Car owners suffer from "electric daddy" for a long time? Geely Li Shufu proposed to increase the construction of a power exchange system, and Lei Jun's strength was very fast

Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Yang Delin

Image source/enterprise provided

The development momentum of the new energy vehicle market is strong. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in the country reached 7.84 million, an increase of 59.25% compared with the previous year, of which 6.4 million pure electric vehicles were owned, accounting for 81.63% of the total number of new energy vehicles.

However, behind the continuous growth of new energy vehicle ownership, the problem of energy replenishment is still one of the pain points in the industry. At present, the main ways to replenish the energy of electric vehicles include charging and power replacement. The data shows that in 2021, the number of charging piles in the country will be 2.617 million units, an increase of 55.7% year-on-year, but the number of substations nationwide is only 1192, and the replacement power stations are far slower than the layout speed of charging piles.

To this end, at this year's National Two Sessions, Li Shufu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Geely Holding Group, submitted the "Proposal on Increasing the Construction of Electric Vehicle Replacement System", in his view, compared with the traditional charging pile power supply mode, the vehicle-electricity separation power exchange mode has the two major advantages of efficient energy replenishment and reduced cost of car owners.

However, at present, there are many problems to be solved in the power exchange mode, and there are still some supporting policies and measures that need to be broken through in the entire life cycle link and ecological construction of the separation of vehicle and electricity. For example, the increasing demand for station construction and the contradiction between limited land and power resources are further highlighted; in today's rapid development of new technologies and new situations, it is urgent to revise and improve and form mandatory national standards; the research and development direction and progress of various battery manufacturers are different, and the energy density, battery structure, size specifications and other aspects of power battery products cannot be unified, resulting in the difficulty of forming a scale effect of the power exchange mode.

Li Shufu also put forward three suggestions in a targeted manner, one is to speed up the clarification of the relevant provisions on the construction of substations, the change of high and low pressure boxes, and the approval of land and construction, and incorporate them into the national market management standard system. It is recommended that the government open up resource access and support for public parking lots, effectively and reasonably optimize the allocation of land resources, optimize the approval process for high-voltage new installation (capacity increase) of power exchange projects, implement the requirements for compressing the time limit for application, open up multiple households at one site, and accelerate the construction cycle.

The second is to further improve the relevant policies and regulations of the power exchange model, optimize the announcement regulations of the power exchange model, establish an exclusive announcement and certification system for the power exchange model, and form a separate certification of the car and the battery under the separation of vehicle electricity. At the same time, we will further improve the national traceability system for new energy vehicles, and optimize the adaptation of vehicle-to-electricity separation mode (such as vehicle-to-electricity separation insurance).

The third is to accelerate the standardization and generalization of power exchange modes. Promote the standardization of software and hardware protocols for power exchange interfaces, preset 2-3 technically advanced interface forms to formulate recommended standards; standardize the mechanism, form and compatibility of power exchange stations, so that technologically advanced power exchange stations can be given priority recommendations; promote the standardization of power exchange battery packs, so that power exchange battery packs can truly be interchanged between different car companies, different power stations and different users.

It is understood that Geely has begun to lay out the field of power exchange. In June 2020, Geely Automobile registered the trademark "Easy to Change Electricity" and began to lay out its own new energy vehicle power exchange business; on September 16, 2020, Geely Technology Group's power exchange model was released, which can achieve the fastest power exchange within 2 minutes for vehicles; at the end of November 2020, Geely Technology and Chongqing Expressway completed the signing of the agreement and the layout of the power exchange; on January 26, 2021, Geely and Lifan's new company was unveiled, Lifan Technology produced a power exchange model for Geely Technology; in September 2021, Geely Holdings launched the new energy vehicle substation operation brand "Easy Easy Energy"; in October 2021, Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue revealed for the first time that it will launch a "new power exchange travel brand"; on December 13 of the same year, Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology jointly announced that the two sides will each invest 300 million yuan to set up a joint venture company.

On January 24 this year, Geely Automobile announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its joint venture with Lifan Group, Chongqing Ruilan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., has completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures. The new company is positioned as a power exchange travel brand, based on self-developed power exchange technology, is committed to creating an intelligent power exchange ecology, and will build more than 5,000 high-speed power stations by 2025, covering more than 100 core urban cities. On February 23, Ruilan Automobile's first intelligent replacement car Maple Leaf 60S was officially launched.

In addition to Geely Automobile, the entire power exchange market is currently full of players. According to the CITIC Securities Research Report, according to the relationship between resource endowments and industrial chains, power exchange operators can be divided into main engine factories (Geely, Weilai), battery companies (Ningde era), energy suppliers (State Grid), and third-party suppliers (GCL Energy, Aodong).

Taking NINGDE Times as an example, public information shows that in August 2021, CATL established a subsidiary in Xiamen, Fujian Province, Times Electric Service, which is the bearer of ningde times power exchange business; in December, Times Electric Service established a regional power exchange business company in Liaoyuan, Jilin Province. In January this year, CATL released EVOGO, a power exchange service brand, which combines the overall solution of power exchange through "power exchange block, quick change station and APP". On February 22, CATL united with Sany Heavy Industry to hold a demonstration and commissioning ceremony for the application of heavy trucks in Ningde, Fujian Province. On the same day, Times Electric Service signed a memorandum of strategic cooperation with Fujian Expressway Group's High-speed Energy Development Co., Ltd.

In fact, at this year's National Two Sessions, new energy vehicle charging facilities have become one of the focuses of attention. On March 4, Lei Jun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and the founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, submitted the "Proposal on Accelerating the Construction of High-Power Fast Charging Infrastructure for New Energy Vehicles". Lei Jun pointed out that charging infrastructure is an important guarantee for the high-quality development of the new energy automobile industry. At present, the proportion of fast charging in public charging piles in the mainland is only 40%, and the fast charging power is generally low, resulting in slow charging speed, long queuing time, low turnover efficiency and other problems are still prominent, it is difficult to meet the charging needs of the majority of users, and it is difficult to adapt to the rapid development of the current new energy automobile industry.

He suggested that, first, strengthen policy guidance and comprehensively promote the planning and layout of high-power fast charging networks; second, form a national innovation cooperation platform to strengthen joint research on core technologies; third, strengthen construction service guarantees, and promote the popularization of high-power charging infrastructure.