Power exchange, new energy vehicles "second half" to supplement the topic?

Online reservation queue, arrival, parking and then drive out of the power station, this set of processes down, if smooth, Weilai owners can achieve full power in 5 minutes and then set off.

The power swap mode is called "as convenient as refueling", and its vent is accelerating. During the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, Li Shufu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Geely Holding Group, put forward the "Proposal on Increasing the Construction of electric Vehicle Replacement System", which is the first time that Li Shufu has proposed a proposal specifically for the construction of electric vehicle replacement system.

"The state's support policies and million-level market capacity all show that it is time to replace electricity now." The relevant person in charge of Ruilan Automobile, a joint venture company under Geely' power exchange travel, told the first financial reporter. Geely began to lay out power exchanges in 2017, and in January this year, it officially established a joint venture with Lifan Technology to establish Ruilan Automobile, which specializes in power exchange.

Coincidentally, in January this year, the power battery giant Ningde Times also officially entered the power exchange and released the power exchange brand EVOGO. So far, the domestic power exchange industry has formed a "four-legged" pattern of third-party operators (Aodong), battery suppliers (Ningde era), energy central enterprises (State Grid), and vehicle companies (Geely and Weilai).

In fact, power exchange is not a new concept, Tesla, the State Grid have been involved in but gave up, the first passenger car exchange company Better Place has declared bankruptcy in 2013.

This time, is the time to scale up the power exchange market really come?

Changing power like refueling?

Can power exchange really solve the problem of consumers' "energy replenishment anxiety"?

NIO's second-generation substation in Shanghai Photo: Xiao Yisi

As one of the most powerful vehicle companies to push the power exchange to the C-end, NIO has laid out 72 substations in Shanghai. Weilai's power exchange process is to first select the power station on the line, click the order to enter the queuing sequence, and change the power in order after arriving at the power station. When the first financial reporter arrived at the replacement power station, it happened that the previous owner was about to complete the power exchange, and the reporter experienced that the whole process of changing the power took less than 10 minutes, and the process of really changing the power was about 4 minutes. However, the owners of Weilai who are waiting behind the reporter to change the electricity may take 15 to 30 minutes due to different waiting times. Although there is still a certain gap between the power exchange and the refueling experience, it is undoubtedly faster than charging.

The technical path used by WEIlai power exchange is chassis power exchange. Compared with the first generation of replacement power stations, weilai second generation of replacement power stations have greatly improved in user experience, the number of batteries per station has increased from 5 to 13, and the queue time has been greatly reduced; support for automatic parking into the power station, users do not have to get off the car, etc. have improved the comfort and efficiency of power exchange.

BAIC and third-party operator Aodong claim that the replacement power station they jointly launched takes 3 minutes to change power, while Aodong said that its latest generation 4.0 power station can shorten the power exchange time to 20 seconds, and the entire power exchange process takes about 1.5 minutes. However, the BAIC and Aodong power exchange markets are mainly aimed at commercial operating vehicles.

"The construction of the energy replenishment network plays a vital role in accelerating the promotion of electric vehicles and improving the competitiveness of brands." The advantages of the energy replacement experience brought by the power exchange, battery rental services, battery health monitoring, and flexible battery upgrades are important components of the competitiveness of the WEILAI system, and Weilai will firmly invest in the construction of the charging and replacing network. Weilai told the first financial reporter. According to the layout plan of WEILAI substations, from 2022 to 2025, it will add 600 new substations per year in the Chinese market; by the end of 2025, the global total number of NIO substations will exceed 4,000, of which about 1,000 substations in markets outside China.

In the layout of the substation, Ruilan Automobile also revealed to reporters that as of the end of January 2022, it has cooperated with Geely's Yiyi Summoning Energy to build hundreds of substations in many places, more than 2,000 power exchange operation vehicles have been put into operation, and plans to build 5,000 substations in 2025.

"2022 is the first year of Ruilan Automobile, and it is also the year of breaking the situation in the power exchange industry." Ruilan Automobile said that it believes that under the huge space of the future market and the support of multiple policies, the power exchange model is ready for mass production.

In recent years, the penetration rate and ownership of new energy vehicles in the mainland have been continuously improved, and the huge demand for replenishment energy objectively exists, and only a single energy replenishment model cannot meet the needs of users. In this regard, Ruilan Automobile pointed out that as a kind of "vehicle-electricity separation" energy replenishment mode, power exchange can extend battery life, shorten the time of energy replenishment, reduce the cost of car purchase, and directly hit the pain points of the industry. Charging and power exchange, as two important ways of energy replenishment, are not zero-sum games, but need to be combined to become energy solutions and important energy replenishment infrastructure for new energy vehicles to solve the "mileage anxiety" of new energy vehicles.

At the same time, policies are also promoting the development of power exchange models. In November 2020, the General Office of the State Council issued the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", which mentioned "vigorously promoting the construction of charging and replacing networks", officially placing power exchange and charging in a juxtaposition; in October 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work on the Application of New Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Models", which included 11 cities such as Beijing, Nanjing and Wuhan into the pilot cities.

Not long ago, the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued the notice of the "Implementation Opinions on Further Promoting the Construction of Charging and Replacing Infrastructure in the City", which clarified the new energy vehicle energy replenishment model of "charging as the mainstay and power exchange as the supplement".

In the past year, substations have indeed developed rapidly. According to data from the China Charging Alliance, as of the end of January this year, the number of substations on the mainland reached 1386, an increase of 146.6% compared with 562 in January last year, of which 863 were reserved by Weilai, 416 in Aodong, and 107 in Hangzhou Botan.

Driven by capital, automakers and policies, many people in the industry call 2022 the "first year of power station release".

CITIC Securities Research Report pointed out that it is expected that in 2022, the number of new power stations is expected to usher in explosive growth, and the number of new power stations will exceed 3,000 throughout the year; it is expected that by 2025, the industry is expected to add more than 10,000 seats, and the corresponding equipment investment and operating income of the power exchange industry will reach 100 billion yuan. In addition, by 2025, the number of substations will exceed 30,000, an increase of more than 30 times over 2021.

The question of profitability remains to be solved

The power exchange mode was not proposed in the last two years.

Better Place, as the first company involved in passenger car power exchange, tried the technical route of chassis power exchange in 2007, but finally due to the huge initial investment and difficulty in scale, it finally declared bankruptcy in 2013; in 2010, the State Grid also entered the power exchange track, but also terminated the project due to lack of policies and difficult profit models.

In 2013, Tesla announced the launch of 90-second quick change technology in order to dispel users' "mileage anxiety", but in the end, it only gave the market a "promotion value is not very large" statement.

At present, although the sales volume of new energy vehicles and the general environment of policies are no longer what they used to be, the inherent problems of the power exchange model still exist, and the problem of how to make a profit will still be the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of power exchange companies.

Tesla has announced that the construction cost of a substation is as high as 500,000 US dollars (about 3.16 million yuan), which does not include the later labor and maintenance costs, land use fees and taxes, while the construction cost of a 6-pile supercharger station is about 150,000 US dollars (about 950,000 yuan), less than 1/3 of a substation, and its annual taxes and land use fees are also about 150,000 US dollars.

BAIC also revealed to the media that the construction cost of a substation is nearly 10 million yuan, and the cost of battery reserves reaches 3.22 million yuan.

According to CITIC Securities estimates, the average daily profit and loss of a single station of passenger car replacement power stations is about 60 times, while the average profit and loss of a single station of commercial vehicles is about 24 times.

When talking about the current development problems, Ruilan Automobile told reporters that specifically, whether the power exchange business can reach a sufficient scale to support the sustainable development of the power exchange ecology is also a challenge facing the entire industry.

Li Shufu proposed in the proposal that at present, limited by the versatility of cross-brand, multi-model, power exchange platform and device technology, power exchange battery pack communication protocol, electrical connector technology, etc., a substation can only serve a single vehicle brand or even a single model, resulting in the increasing demand for station construction and the contradiction between limited land and power resources is further highlighted.

Li Shufu also pointed out that the low degree of standardization of the replacement battery also restricts multiple brand models from sharing the same substation, delaying the development process of the substation. The adaptation of the power exchange mode requires car companies and battery companies to jointly promote, if there is no standard to promote, the car company brand will still use different power exchange interfaces, can not complete the adaptation.

How to commercialize

"If we want to promote the power exchange model on a large scale, sharing power exchange facilities will be an inevitable trend." Liu Kai, director of the Technology and Certification Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, said.

The shared power exchange facilities need a unified standard in the industry, and at present, all parties involved in the power exchange industry have launched a battle for the right to speak in the formulation of standards.

In January this year, when CATL released the power exchange brand EVOGO, it also launched the battery "Chocolate Battery Change Block", which was developed and mass-produced for the realization of shared power exchange. A single battery can provide an endurance of about 200 kilometers, and can adapt to the models developed by the pure electric platform that are 80% of the world's company that have been listed and will be listed in the next 3 years, with a certain degree of "universality".

GCL Energy, a replacement power station manufacturer, said that it is jointly developing battery packs with automakers and battery factories, that is, shared battery packs, and one battery pack can be compatible with more than three models, and it is planned to continue to expand in the later stage.

Tong Zongqi, director of the Information Department of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, told the first financial reporter that vehicle companies are grasping a certain right to speak through the formation of "battery banks" and the sales of their own brand vehicles.

In Tong Zongqi's view, it is more difficult to unify the power exchange industry into a standard, and it is more likely that there will be 2 to 3 standards in the future, such as a standard for Weilai, a standard for Aodong, and another standard for the Ningde era. Taking smart phones as an example, the current operating system, charging interface, etc. also have two or three different standards, which can coexist.

Li Shufu also put forward a similar point of view, which suggested in the proposal to promote the standardization of the software and hardware protocol of the power exchange interface, and preset 2 to 3 technologically advanced interface forms to formulate recommended standards. In addition, Li Shufu also suggested promoting the standardization of battery packs, so that battery packs can be truly interchanged between different car companies, different power stations, and different users.

As for who will win the final standard-setting battle, Tong Zongqi pointed out to reporters that it still depends on the speed and strength of the commercialization of each company, which is determined by the market.

From the current power exchange scenario, divided into To C (consumer side) and To B (commercial operation) two, Tong Zongqi said that whether from the standard formulation, application scenarios or business model, the latter will promote faster speed, especially in the field of heavy truck power exchange.

Tong Zongqi pointed out that heavy trucks have just been needed for electricity replacement, and the national policy is supported, and 3 of the 11 pilot cities identified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology are heavy truck characteristic cities, including Yibin, Tangshan and Baotou.

A commercial vehicle industry insider also told the first financial reporter that the mileage of electric heavy trucks is generally more than 300 kilometers, and the actual use may be less, and the operation of the heavy truck transportation route is basically fixed, the investment cost of laying substations along the line is relatively low, the technology is not complicated, and the short-distance heavy truck transportation in fixed scenarios such as ports, mines, etc. is even more so, so the feasibility of landing is very high.

In January this year, the first "big move" after the official entry into the power exchange, NINGDE times also aimed at the heavy truck replacement industry, and it and Sany Heavy Industry jointly landed the Fujian Province Heavy Truck Application Demonstration Project, and officially put into operation the country's first electric heavy truck trunk line - Funing Trunk Line.

In terms of profit model, power exchange in commercial operation scenarios is also ahead. The relevant person in charge of GCL Energy has said that at present, the company has achieved profitability in some operating scenarios such as operating vehicles and pure electric trucks.

In addition, Tong Zongqi analyzed that in the field of passenger car replacement, taxis and online car-hailing vehicles do not have high requirements for vehicle differentiation, and battery packs can better form a unified standard, which will also be faster than the individual-oriented power exchange scene. The power exchange of To C will be more of an application of some people in special scenarios, as a supplementary energy replenishment mode for charging.