Following the 2021 National Day holiday, the Spring Festival of the Tiger Pure Electric Vehicle travel reproduced the problem of replenishment, and many car owners complained through social media that when there were still 2 or 300 kilometers away from home, they had to queue up for hours to charge before they could continue to drive. According to the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales of new energy vehicles in 2022 can exceed 6 million, according to which it is estimated that the number of domestic new energy vehicles in 2022 is expected to exceed 14 million, according to the existing proportion, the number of pure electric vehicles will likely exceed the 10 million mark. With the substantial increase in the number of pure electric vehicle models in China year by year, in the case that the breakthrough of battery core technology is still waiting for time, the anxiety of pure electric vehicle replenishment at this stage, especially the anxiety of long-distance refueling, will become the main contradiction in the development of new energy vehicles.
First, the development path is different
Overcharge and power exchange have their own potential
Xiaopeng 800V high voltage SiC platform + 480kW high voltage overcharge
In fact, the state has been actively promoting the solution of the problem of pure electric vehicles from the policy level. During the "two sessions" in 2020, charging facilities were written into the 2020 government work report for the first time as one of the seven "new infrastructure". In the 2021 government work report, it is clearly proposed to increase charging piles, substations and other facilities. Since 2021, relevant policies have been continuously introduced, in January 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other departments jointly issued the "National Development and Reform Commission and Other Departments on Further Improving the Service Guarantee Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", which clearly proposed to give full play to the energy storage characteristics of power batteries, explore and promote orderly charging, V2G and other forms, and realize the collaborative interaction between electric vehicles and the power grid. Promote the power exchange mode in scenarios such as mines, ports, and urban transfer according to local conditions. At the same time, it is also proposed to give financial support to the construction of public charging piles.
The huge demand for replenishment has spawned a huge market space. Some institutions predict that in 2021-2025, the charging pile has more than 5 times the growth space, and the growth space of the replacement power station may exceed 20 times. In the face of the big cake of the supplementary energy market, all parties, including automobile companies and upstream battery suppliers, are competing for layout, but the technical path of development is not the same. Among them, Xiaopeng, GAC Eian, Lantu and other car companies are more optimistic about high-voltage supercharge technology, actively layout and research and development of supercharge technology platform, and launch new cars that support supercharging technology. Taking Xiaopeng as an example, in 2021, it released a number of technologies such as 800V silicon carbide platform and 480kW high-voltage supercharge pile, and actively laid out in the field of charging stations, and has become the industry's first charging car company to penetrate 337 cities in the country, covering 333 prefecture-level cities and 4 municipalities directly under the central government, with a total of 813 brand supercharging stations. Gac Aean and Lantu also released super-double-speed battery technology and self-developed 800V high-voltage platform and super fast charging technology in 2021.
The layout of traditional car companies is earlier, and Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan said earlier that due to the high cost of the power exchange model, it will be very difficult to develop. In contrast, Volkswagen China seems to be more optimistic about the supercharge model, as early as 2019 with FAW Group, Star Charging and Jianghuai Automobile to establish a joint venture company - Kaimeisi New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., the company has become the domestic charging pile (station) head enterprise. By 2021, Kaimeis has launched more than 600 superchargering stations and more than 6,000 charging terminals in 80 cities across the country, and has independently developed a new generation of HPC high-power charging technology with a maximum output voltage of 1000V.
Sinopec's first substation in collaboration with NIO
Compared with the supercharging development model, although the power exchange model lacks advantages for private car owners in the cost of using the car, it can greatly shorten the time of energy replenishment, improve the car experience of the owner, and also help alleviate the problems of battery attenuation and large changes in the vehicle retention rate, and has a competitive advantage in the field of operating vehicles and high-end passenger cars. It has been favored by upstream enterprises such as the national team represented by the State Power Investment and Sinopec, as well as battery suppliers. Among them, the two major "national teams" of Sinopec and State Power Investment have made frequent moves in 2021. In April 2021, Sinopec signed agreements with Aodong New Energy and NIO to establish strategic cooperative relations, and the world's first fully intelligent substation jointly built by Sinopec and NIO was also put into operation during the same period. Zhang Yuzhuo, chairman of the board of directors and secretary of the party group of Sinopec Group Corporation, said that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Sinopec will plan to lay out 5,000 charging and replacing power stations. The State Power Investment Corporation plans to increase the total investment scale of 115 billion yuan by 2025, promote 200,000 heavy-duty trucks, and increase investment to hold 4,000 replacement power stations. It is undeniable that the entry of the "national team" will undoubtedly promote the rapid development of the power exchange industry.
What is more important is that the domestic power battery leading enterprise Ningde Times also announced its entry into the power exchange market, and in January 2022, its wholly-owned subsidiary Times Electric Service released the power exchange service brand VOGO (Lehang Power Exchange), and the first batch will select 10 cities to open the layout of the power station replacement. The addition of upstream supplier enterprises will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the entire power exchange industry, especially in solving the problems that plague the development of the power exchange model such as the non-uniformity of battery standards, or will play a positive role in promoting.
Second, solve the pain points of replenishment
At this stage, the overcharge and replacement are not perfect
Tesla supercharge station
As far as the current stage of development is concerned, overcharge and power exchange can help users achieve efficient energy replenishment, and the respective advantages of the two are prominent, but there are also some drawbacks that need to be solved urgently.
As far as supercharging is concerned, especially the brand supercharge pile, major car companies are actively launching, and the current layout in the city is becoming more and more perfect, but the layout progress on the highway network is relatively slow. According to the latest data disclosed by the National Development and Reform Commission, there are currently 13,800 charging piles on mainland expressways (including fast charging and overcharging), mainly concentrated in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-Lu, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other regions, and have not yet achieved full coverage. In the case of "more cars than piles", the problem of long charging queues on holiday highways has become increasingly prominent. This year's Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, the problem of high-speed replenishment has reappeared again, and some car owners have posted in the WeChat circle of friends that when there are still 250 kilometers away from home, they have to queue up for 3 hours to charge.
Compared with the small number of charging piles, fast charging/overcharging also has problems in daily use. According to the owner Of The Owner Mr. Dong feedback to the car quality network, the luxury brand pure electric vehicle he purchased, in the process of running high speed, the fast charging pile of the 3 consecutive charging stations can not be used normally, and the charging power is only 7-12KW. At the same time, some car owners have feedback that the purchased self-owned brand pure electric vehicles are charged for too long when using fast charging, which is inconsistent with the publicity at the time of purchase, which seriously affects the use experience.
In addition, there are also some problems in the application level of supercharging, and the most noteworthy is the impact on the urban power grid. With the acceleration of the layout of supercharge piles, the power load of the power grid in the area is bound to become larger and larger, although the State Grid will also expand the capacity of the line every year, but the speed is difficult to keep up with the energy demand of the charging station, especially during the peak charging period, multiple vehicles use overcharging together, and the charging efficiency will also decline.
In terms of energy replenishment efficiency, the overcharge mode is not perfect, and there is still a certain gap compared with the power exchange. In this regard, the car quality network has done relevant tests, taking the Tesla V2 super charging pile as an example, without considering the queue, the Model 3 power 18% charged to 60% takes 29 minutes, increasing the cruising range by 256km. The second generation of Weilai's replacement power station, without considering queuing, it takes about 5 and a half minutes to replace a fully charged battery for a car. From the perspective of time, the efficiency of the two is high.
NIO swapped power station
Compared with fast charging and supercharging, the replacement power station that has been developed in recent years also faces many problems, the most prominent of which is the small number of outlets in the city. For urban commuter car owners, although it is more convenient to change electricity, due to the small number of power stations in the city, the queue time is much greater than the power exchange time. Some car owners have reported that in a new force brand replacement station in Beijing, the queue is nearly 1 hour, and the time required for power replacement is less than 6 minutes. This is still a big city like Beijing, and for local cities, it is difficult to change electricity.
In terms of the cost of use that the owner cares about, the performance of the replacement power station at this stage is not perfect, and although the power exchange mode is convenient, the cost of the owner is higher than that of faster charging and overcharging. Taking a new power brand as an example, for the first car owner, under the premise of retaining the household charging pile, he can enjoy the right to change the electricity 4 times a month, and the charging fee and service fee will be charged after the exceeding. In this regard, some car owners have experienced, counting electricity and service charges, which are equivalent to 1.7 yuan / kWh after conversion, and the charging standard of a brand overcharge is 1.35 yuan / kWh, which also includes electricity and service charges.
From the perspective of investment, the high input cost of the power exchange model and the long return period have formed a consensus in the industry. According to the data disclosed by GCL Energy, a mobile energy service provider, the construction cost of its single passenger car replacement power station alone is as high as 5 million yuan, and the investment payback period is about 5.21 years. As a "unicorn" in the power exchange industry, although Aodong New Energy is favored by capital and has just completed a B round of strategic financing of 1.5 billion yuan in September last year, from its revenue in 2018-2020, the net profit is -186 million yuan, -162 million yuan and -249 million yuan, which have been in a state of loss for three consecutive years and have an expansion trend.
In addition, there are also certain bottlenecks in the power exchange mode at the technical level, the most prominent of which is that the battery standard is not uniform. At this stage, the low degree of battery standardization of different brand models, and even the same brand model, is the most difficult problem facing the development of the power exchange mode. Although companies such as Weilai are rapidly laying out brand replacement power stations, at this stage, they can only serve the brand models, and it is difficult to cover more products. The entry of "Ning Wang" seems to play a positive role in this problem, but some people in the industry are not optimistic about it, believing that the chassis structure and other core assets of the enterprise are unlikely to be opened to third-party enterprises. Therefore, in the short term, the problem of non-uniform battery standards is still in an unsolved state.
Third, the advantages of overcharge and power exchange complement each other
In the short term, there should be synergy
Vehicle quality network special investigation
The choice of power exchange or overcharge mode is a topic of debate in the industry for many years, in the context of "3060", relevant policies continue to increase, so that this controversial topic has surfaced again. In fact, these two technological development paths can be said to have their own advantages and disadvantages, but in the final analysis, the purpose of the two models is the same, both are for pure electric vehicle users to achieve efficient energy replenishment, and there is also a certain complementary relationship between the two.
Academician Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association, said in an interview with reporters before that charging and replacing electricity should be integrated and developed at this stage, rather than either-or. CITIC Securities Research believes that it is expected that the domestic new energy vehicle refueling market will still maintain a pattern of charging as the main and power replacement as a supplement in the next 5 years, but the application and promotion of the power exchange model in some high-end passenger cars and operating vehicles will be significantly accelerated.
It is not difficult to find that at this stage, although the power exchange mode and the supercharge mode have their own advantages and disadvantages, in many aspects, the two can actually form complementary advantages.
1. The construction cost of the power exchange mode is high, and the return rate of complaints is low, but the construction cost of the supercharge station is relatively low and the profit cycle is short. He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, has previously said that The supercharging station of Xiaopeng Automobile has begun to make a single month profit as early as December 2019, and it has only been 3 months since the official operation of the first supercharging station it cooperated with Tlaidian.
2, the current stage of the power exchange mode is facing the "battery standard is not uniform" problem, a charging station is difficult to serve the models of various brands, but most of the brand supercharge stations can actually completely avoid this problem. Previously, Xiaopeng and Weilai's superfill piles could be opened to other brand models, but with the increase in ownership, most of the superfill piles in the business district are only used for their own brand models. From this point of view, there is actually no technical obstacle to the sharing of supercharged piles, and it is easier to achieve than to achieve the unification of battery standards. Previously, Tesla CEO Musk said on social media at home and abroad that Tesla has begun to pilot tesla supercharging piles to other brands of pure electric vehicles in the Netherlands.
3, from the perspective of energy replenishment efficiency, supercharge is obviously not the best choice, in this regard, the performance of the power station is undoubtedly more suitable for rapid energy replenishment. However, in the urban scene, the power exchange mode is limited by the number of layouts, but it is not as convenient as overcharge. Therefore, in many cases, the two can form an effective complementarity, especially for Weilai models, both can be replaced, but also can use supercharge, more convenient for car owners to choose according to the actual situation.
4. On the highway, the number of supercharge stations is small, and it is easy to cause queuing due to the problem of charging time. Although the layout of the replacement power station in the high-speed road network is also not much, thanks to its ultra-high energy replenishment efficiency, it is more suitable for long-distance refueling, and the supercharge station can provide effective supplementation for it.
summary
At this stage, supercharge is better or better to replace the power, there is still no standard answer. But what is certain is that both can effectively solve the energy anxiety of pure electric vehicle users, and the two are not incompatible, and there is no direct competition relationship between who is more reliable than whom. Therefore, before more advanced battery technologies such as solid-state batteries are broken, the two will develop and coexist for some time to come, but both also have problems that need to be further solved at the technical and user experience levels. According to the survey previously done by the car quality network, more consumers believe that the two have their own advantages and should be developed together.