Written by / Tu Yanping
Editor/ Liu Baohua
Design / Shi Yuchao
At the ongoing 2022 National Two Sessions, how to achieve high-quality development of the charging and replacing infrastructure industry has become a hot topic of concern to the deputies and members.
Lei Jun, a deputy to the National People's Congress and founder of Xiaomi Company, brought the "Suggestions on Accelerating the Construction of High-power Fast Charging Infrastructure for New Energy Vehicles", which has attracted much public attention, and he called for strengthening policy guidance and coordinating the planning and layout of high-power fast charging networks.
In addition, Yin Tongyue, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Chery Automobile, suggested that standards be introduced to optimize the development and construction of new energy vehicle charging infrastructure; Ding Zuohong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the board of directors of Yuexing Group, proposed that new energy vehicle charging stations be included in urban planning as public infrastructure construction.
Compared with charging, there are far fewer proposals and proposals for power exchange calls.
Li Shufu, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Geely Holding Group, brought the "Proposal on Increasing the Construction of Electric Vehicle Replacement System", loudly calling for accelerating the clarification of relevant provisions on the construction of power exchange stations, high and low voltage box changes, land and construction approvals; establishing an exclusive announcement and certification system for power exchange models; and accelerating the standardization and generalization of power exchange models.
Since the popularization of new energy vehicles, the debate between the advantages and disadvantages of the two ways of replacing electricity and charging has not subsided.
In 2007, the State Grid proposed that the energy supplementary model of "mainly replacing electricity and supplementing plug-in" was blocked in implementation, and in 2013, it was forced to abandon the power exchange mode and open charging stations to car companies. Since then, the power exchange mode has temporarily faded, and the charging mode has been carried forward.
The turning point in policy occurred during the two sessions in 2020.
The new infrastructure content of the 2020 government work report clearly includes "construction charging piles". After discussion and deliberation, local deputies and committee members decided to expand the "construction of charging piles" to "increase charging piles, power stations and other facilities". In the 2021 government work report, the replacement power station and the charging pile are on an equal footing. And the 2022 government work report charging and replacing the power is not mentioned, but also a bowl of water flat.
At present, the consensus reached by the industry is that the two modes of charging and replacing have their own advantages and markets.
What has not reached a consensus is: in solving the energy replenishment anxiety of electric vehicles, accelerating the layout of fast charging networks and accelerating the construction of power station replacements, which is more promising? If you look at it from the terminal, this problem can also be transformed into: fast charging and power replacement, which energy replenishment method brings a better user experience to new energy vehicle users?
Consumer demand, car companies launch corresponding products, policy support follow-up, industrial chain linkage, ecological formation... This is an ideal business chain closed loop. However, due to the difference in the judgment of the development situation of the industry, the choices of the participants in it are also different.
Choosing a fast charge or a power swap is a new bet, unlike in the early days of the industry, when China's annual sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.5 million, this choice is obviously more difficult.
Wall-riders want both, and few are desperate. But to run the fastest, it is often more necessary to make a desperate bet.
Swap the pie
The loyal fans of the power exchange model in the new energy vehicle companies were originally only a few sparse ones such as Weilai and BAIC New Energy. However, now the power exchange camp is gradually growing, and Chang'an, Wuling, Geely and so on have joined.
In September 2020, Changan New Energy's first substation was completed at the Chongqing Olympic Sports Center, and a Changan New Energy EV460 tram was demonstrated for 30 seconds.
This new energy substation is jointly built by Changan New Energy and the power exchange alliance composed of partners such as Ningde Times, Aodong, State Grid, and Iron Tower, and is mainly for high-frequency and high-load taxis, online ride-hailing, intercity vehicles, logistics and other operation scenarios. Through cooperation with CATL, it is compatible with seven main engine plants such as BAIC, GAC, SAIC, FAW Hongqi & Besturn, Dongfeng Venucia, Changan, and JAC.
In September 2021, SAIC-GM-Wuling released a new technology - new energy vehicle intelligent micro substation. The substation covers a small area, can be flexibly moved, does not need to change the vehicle on the bridge and precise parking, the power replacement robot through visual recognition and laser positioning technology for accurate identification, the fastest single power change speed and the time to fill a tank of oil is equivalent.
According to the manufacturer, the construction cost of the intelligent micro substation is only 1/3 of that of the conventional substation in the industry, which can be expanded by building blocks, flexible configuration of multiple storage cabins, and can also be combined with energy storage, V2X, V2G and other energy interactive technologies for multi-mode operation. The technology was put into use in October 2020 on the unmanned logistics vehicle of SAIC-GM-Wuling Baojun Base.
Geely is particularly aggressive about the layout of the power exchange mode. In September 2020, Geely Technology Group's first substation was unveiled; in November 2021, Geely's new energy commercial vehicle brand remote car released the concept of changing the power heavy truck remote Xinghan H.
It's also more ambitious. In January 2022, Geely launched the power exchange travel brand Ruilan Automobile, positioning itself as a new potential energy for a new generation of power exchange travel. Geely Technology Group has also set the grand goal of becoming the first domestic power exchange ecological service provider integrating power exchange model research and development, power station replacement research and development, power exchange operation and travel service.
Li Shufu's suggestions on the power exchange mode are exactly the current pain points of the power exchange mode.
"In vehicle-to-electric separation mode, a power-changing model will match multiple batteries, and a battery will also match multiple models. If the three cars can correspond to three batteries (the interface is unified and interchangeable), then these three cars need to be announced nine times, and new batteries are developed and need to be re-announced. ”
Therefore, he proposed that the announcement regulations of the power exchange model should be optimized, and an exclusive announcement certification system for the power exchange model should be established to form a separate certification of the car and the battery under the separation of vehicle electricity.
He also called for accelerating the standardization and generalization of power exchange modes. The low degree of standardization of power exchange batteries is a major obstacle to the development of the current power exchange mode. This aspect requires car companies and battery companies to jointly promote.
Coincidentally, in January 2022, CATL announced the entry of the power exchange, and its subsidiary Times Electric Service released the overall solution of the power exchange service brand EVOGO Lexing power exchange and combination power exchange, including the chocolate power exchange block developed for shared power exchange.
Times Electric Service will launch the EVOGO power exchange service in the first batch of 10 cities, and the first cooperative model is the FAW Besturn NAT combination power exchange version. It hopes that in the next two or three years, it will be able to build the world's largest charging service network.
The entry of the Ningde era has made people see the possibility of cracking the problem of non-uniformity of battery replacement standards, and after that, it is estimated that this pain point can be solved to a certain extent. But it is certainly not easy to promote it in the whole industry.
Fast charge pie
Compared with the above independent brand car companies' enthusiasm for power exchange, many international car companies have a relatively cold response to the power exchange model.
At the beginning of this year, BMW said in an interview with the German media "European Automotive Weekly" about the possibility of providing power replacement services for electric vehicles on the Neue Klasse platform: "From our point of view, it is not convenient to establish charging and logistics infrastructure for the replacement plant. They believe that the cost of replacing lithium-ion battery packs is very high, and producing excess batteries for dynamic replacement will be a resource-intensive project.
Tesla demonstrated the power replacement technology in 2013, and also applied for a pure electric vehicle replacement patent on the highway, launched a power replacement model, but finally invested in the supercharging route.
Tao Lin, vice president of external affairs of Tesla, once said: "Power replacement is a good energy replenishment model in some specific areas such as taxis, but we firmly believe that charging is the best way to replenish energy for large-scale civilian electric vehicles", "civil high-power fast charging is more convenient and stable.".
By the end of 2021, Tesla has 3,476 supercharging stations and 31,498 superchargers worldwide. While the scale of the supercharger station continues to expand, Tesla's charging power is also rapidly upgrading and iteration.
In 2012, Tesla V1 supercharger equipment was put on the market, with a maximum power of 90kW; in 2014, the maximum power of the V2 supercharge pile reached 120KW; in 2019, the V3 supercharge pile can support a peak charging power of up to 250kW, and the Model 3 long-endurance version can travel about 120km in 5 minutes in a peak power environment.
Fast charging is to shorten the charging time by increasing the charging power. There are two paths to improve the charging power, one is to increase the voltage, high voltage DC fast charging scheme; the other is to increase the current, high current DC fast charging scheme.
The second option is chosen by the minority, represented by Tesla, whose V3 supercharge pile has a maximum output current of close to 520A, which is close to the upper limit of the charging current.
More car companies choose high-voltage fast charging solutions. In 2019, Porsche took the lead in launching the first mass-produced electric vehicle, the Taycan, on an 800V platform, with a maximum charging power of 270kW. After that, BYD, Xiaopeng, Geely Krypton, BAIC Jihu, GAC Aian, Dongfeng Lantu, Hyundai, GM, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and so on followed up.
At present, fast charging technology has become a major publicity highlight when car companies release new products.
BYD's e-platform 3.0 has 800V high-voltage flash charging technology, charging 5 minutes to last 150km; Euler Good Cat charging 12 minutes to last 100km; Cadillac LYRIQ charging 10 minutes to last 96km; Polar Fox Alpha S charging 10 minutes to last 195km; Great Wall Salon brand first model Mech Dragon charging 10 minutes endurance 401km; Light Orange Times revealed that the first new car is fast charged 8 minutes and has a range of 200km...
The improvement of electric vehicle charging power is inseparable from the study of battery fast charging technology by power battery companies.
Fu Neng Technology, Hive Energy, Ningde Times, Sunwoda, etc. have all laid out overcharge technology batteries.
Lei Jun disclosed a data in the proposal on fast charging: the current proportion of fast charging in the mainland public charging pile is only 40%, and the fast charging power is generally low.
This means huge market space. But how long will it take for high-voltage fast charging technology to become popular? Huawei has long been laying out high-voltage fast charging technology, and has judged that the high-voltage charging network will be built in 2021 or the penetration rate is relatively high, but later found that this prediction is too optimistic.
Uncertainty about the future
Lux Research, a technology innovation research and consultancy, released a report last year analyzing the cost of fast charging stations, and the results showed that it was not as cheap as Tesla claimed, and that the power exchange facility can support the operation of urban electric taxis and can therefore become an alternative to fast charging.
The agency also noted that while fast charging minimizes taxi power outages, it also increases the chance of battery degradation and increases taxi fleet operating costs; in addition, power swap mode is best suited for fleets of more than 100 vehicles.
Power exchange and fast charging, who is the potential stock, but also need to be more clearly presented after the large-scale landing of the product.
The reason why few companies have been involved before the power exchange model is also due to the unclear profit prospects.
Yu Dexiang, chairman of Telai, said in an interview with the media in 2020 that he once wanted to step into the power exchange industry, but the team found that "within three years, at least in the investment profits, scenarios, etc. can not find a suitable answer."
He judged that when half of the large car companies began to do power replacement models, it represents the real trend of power replacement, if 20% of electric vehicles use the power exchange mode to replenish energy, it means that the power exchange market really begins to develop benignly, at that time, the special call will immediately cut into the power exchange market.
Another charging giant, Star Charging, has already taken the lead, adding a replacement facility sales business in July 2020 to the change of business scope. Shao Danwei, chairman of Star Charging, also said that he has strategic cooperation with a new car manufacturer in the field of power replacement. In December 2021, Star Charging and FAW Jiefang signed a strategic cooperation agreement to cooperate in charging and replacing power grids and battery banks.
The power exchange mode requires car companies, power exchange operators, power battery companies and other parties to join hands, and the popularity of fast charging technology requires electric vehicles, power batteries, and charging piles to adapt to fast charging, which is also a system project.
Charging and replacing operators and power battery companies may also have a choice, but car companies face the two paths of power exchange and fast charging, and they dare not take it lightly.
If you don't see which one is more promising in a short period of time, it is safe to grasp it with both hands. However, when energy and resources are limited, there will still be some emphasis. There is also a situation where the table does not do it, offstage does both, the mouth does not, but the body is very honest. This is also a strategy.
In order to cope with the uncertainty of the future, many car companies have begun to launch rechargeable and upgradeable products, maintain the openness of technology on the product side, and instead give the choice to consumers. Consumers vote with their feet, which in turn will affect the choice of car companies.
For consumers who ultimately pay the bill, whether it is fast charging or power replacement, there is actually an impossible triangle of low cost, high safety and high convenience. To put it bluntly, you can't "want both and want" all three.
Now, it's the consumer's turn to make the choice. If you are a new energy vehicle user, which one are you more inclined to choose? Please vote below.