80,000-120,000 models are expected to be electrified! Ningde era push chocolate battery replacement, but it is difficult to become an industry developer

Source of this article: Time Weekly Author: Special correspondent Tao Yajie

On February 15, 2022, the news of the death of Zhang Yujie, honorary chairman of NINGDE Times, due to illness, was on Weibo's hot search. While paying tribute to mourning, people once again turned their attention to the Ningde era.

CATL is a giant in the field of domestic power battery manufacturing, and its lithium-ion power batteries are the first to have international competitiveness. Stepping on the outlet of the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the Ningde era has achieved itself, and in the new era, it is also facing more fierce competition from peers. How can we maintain our dominant position? The CATL era chose to constantly expand its territory and enter new fields.

On February 14, CATL held a conference for specific targets, including 50 institutions and investors such as Sequoia Capital, Tencent Investment, and Fidelity Fund. At the meeting, the management of CATL explained the reasons for announcing its entry into the power exchange market last month.

"Electrification is more difficult to replace models in the 80,000-120,000 price range. With chocolate battery replacement products supporting the corresponding models, the first purchase cost of new energy vehicles (excluding batteries) can be lower than that of fuel vehicles, and the speed of power replacement is equal to that of fuel vehicles, solving the problem of cost performance. ”

For a long time, the power exchange model has been difficult to popularize due to problems such as large early investment and short-term profitability. "The addition of the Ningde era will bring huge imagination space to the long-dormant power exchange market." Chen Xi, founder of AutoMotive Observer, told The Times Weekly reporter.

The Ningde era of "Attack"

The "chocolate exchange block" mentioned by CATL is the fist product of EVOGO (Lexing Electric Exchange),——— a power exchange service brand released by its wholly-owned subsidiary Times Electric Service on January 18.

According to reports, the times electric service is based on the vehicle-electricity separation mode, so that the battery becomes a shared resource, to create an overall solution for combined power exchange. In addition to the chocolate bar, there are also quick change stations and app.

Times Electric Service claims that, unlike the traditional power exchange mode, the chocolate power exchange block can achieve "one electric vehicle", which is suitable for passenger cars and logistics vehicle replacement stations from A00 to B and C, and adapts to the pure electric platform developed by 80% of the world's 80% that have been listed and will be listed in the next 3 years.

While unifying the battery standard, the convenience of the free combination of chocolate power exchange blocks will effectively solve the dilemma of the power exchange mode at the C end. A single battery has an endurance of about 200 kilometers, which can meet the needs of short-distance commuters in urban areas; if you travel long distances, you can choose to replace 1 to multiple batteries according to the mileage needs, or rent the number of electric blocks needed. Changing the power once can provide up to 600 km of cruising range for one car.

Everbright Securities Research Report pointed out that the introduction of standardized chocolate batteries in the Ningde era will accelerate the promotion of battery standardization work, and then drive the development of the entire power exchange industry.

According to the analysis of the Internet of Things think tank, compared with Weilai, BAIC and other enterprises that have cut into the power exchange track, due to the size of the battery and the advantages of brand coverage, the replacement power station of the Ningde era can adapt to more battery models and battery pack specifications, so as to provide power exchange services for more car companies.

Chen Xi told the "Times Weekly" reporter that the power exchange plan proposed by the Ningde era only looks beautiful, and there are still many difficulties in implementing it.

"The standard formulation of the battery industry mainly depends on battery manufacturers, government management departments, scientific research institutions and automobile manufacturers, and the Ningde era cannot become the formulator of industry standards." Chen Xi said that from this point of view, the solution of the Ningde era may play a role in its own new energy vehicle system.

The "difficult problem" of changing electricity

Changing the battery is to remove the battery of the electric vehicle and replace it, just like the old mobile phone. It takes more than an hour for an electric car to be fully charged for 400 kilometers, while it takes only a few minutes to change the power.

"Sometimes, the experience of changing batteries can even be comparable to refueling." A Weilai car owner told the Time Weekly reporter.

In the Weilai power station located in Jiangzhuanghu Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, the reporter witnessed the whole process of power exchange.

A Weilai car drove into the rectangular substation, the chassis of the car slowly opened, the battery was unloaded by the mechanical arms located on both sides, and the new battery was immediately installed in the car. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes and is completed in one go.

"It's easy to change the power of a car, but it's a challenge to match all the electric vehicles in the city." Chen Ping, chairman of Ningbo Green Dynamic Hydrogen Energy Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd., told the Times Weekly reporter.

Unlike fast-charging piles that can be adapted to a variety of electric vehicles, the batteries matched by different electric vehicles vary greatly in specifications and standards. Even for electric vehicles produced by the same car company, the design of batteries varies depending on the model model. Due to the difficulty of compatible with different power batteries, in the actual operation, the operators of the substation are often "independent". For example, the Aodong New Energy Substation mainly provides power replacement services for BAIC BJEV models, while the NIO Substation only provides services for its NIO models.

Chen Ping pointed out that similar to many business models, only by forming a scale effect can power exchange significantly reduce costs.

In China, the cost of investing in a substation ranges from about 2 million to 4 million, including fixed asset investment, site leasing costs, and personnel operation and maintenance costs. In contrast, the cost of ordinary fast charging piles ranges from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands, and the difference between the two is an order of magnitude.

"Only when many cars are equipped with the same kind of battery like charging piles will there be a scale effect and the operation will be drawn." For example, when the batteries of the substation are only facing 1,000 electric vehicles, it may be necessary to reserve two or three hundred batteries to be enough. But when it comes to 100,000 electric vehicles, 1,000 batteries may be enough. In contrast, the ratio of batteries will be greatly reduced. Chen Ping said.

Changing electricity is not an easy task, so there is no shortage of precedents for the failure of large companies. Better Place, the world's first Israeli company to do power swapping, went bankrupt in 2013; Tesla, a leader in the field of new energy vehicles, once tested water to change electricity, but at the 2015 shareholders' meeting, Musk explicitly abandoned the technology.

Chen Ping pointed out that the replacement of electricity involves the generalization, standardization and scale of various models, and these problems are directly related to the financial situation of the replacement power station. If the battery of an electric vehicle cannot be as flexible and versatile as the No. 5 battery and the No. 7 battery in daily life, the power exchange is destined to be expanded only in a small range.

Charging or swapping?

Compared with fast charging, the current power swap mode is still niche. According to data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging and Swapping Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, by the end of 2021, the number of charging infrastructure in the country will reach 2.617 million units, of which the total number of power exchange facilities is only 1298.

"Whether it is charging or changing the battery, its essence is a kind of power replenishment behavior for the battery." For consumers, the convenience and efficiency of power replenishment are the core of attention. Chen Ping said.

At present, for logistics vehicles, electric heavy trucks and taxis, power exchange has formed a relatively mature business model, bringing many benefits.

For the former, the "separation of vehicle and electricity" can greatly reduce the purchase cost of electric trucks, and the cost of a single power replenishment is also lower than that of diesel vehicles. For the latter, the power exchange mode can reduce the cost of car purchase, and at the same time, the layout of the power station can be accurately planned according to the number of vehicles put in, and the efficiency of power replenishment is high, so that the driver saves time and effort and saves money.

However, in the private car market, the power exchange is still not as good as charging, and the charging mode occupies an advantageous position.

On the one hand, due to the relatively low construction cost, the charging station has been promoted on a large scale on the user side, and a multi-level charging system based on third-party charging service providers such as state grid, special caller, and star charging has been formed, supplemented by the exclusive charging pile of the car company, which has fully penetrated into the daily car use scenario of the user. On the other hand, with the continuous improvement of fast charging technology, the problem of slow charging will also be gradually solved. Previously, Ideal Auto announced that it will take the 400KW super charger as the next research and development direction, and will achieve a cruising range of 300-500 kilometers in 10 minutes after production.

It can be seen that if the power exchange model wants to achieve large-scale popularization, it still needs comprehensive consideration in terms of investment cost performance, feasibility and safety controllability, and also needs the assistance of policy and standard formulation.

It is worth noting that in the past two years, the power exchange model has been favored by policies, and the policy side has frequently released good news. In May 2020, "power exchange" was written for the first time in the government work report of the two sessions of the National People's Congress, which clearly pointed out that it was necessary to increase the facilities of the replacement power station; in July of the same year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that it would continue to vigorously promote the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure and encourage enterprises to develop power exchange mode models; and in the 2022 new energy subsidy policy released not long ago, the replacement model has been exempted from the restriction of 300,000 yuan.

With the help of policies and the entry of giants, can the power exchange model enter a period of rapid growth? What kind of pattern will the charging and replacing market present? These questions are answered in time.