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Recently, the annual top 100 Chinese electric vehicles in the field of new energy vehicles will open in a low-key manner at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Affected by the epidemic, many guests did not come to the scene, but switched to the form of online speech and live broadcast, which unexpectedly made the forum pay a lot more attention.
According to the official introduction, this year's 100-person forum with the theme of "Greeting a New Stage of Market-oriented Development of New Energy Vehicles" held 14 conference activities during the 3-day meeting, and conducted in-depth discussions on topics related to the policy adjustment of the new stage of the market-oriented development of new energy vehicles, international cooperation and policy coordination under the goal of carbon neutrality, new directions of market and consumption, coordinated development of transportation and energy infrastructure, sustainable development of commercial vehicles, multi-scenario application of hydrogen energy industry, industrialization of next-generation power batteries, and industrial investment and innovation.
I looked at the topics discussed in this year's 100 forums -
"International Forum: Automotive, Transport, Energy Transition and International Cooperation in Carbon Neutral Processes",
"High-level Forum: Welcoming a New Stage of Market-oriented Development of New Energy Vehicles",
"Sino-US Transportation Carbon Neutral High-end Roundtable",
"Council and Industry Situation Seminar: Promoting the Accelerated Development of New Energy Vehicles",
"The 6th Global Electric Vehicle Development and Policy Roundtable: Global New Energy Vehicle Industry Chain, Supply Chain Coordinated Development and Policy Mechanism" (Closed Door Meeting),
"Dual Intelligence Forum: Promoting the Coordinated Development of Smart Cars and Smart Cities",
"New Generation Automotive Market and Consumption Forum: Leading the New Direction of New Energy and Intelligent Automobile Market and Consumption",
"Power Battery Forum: The Road to Next-Generation Battery Industrialization",
"Forum on the Coordinated Development of New Transport Energy Infrastructure: Collaborative Planning and Sustainable Operation of New Transport and Energy Infrastructure",
"Global Smart Car Frontier Summit: New Strengths and New Forces in the Development of Smart Cars",
"Commercial Vehicle Sustainability Forum: Commercial Vehicle Electrification and Intelligent Development Path",
"Hydrogen Energy Industry Forum: Opening Scale Demonstration - 'Double Carbon' Drives Hydrogen Energy Industry To Accelerate",
"Intelligent Electric Vehicle Aftermarket Forum: Opportunities and Challenges of Intelligent Electric Vehicle Aftermarket",
"New Energy Intelligent Vehicle Investment and Innovation Forum: Investment and Financing Strategies of New Energy and Intelligent Automobile Industry under Multi-level Capital Market"......
These topics are very large and valuable, and it can be seen that the organizing committee hopes to play a top-level design role in the future development of the industry through the discussion of these topics. For example, topics such as automobiles and transportation, automobiles and smart cities, and hydrogen energy are very forward-looking, and it is also the highest level of forums that are likely to give answers and the direction of industry development.
However, for the observers on the front line of the industry and the majority of consumers, more concerned is actually the discussion of practical problems, and I hope that the hundred people of electric vehicles will gather the industry's top leading experts and car circle bigwigs in this event, and can discuss effective solutions to the industry's dilemma.
For example, in the forum of "Council and Industry Situation Seminar: Promoting the Accelerated Development of New Energy Vehicles", we hope to see more about how to coordinate and solve the phenomenon of inversion of the cost of new energy models brought about by the rise in the price of chips and raw materials, or increase the research and development of battery technology, promote the construction of domestic DC fast charging infrastructure, and solve the battery life problems that users care about.
It is not that it is not good to imagine "poetry and far away", but to say that more landed and more specific topics can have a better role in promoting the current and upcoming problems of new energy vehicles. For the guests who spoke, "talking about problems" is always more concerned and more valuable than "talking about achievements".
How to deal with the rise in raw material prices?
The problem of "rising raw materials" has attracted much attention from the industry in the second half of last year, but the whole outbreak is at the beginning of this year, under the influence of multiple reasons such as tight chip supply and new energy price subsidies, many new energy companies cannot withstand cost pressure, and finally choose to raise the price and are widely discussed by the public.
Of course, the rise in raw material prices is caused by multiple reasons in a complex situation, such as the instability of the global industrial chain, supply chain and raw material transportation brought about by the War between Russia and Ukraine, the influx of many traditional car companies into the new energy vehicle market, resulting in an imbalance between supply and demand of raw materials in the market, and the global epidemic.
Therefore, in order to solve the rise in raw materials, we must rely on macro-control at the national level.
For example, when Gu Huinan, general manager of GAC New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., delivered a speech at the "New Generation Automobile Market and Consumption" forum, he called for "hoping that the competent authorities can introduce relevant policies to regulate the control of the price of raw material resources upstream of electric vehicles and prevent upstream resources from being excessively monopolized."
At the same time, he also proposed that "it is recommended that in the balance of power batteries and energy storage batteries, the supply of power batteries can be prioritized" and "it is recommended that new energy subsidy policies in 2023 and beyond can be introduced in advance to facilitate enterprises to plan in advance".
In this regard, Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, made it clear at the forum that the current problem of sharp price increases in power battery raw materials requires great attention, serious study and solution, will moderately accelerate the progress of domestic resource development, resolutely crack down on unfair competition such as hoarding, speculation and speculation, and guide upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to strengthen collaboration, win-win development, and promote the return of key raw material prices to rationality.
Wan Gang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, also said that for the new energy automobile industry, to improve the supply level of battery materials, it is necessary to focus on resource mining and smelting, battery technology research and development innovation and recycling system construction. At the same time, he said that the raw material trading market such as lithium and nickel should be managed, and international logistics channels should be smoothed to ensure the global supply of power battery materials.
Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is more objective, saying, "Hoarding and making ill-gotten gains must be cracked down, but no one can stop the trend of rising international bulk raw material prices. ”
He said that at present, battery factories are generally rising prices, the whole vehicle began to have a trend of price increases, which is inevitable, the price of upstream raw materials can not be controlled will inevitably be transmitted to the downstream, the enterprise affordability of higher pricing will be stronger, and the pressure of enterprises that compete at low prices will be greater.
But at the same time, he also found that "the price affordability of the new forces of car manufacturing is stronger, and the traditional car companies are developing towards new energy, because they are moving from the low end of the value chain to the middle and high end, and the price affordability is a little worse." ”
Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, also stressed that it is necessary to consolidate the advantages of lithium-ion battery technology and industry, accelerate the development of new battery technologies such as sodium ion, cobalt-free, solid-state batteries, and fuel cells, promote the diversification of battery technology and materials, build and improve the power battery recycling system, and effectively alleviate the contradiction in the supply of scarce metal resources such as rare earths.
That is to say, the government can only control the allocation of industry resources from the macro level, but how to deal with the normal changes in the price of international bulk raw materials is a problem that enterprises need to solve, such as strengthening battery technology, building power recovery systems and so on.
As Miao Wei said in response to the industry's "lack of core and less soul", the car specification chip and operating system have always been short boards, and in the past, automobile factories handed these over to first-level suppliers. "Nowadays, there are already foreign auto factories investing in TSMC, and if they want production capacity, our auto factories will only call there."
Miao Wei's speech was brushed in the circle of friends, which shows that everyone is actually willing to hear this kind of "sharp" voice, rather than blindly avoiding the problem, whitewashing taiping, and saying some official words and clichés of "hello and I am good to everyone".
It is not difficult to see that for the problem of rising prices of chips and raw materials, it cannot only rely on one party to make decisions, and the government and enterprises must exert efforts at the same time to alleviate it faster.
At this highest level conference in the field of new energy, it would be valuable if this question could explore more effective solutions and concrete measures on how to coordinate.
How to further solve the battery life anxiety?
Delving into new battery technology can, on the one hand, cope with the cost pressure brought about by the rise of upstream raw materials, on the other hand, it can also alleviate the current user anxiety about the endurance of pure electric models.
At the high-level forum with the theme of "Greeting the New Stage of Market-oriented Development of New Energy Vehicles", Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that the National Development and Reform Commission will study and formulate policies and measures to promote the development of the power battery industry with relevant departments to promote the continuous improvement of industrial competitiveness.
At the same time, he also called on the industry to actively explore new models such as vehicle-to-electricity separation, combination of charging and replacing electricity, and flexible battery configuration, to create an innovative ecology for industrial integration and development, and to take innovation as the driving force to continuously improve the level of industrial development.
At the scene, many companies also released the latest research results.
For example, Wang Chao, president of Huawei's digital energy intelligent electric product line, said that in the next few years, Huawei will launch a full-stack platform solution based on a 1,000-volt high-voltage platform that can quickly charge 200 kilometers of battery life in 7.5 minutes or even 5 minutes.
Li Hong, chief scientist and founder of Weilan New Energy, also revealed that Weilan New Energy is cooperating with Weilai Automobile to launch a mixed solid-liquid electrolyte battery with a single charge range of 1000 kilometers based on et7 models, with a battery pack of 150 kWh and an energy density of 360Wh/kg, and is expected to start mass production at the end of this year or the first half of next year.
Zhang Yao, vice president of Sunwoda, said that the beV super fast charging battery range produced by Sunwoda at the end of this year can reach 700 kilometers, and the range of 10 minutes of charging can reach 400 kilometers, and there is no limit to the number of fast charging, and it can also achieve no fire and no heat spread.
In addition to the iterative upgrading of battery technology, infrastructure construction such as charging piles and power stations is also the focus of current user attention.
Wang Kai, president of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, revealed that according to statistics, the average density of public charging piles in major cities across the country in 2021 is almost 17.3 units /square kilometer, but the average pile utilization rate of public piles in most cities is less than 50%, and the average time utilization rate of public piles in most cities is less than 10%.
The release of the annual report on charging piles last year also revealed this problem, and the utilization rate of many charging piles in China is not high, including time utilization rate and total utilization rate. To this end, the construction of charging piles, including distribution, density, and use, needs to be greatly improved. At the same time, Wang Kai also suggested that the proportion of DC fast charging facilities and THE proportion of DC public piles should be increased in the construction of charging piles.
At present, including Weilai, Xiaopeng, Extreme Krypton, Tesla, and Volkswagen have built superchargering stations in China. Among them, WEILAI has built 714 supercharge stations and 3982 supercharge piles in many provinces and cities in China, respectively, according to Li Bin, the owners of many brother enterprises often use Weilai's supercharge stations to charge.
It is worth noting that the ideal of the powertrain system that has been focusing on range extenders has also disclosed its plan to develop a pure electric supercharge and replenishment system.
According to Sun Guangmin, vice president of Ideal Automobile, ideal automobile is currently developing a 480-kilowatt supercharging platform, which includes a variable voltage platform of more than 850 volts for the whole vehicle, including 4C batteries, including an electric drive system based on silicon carbide, and also includes charging equipment with more than 480 kilowatts that can flexibly distribute power, as well as the overall thermal management system technology and products for vehicles and piles.
He said that he hopes that by 2025, Ideal Auto can build more than 3,000 super fast charging stations in the country, establish a fast charging network of "ten vertical and ten horizontal and two rings" highways, and access 36 national highways, covering 90% of the national highway mileage.
Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Weilai, has previously used the analogy of "Cold Trumpet Bird", saying that cold trumpet birds do not build nests when winter comes, and they always feel that there is a place to hide. "If companies don't lay out their own charging piles, they always feel that there is a place to use, but in the long run, it is a lack of strategic security."
All auto companies that are interested in the long-term development of electric vehicles should accelerate the construction of their own charging and replacing facilities, but at the same time, the national and industry levels should also have a longer-term planning and layout, how to improve the frequency of use of public piles, reduce charging anxiety and mileage anxiety, in order to truly contribute to the long-term sustainable development of the industry.
epilogue
Last year, Academician Ouyang Minggao said at the meeting of 100 people: "If one person says that it can run 1000km, and can be charged in a few minutes, and it is also particularly safe, and the cost is particularly low, then everyone should not believe it, because this is impossible at present." ”
A year flies by. Until now, the technology hasn't really taken shape. According to Wu Kai, chief scientist of the CATL era, at the forum of the 100 Electric Vehicles Conference, the heatless diffusion battery technology with a battery life of 1000km and higher specific energy in the NINGDE era will not be mass-produced until 2023.
Perhaps as Wan Gang, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, said in his speech: "While seeing the achievements, we are still facing great challenges and opportunities. ”
Wan Gang pointed out that the technical level of new energy vehicles in the mainland has been significantly improved, the core technology of key components has been raised to a higher level, and the innovation of power and electrical architecture has promoted the double improvement of safety and efficiency, but the current new energy vehicle market is still facing huge challenges and opportunities.
These problems include the safety of the industrial chain and industrial chain; the actual safety problems of intelligent networked cars and the realization of the national "double carbon" strategy. Only by coordinating development and safety, continuing to promote scientific and technological innovation, strengthening policy coordination, consolidating the foundation of industrial development, and building a new pattern of stability and security of the industrial chain and supply chain can we comprehensively promote the comprehensive market-oriented development of new energy vehicles, make positive contributions to the transformation and upgrading of the automobile industry, and achieve the goal of "double carbon".