Solve the "difficulty of replenishing electricity" Car companies and battery manufacturers seize the power exchange market

With the gradual increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the industry's attention to "power replenishment" is also increasing, and the demand for the power exchange market in the private car field is gradually increasing. Based on the high market demand, car companies and battery manufacturers have successively engaged in the power replacement business.

After experiencing difficult charging problems such as "a difficult thing to find" on holiday travel, solving charging anxiety through fast charging and power replacement has become the focus of new energy vehicle sales. Compared with half an hour of full power, 1 minute rapid power replacement is becoming a new field for new energy car owners to try early, and it has also become an important guarantee for the increase in sales of new energy vehicles.

"China Business Daily" reporter learned that at present, GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group, Geely Automobile, Weilai Automobile and other car companies have laid out the power exchange business, or launched power exchange models, or intend to explore the power exchange operation mode. At the same time, battery manufacturer Ningde Times also released a power exchange service brand.

It is true that behind the major manufacturers competing to enter the power exchange market, the development of the new energy vehicle power exchange business is still in its infancy, including announcement management, industry standards, business models and other aspects there are still many problems to be solved.

However, in the practice of the "double carbon" goal, the power exchange field is expected to be profitable with the expansion of scale, and the new energy vehicles will be promoted to create a closed loop of the industrial chain.

Car companies layout the field of power exchange

"GAC Group has begun to launch power exchanges on various car series two years ago, and the earliest launch of power exchanges was in the taxi market. The next step is to launch in the family car market, the current overall planning, GAC Group is in accordance with the comprehensive replacement of the layout, that is, each model must have a replacement model, and the current battery unified type. At the 2021 performance conference of GAC Group, Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said this about the power exchange business.

In fact, this is not the first time that Feng Xingya has advocated the development of the power exchange business. At the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show and the 2022 Guangzhou Municipal People's Congress, Feng Xingya expressed his opinions on issues such as standards related to the power exchange model. In Feng Xingya's view, power exchange in large cities, especially in super-large cities, is an important solution to the "difficulty of power replenishment".

Taking a new energy vehicle with a cruising range of 300 kilometers as an example, the DC charging pile generally needs half an hour to be fully charged, but in the case of peak holiday travel and winter mileage shrinkage, charging time, charging frequency and other charging difficulties are exposed. This situation is especially obvious for taxis, ride-hailing and other operating vehicles.

Wang Liang (pseudonym), an online ride-hailing driver, told reporters that his online car is leased from the online car company, and he needs to charge at least once a day on weekdays, if he encounters a large order such as airport or cross-city transfer, it will become a big problem to find charging piles on the road. "The most embarrassing time is that there are only 2 kilometers left from the charging pile, but the car can't drive."

For operating car owners like Wang Liang, the power exchange mode is exactly what they urgently need. The reporter noticed that Aodong New Energy, which has focused on the field of power exchange for many years, has achieved a 20-second extreme power change at the 2020 Guangzhou Auto Show. The rapid power exchange makes the group of online ride-hailing cars, taxis and other groups where the time cost is particularly important shine. After the charging anxiety spread to the field of private cars, car companies also began to expand the scope of application of speed power exchange.

In order to implement the power exchange model, at the end of March, GAC Group deliberated and passed the "Proposal on the Establishment of GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd.", and GAC Group and Aian will jointly invest in the establishment of GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. (tentative name), with a total investment of 4.96 billion yuan.

It is reported that GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. (tentative name) will focus on the national "double carbon" strategic goal, build a charging and storage energy supply ecology and battery recycling ecology, build a smart and efficient energy cloud platform, and promote the research of energy storage system technology, "car-station-network" collaborative interaction of intelligent charging and replacement service technology and product development and application.

Like Feng Xingya, he pays attention to the development of the field of power exchange, and li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, and Zhou Fugeng, chairman of Jianghuai Group. At the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2022, Li Shufu proposed to accelerate the clarification of the relevant provisions on the construction, land and construction approval of the substation and incorporate them into the national market management standard system; Zhou Fugeng proposed to accelerate the construction of new energy truck charging and replacement infrastructure for new energy commercial vehicles, and give priority to improving the high-frequency use scenarios of new energy trucks.

Battery manufacturers off the power exchange business

The demand for the power exchange market is expanding, and the potential market size is not only moving for car companies, but also for battery manufacturers. In January 2022, Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, released the power exchange service brand EVOGO and the combined power exchange overall solution composed of three major products: "power exchange block, power station replacement and App". Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, said that the EVOGO power exchange service will be launched in 10 cities in the first batch.

According to the introduction of the Ningde era, the "chocolate power exchange block" is a battery specially developed and mass-produced for the realization of shared power exchange, with a weight energy density of more than 160Wh/kg and a volume energy density of more than 325Wh/L, a single battery can provide an endurance of about 200 kilometers, and can be adapted to 80% of the pure electric platform developed on the global market and to be listed in the next 3 years.

In terms of collocation, consumers can arbitrarily choose one or more batteries when changing the battery, flexibly matching the needs of different mileages. In addition, the "chocolate changer block" adopts wireless BMS technology, and only has a high-voltage positive and negative interface on the outside, which greatly improves the reliability of the plugged and unplugged components.

The "chocolate exchange block" focuses on the current standardization of power exchange that plagues the field of power exchange. The adaptation of batteries to models is a common difficulty in the replacement market. In the era of various new energy models, power exchange interfaces, power stations, and battery packs are particularly important to promote the standardization and generalization of power exchange modes. However, at present, the generalization and standardization of the generalization and standardization of the cooperative supply relationship between the battery manufacturers and the car companies are somewhat difficult.

Li Shufu mentioned in the proposal of the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2022 that 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. The low degree of standardization of batteries also restricts multiple brand models from sharing the same power station, which delays the development process of power station replacement. The adaptation of the power exchange mode requires car companies and battery companies to jointly promote, if there is no standard promotion, the car company brands will still use different power exchange interfaces, can not complete the adaptation.

In addition, the construction and operating costs of the substation are not cheap. The construction of the substation is related to the relevant procedures such as land and construction approval, and the floor space of the substation has the most direct impact on the construction cost. In the above-mentioned power exchange scheme proposed in the Ningde era, its substation has the characteristics of small land, fast circulation and large capacity. Each standard station only needs three parking spaces, a single block can be exchanged for about 1 minute, and 48 power exchange blocks can be stored in the station.

In addition, the amortization cost of fixed asset investment in the replacement power station, daily maintenance and repair costs are quite expensive. The reporter learned that the single station equipment of the substation is about 2.6 million yuan, and it will cost 2.5 million yuan according to the calculation of 60 batteries, and the cost of the single station of the substation is about 6 million yuan.

Business models to be broken

In the development of the power exchange model, government subsidies and policy support have always been non-negligible. The "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" requires the promotion of scientific layout and accelerated construction of infrastructure such as charging and replacing. The series of group standards of the "Construction Code for Electric Passenger Vehicle Sharing and Replacement Power Stations" has taken an important step in the standardization of power exchange.

In the current business model of realizing power exchange services, there are roughly three kinds, one of which is that car companies cooperate with power exchange operators to build, operate and maintain power exchange power stations and power exchange packages by power exchange operators. In this process, the power exchange operator plays a role in undertaking the needs of customers such as B-end car companies and provides power exchange services for the C-end car owners. Among them, the representative is Aodong New Energy and other enterprises.

At the 8th China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum 2022 "Cloud Forum", Yang Ye, co-founder of Aodong New Energy, said: "In terms of business model, Aodong New Energy's substation mainly makes a profit by providing power exchange operation services. In the operation mode of Aodong power exchange, a city policy support is in place, the ratio of stations is reasonable, and it is continuously and effectively operated, and generally breakeven will be achieved in 3 to 4 years. ”

Factors such as large input costs and long revenue cycles have become the threshold for the current field of power exchange. This has also led to the dependence of some enterprises on subsidies. "At present, there are still subsidies for electric vehicles in some places, and financing from the capital market is also a kind of subsidy." Dr. Shi Jie of the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told reporters that most enterprises are fighting for finance, while few are efficient in operation, and even fewer companies with technological or organizational breakthroughs.

After breaking through the subsidy barrier, how the power exchange enterprises will survive is still a topic of exploration in the industry. In the current business model, in addition to the cooperation between car companies and power exchange operators, the second is that car companies do their own vehicle-electricity separation business, such as Weilai Automobile. The third is that battery manufacturers do power replacement blocks, such as the Ningde era.

Careful observation is not difficult to find that the current power exchange business is based on the needs of the market to become an auxiliary tool for the sales of new energy vehicles. In other words, the significance of power exchange is to sell cars better and solve consumers' worries. Therefore, at present, whether it is a car company or a battery manufacturer entering the power exchange business, in addition to subsidies, an important source of revenue is the sales performance of new energy vehicles, or the supply interest chain derived from it.

In the future, the significance of the substation is also in the energy storage discharge, recycling business, etc., with the gradual increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the market size of the substation will usher in a new situation. At that time, the replacement power station will also open up a new profit model.