At present, the biggest problem facing the tram is probably to choose to charge or change the power, charging is the battery of the tram is out of power, find the charging station for charging, it sounds very convenient, but there is an inappropriate place, that is, the charging process, the charging time of the electric vehicle is too long to become an obstacle to the progress of the electric vehicle; the concept of power exchange is completely different, it is a bit like the previous removable battery mobile phone, when your car is out of power, you find a replacement station, remove the battery, replace the fully charged battery can go.
Charging and power exchange have their own advantages, can not say which is absolutely good, and in the face of the choice of charging or power exchange, each car company has its own choice.
Like Tesla, it has directly established its own supercharger pile, but not all companies are Tesla, such as Weilai, which is full of insistence on changing electricity. In January this year, NIO opened its first substation in Norway and plans to install another 20 substations in the country.
So far, NIO has built 868 substations in China, and NIO also said that the number of times customers have replaced batteries has reached 760 times. In fact, as far as the Chinese market is concerned, the Chinese government is more supportive of power exchange technology and more encourages car companies to use power exchange.
On April 6, Weilai also said that it is willing to share the power exchange platform technology with other automakers, which can improve the utilization rate of the replacement power station, thereby improving cost-effectiveness, but the project is still under negotiation, so it cannot reveal more information.
Although the power exchange technology has certain advantages compared with charging technology, such as fast speed, do not have to wait for the battery from 0 to full of this process, but there are also some disadvantages, that is, the cost of installing a replacement power station is high, such as the cost of establishing a replacement power station in China requires 772,000 US dollars, if you want to fully popularize the power station, then this will be a big cost, so Weilai chooses to share the power exchange technology is also a feasible solution.
How fast is WEILAI's power exchange technology?
It takes only 5 minutes to replace the new battery, just like the time it takes for the fuel car to go to the gas station to charge it when it runs out of gas, and it is difficult not to be heartwarming.
Although Weilai did not reveal too much news, but everyone's sense of smell is also very sensitive, according to reports, one of The potential customers of Weilai may be Geely's Lotus Technology, because Weilai has invested in the company through its venture capital department.
NIO will use power exchange technology as a unique selling point for its high-end SUVs and upcoming sedan series, in fact, this is indeed very effective, when NIO launched the ES8 SUV in Norway, basically all customers chose to rent batteries separately, because then you can use the power exchange technology. Customers have two free power exchanges per month, and there are also 100 kW and 75 kW batteries to choose from, there are currently only 100 kW batteries, but 75 kW batteries will be available this year.
Weilai also believes that the reason why the European market has not fully accepted trams is because of the inadequacy of power stations and the waste of charging time, and the promotion of power exchange technology into Europe will have the opportunity to win the right to speak in the European market.
But this is more for the charging of car companies, such as Tesla, it is equivalent to Tesla to take out its super charging station for public use, certainly will not be willing, will also cause a certain impact on these charging car companies, and even affect their original business model, so the competition between charging and replacing will continue to intensify.