become an important issue at present. In Zhang Xiang's view, the power exchange mode is more suitable for the public travel field, and it is impossible to apply the power exchange mode on a large scale in the field of private cars, for example, the Weilai car power exchange mode has become a very distinctive service.

In addition, there is a fundamental problem with the power exchange mode. With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, batteries have become core components; if you choose the power exchange mode, it means that you need to fake the right to speak about battery research and development and definition. With the intensification of electrification competition, Zhang Xiang believes that car companies are unwilling to fake the definition of battery packs.

Second, there is the problem of standardization. At present, the domestic power battery has not yet formed a unified standard, even within the car company, different models of battery specifications and standards are not the same, the battery technology, standards and specifications between car companies are also very different, it is difficult to achieve power exchange; for car companies, endurance is one of its competitive performance, while the industry pattern has not yet been stable.

Li Yujun, technical director of BAIC and executive vice president of the Engineering Research Institute, said, "Batteries are the most core components of electric vehicles, and battery management is also the core technology and advantages of car companies. Zhang Xiang further said that the battery is the core component of new energy vehicles, and once this interface is opened, the car company loses control of the battery.

Secondly, from the perspective of market demand, individual consumers want to have independent private batteries, preferring charging mode; relatively speaking, in some specific use environments such as operating vehicles, etc., it has an efficient operating cost-effective advantage, and the power exchange mode has obvious advantages. "For consumers, after the separation of vehicles and electricity, the battery problem is responsible for the holder of the battery asset, which will make the consumer's after-sales rights protection more complicated." Cui Dongshu said, "Obviously, the C-end market charging model is still the mainstream. ”

Finally, this is the most critical part of the business of changing electricity: the cost problem. At present, the investment of a single substation is about 2 million yuan - 5 million yuan, such as to increase the cost of electricity will increase, and if the cost of the urban center is considered to become larger, the profitability of operation will also increase; on the other hand, due to different models, different car companies use different battery standards and specifications, or the need for substation operators to reserve various types of battery packs, further increasing operating costs and reducing operational efficiency.

As a heavy asset model that requires long-term investment, the input and output in the early stage of the replacement power station cannot be directly proportional, and the early stage is basically in a state of loss. Shen Feifei, senior vice president of Weilai Automobile, once said that a substation in Weilai has 50 singles a day and an annual income of 500,000 or 600,000 yuan, which can basically cover the site rent and equipment depreciation. But the actual situation is not so smooth, the reporter visited the Weilai power station in the Ring Beijing area and found that most of the replacement power stations do not exceed 10 vehicles a day, and the number of first-tier cities has increased relatively, but it is difficult to reach the standard of 50 orders per day.

In addition, Botan Technology, which also has power exchange services, has calculated that the construction cost of a substation is about 4 million yuan, and the annual revenue of 250 vehicles is expected to reach 9 million yuan a day, and the internal income can reach 20% after deducting electricity, depreciation, labor and other expenses; Aodong New Energy has also said that its single station return time is about four years.

Although there are many constraints, with the gradual improvement of the policy and the entry of giants, the industry believes that the power exchange model may enter a period of rapid growth. Soochow Securities believes that 2022 is the first year of the power station release, with the gradual improvement of the mainland policy, many parties can benefit from the power exchange model, and the power exchange ushers in the development of the outlet. Huaxi Securities believes that based on the growth trend of demand for new energy vehicles, it is expected that in 2025, the number of new domestic substations will reach more than 9,000. CITIC Securities believes that from the perspective of operating market space, it is expected that the total market space for domestic power exchange operations is expected to reach 60.5 billion yuan in 2025, and the charging operation market is about 173 billion yuan.

Beijing News shell financial reporter Wang Linlin Editor Xu Chao Proofreader Guo Li