One month after announcing the launch of the power exchange business on January 18 and the release of the overall solution for power exchange, CATL announced two cooperations on February 23, marking the beginning of the company's power exchange business.
The first project is the ningde times and Sany Heavy Industry to open the operation of the country's first electric heavy truck trunk line - Funing trunk line, and the two sides held a demonstration and operation ceremony for the application of heavy trucks in Fujian Province on February 22 in Ningde, Fujian Province.
The second project is that Times Electric Service Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of NINGDE Times, and Fujian Expressway Group's High-speed Energy Development Co., Ltd. will set up a joint venture company to jointly build a power exchange network for expressways in Fujian Province, jointly promote the construction and operation of substations in Fujian high-speed service areas and depots, and expand relevant businesses in neighboring provinces in a timely manner. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation on February 22.
Relevant people in the Ningde era said that more new progress in the power exchange business will be announced in the follow-up.
The electric trunk heavy trucks and muck trucks released on the Funing trunk line this time use the ningde era large-capacity lithium iron phosphate battery, which can not only achieve zero emissions and zero pollution, but also meet the high-power fast charging, achieve rapid power replacement within 3-5 minutes, and overcome the anxiety of heavy truck vehicles in terms of charging time and mileage, and greatly improve the efficiency of vehicle operation.
It is expected that the replacement heavy truck will be jointly developed by Sany Heavy Industry and CATL Times, and another partner of the project, Shengfeng Logistics, will be the purchaser of the heavy truck.
EV Century believes that the NINGDE era has at least two significances in cutting into the power exchange business with the replacement of heavy trucks as the first landing project.
First of all, compared with pure electric passenger cars, changing heavy trucks is a market with clear scenes and rigid demand. Heavy trucks are major carbon emitters in the field of transportation, and the industry generally believes that its electrification has two directions, one is the use of hydrogen energy (including hydrogen fuel cells and liquid hydrogen), and the other is the use of pure electric routes in the power exchange mode. For pure electric heavy trucks, slow charging, difficult charging, and short endurance seriously affect operational efficiency, and the power exchange mode can better solve these problems, especially those scenarios where the operation route and operation site are relatively fixed, such as intercity trunk lines, urban infrastructure, port terminals, mine transportation, etc.
The replacement of heavy trucks has also received support and encouragement from the competent government departments. On October 28, 2021, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work on the Application of New Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Mode", which proposes to carry out pilots in Yibin, Tangshan and Baotou, which are special cities with heavy trucks, and for the first time include heavy truck characteristic cities in the scope of pilots.
The pure electric passenger car replacement business is not the case, and the Ningde era, as a latecomer in the field of power exchange, first cuts from the heavy truck replacement market, which is relatively easier. On January 18, when CATL released its power exchange business strategy, it only released a pure electric passenger car based on its power exchange solution.
Secondly, if the replacement of heavy trucks produces a scale effect, it will help catheter to increase the sales and market share of its lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The latest statistics released by south Korean market research institute SNE recently show that the global power battery loading volume reached 96.7 GWh last year, with a market share of 32.6%, an increase of 8 percentage points compared with 2020, and the fifth consecutive year to the throne of the world's largest power battery company.
According to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in January 2022, although the CATL era is still significantly ahead of other battery companies in terms of ternary battery loading, it has been quickly caught up by BYD in terms of lithium iron phosphate, which is mainly because MANY new energy models launched by BYD in the past year have adopted their own blade batteries, which has greatly increased the loading capacity of its lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The landing of the power exchange business in the Ningde era is expected to enhance the market application of its lithium iron phosphate battery and stabilize its position in the lithium iron phosphate battery market.
It is expected that with the Ningde era in the "base camp" Fujian Province to explore the mature scheme of power exchange operation, it will quickly spread the market to the whole country, open up new business growth points for it, and also contribute to the development of the entire power exchange market.