In 1998, China's first electric vehicle was born.
Ma Guilong, a professor at Tsinghua University, and He Zuoxiu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, quickly suggested the formulation of national standards, and the following year, the national standard for electric bicycles was determined to be within 20 kilometers per hour, and the weight of the vehicle did not exceed 40 kilograms.
At that time, it was widely believed that such regulations gave electric vehicles the label of toy color, until SARS in 2003, people felt that public transportation was easy to spread the virus, so the electric vehicle market began to rise, in 2010, the number of electric vehicles in China has reached 120 million.
In addition, data show that the production and manufacture of electric vehicles is considerable profits, only in the first half of 2020, China's electric bicycle manufacturers exceeded 5,000, with an output of more than 11.7 million.
15 years on, with the increase in economic income and social productivity, bicycles are no longer the travel choice of most people, and electric vehicles are forming their own kingdom.
With the endurance becoming the biggest shackle in the electric bicycle market, the two-wheeled travel field has begun to enter a new round of market competition.
Among them, in order to solve the pain points of endurance through the power exchange mode, many small Ha power exchange, tower power change, lithium power exchange and many other power cabinet brands are also rising.
First, the new blue ocean with a scale of 300 billion yuan
In fact, as early as 2016, Xiaoha power exchange, e power exchange, easy to ride power exchange and other enterprises have begun to enter the electric two-wheeler power exchange market.
However, in the initial electric bicycle market, the power exchange model was not popular, and consumers relied more on community charging piles with high cost performance and low travel cost to maintain travel.
However, there is also a fatal drawback of the charging pile, that is, the stock of community charging piles and community electric bicycles has not formed a 1:1 ratio, and there are also pain points that the charging time is too long.
With the development of the domestic shared motorcycle industry and the increasingly prominent demand for battery life in the takeaway delivery industry, the power exchange mode with flexibility and stability is more popular than the charging mode.
Under the rapid development of the electric two-wheeler replacement market, the power exchange market has attracted a large number of enterprise layouts.
At present, there are a number of electric bicycle intelligent replacement cabinet brands in Jinan, in addition to Xiaoha power exchange and e power exchange, there are Feige power change, this lithium power change, timely power change and so on.
These smart power exchange cabinets are mainly distributed in the street corners and roadsides near the popular business circles, a small number of distributions in residential communities, due to the main "replacement charge", and the so-called 3-10 seconds can be replaced, which greatly solves the charging and battery life problems of electric bicycles.
To some extent, the number of electric two-wheelers in the mainland has reached 300 million, conservatively calculating that the number of daily charging is 100 million times, the number of charges in a year reaches 36.5 billion charges, and the revenue per charge is about 3 yuan, and the power exchange industry is a market size of about 109.5 billion yuan, but in fact, many electric two-wheeler owners think that the cost of power exchange is high or the product type does not match, and do not choose the power exchange business.
Assuming that the future penetration rate of power exchange is 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%, 35%, 40% and 50%, according to the estimate of Gaohe Investment Research Center, the market size of the electric two-wheeler replacement industry can reach 5.475 billion yuan, 10.95 billion yuan, 16.425 billion yuan, 21.9 billion yuan, 27.325 billion yuan, 32.85 billion yuan, 38.325 billion yuan, 43.8 billion yuan, 49.275 billion yuan and 54.75 billion yuan, respectively.
At present, the field of shared electric vehicles and instant delivery is the main market for the electric two-wheeler exchange industry.
With the implementation of the new national standard for electric two-wheelers and the continuous development of lithium battery technology, the future electric two-wheeler replacement industry is expected to open up the C-end market.
According to the forecast of Gaohe Investment Center, by 2025, the market size of the electric two-wheeler replacement industry is expected to reach 32.85 billion yuan.
However, in the process of completely opening up the market, the replacement cabinet still needs to face challenges from all aspects of the market.
Second, it is difficult for brands to "benefit" users
For the replacement cabinet brand, covering different groups of users must be the first priority, but at present this does not seem realistic.
First of all, the package price of most brand change cabinets is not cheap.
Among them, the tower power exchange, this lithium power exchange and other brands monthly package package 300 yuan, unlimited number of charge and replacement times; e power exchange is divided into deposit and package, single battery deposit 500, double battery 1000, monthly rental package 68 yuan power exchange times 20 times, 128 yuan power exchange times 30 times; and Xiao Ha power exchange In addition to the monthly 299 yuan unlimited power exchange package, it also launched a package of 99 yuan and 20 power exchanges.
From the price point of view, the price of almost all brands of power cabinets is still not as cost-effective as charging piles for some citizens.
Of course, brand owners can also attract users through price reductions and the introduction of more price-competitive packages, but it should be noted that taking 30 benchmark power exchange brands as an example, at the critical moment of competing for market share, if a brand reduces prices, it is very likely to trigger a collective price reduction of competitors, thus forcing the industry into a vicious circle of price wars.
This, at least for now, is not something that most brands want to see.
The reason is very simple, the power exchange model is a heavy asset investment, most of the current properties in accordance with the commercial model to charge electricity prices and site rent, so that the point operating costs are much higher than the depreciation costs, the operating enterprises to maintain the balance of higher pricing, resulting in limited acceptance of residents.
Once the price is reduced, the brand will not only face a price war, but also a large loss.
Secondly, the power exchange of the electric two-wheeler power exchange industry adopts the standardized lithium battery module + power cabinet + mobile phone APP + remote data platform mode, and the initial construction cost also affects the popularity of the power cabinet to a certain extent.
The initial construction of the electric two-wheeler power exchange industry requires the establishment of power cabinets in many places and the preparation of a large number of lithium batteries, and the price of lithium batteries is not cheap, which has created the characteristics of extremely high construction costs in the early stage of the industry, and the early expansion requires a lot of capital investment.
And the electric two-wheeler power exchange industry can only provide lithium battery replacement services for specific models, which cannot cover a large number of C-end individual users, which is not conducive to the development of the industry.
In addition, most of the models of electric vehicles are not uniform, and the degree of battery standardization is low.
At present, the mainland electric two-wheeler is still in the stock replacement stage, many electric vehicle factories have previously developed models that do not fully meet the needs of power exchange, and the plug-in interfaces required for different power exchange cabinets are not the same.
Technically, the existing car to use a battery replacement battery, the need to increase the corresponding adapter accessories, this aspect of the lack of clear industry standards; in addition, the current stage of the replacement cabinet laying density is not high, but also restricts the network promotion.
On the other hand, there is still a lack of unified normative standards in the industry, and charging and power replacement have been moved from indoor to outdoor, which essentially reduces the degree of fire hazard.
However, due to the lack of communication protocols, it is difficult to monitor and obtain battery vital signs information in real time, and the common scene faces complex working environments and the risk of wear and tear of the installation plug, and it is still impossible to fully and effectively control the risk.
It is undeniable that from the perspective of industry development, the power exchange mode has largely solved the existing charging safety problems, especially under the impetus of frequent charging fire accidents in recent years, users have a higher understanding and demand for charging safety.
At the same time, for some users of long-endurance and high-frequency electric vehicles, power exchange fundamentally solves the problem of slow charging and greatly saves time.
However, the lack of industry standards has mixed the charging and replacing industry, and the resulting battery safety problems are not few.
According to incomplete statistics, there are nearly 400 two-wheeler charging and replacing enterprises in China, including three types of power exchange enterprises based on vehicles, batteries and Internet power exchange enterprises.
This means that competition in the industry must be unavoidable.
Third, it is an opportunity, but it must also be a challenge
At present, there are more than 20 common power exchange brands on the market, and like the early competition pattern of shared charging treasures, it also belongs to the warring states melee stage.
With the implementation of the "new national standard" of electric bicycles, electric vehicles equipped with lead-acid batteries will also usher in upgrades and updates, fully entering the lithium battery era, which is undoubtedly from the user's side to promote the power exchange mode further.
However, this seemingly powerful "assist" actually gives the power exchange industry a small, but difficult to solve problem at another level.
Battery suppliers and vehicle suppliers are the upstream main body of the industrial chain of the electric two-wheeler power exchange industry.
Battery suppliers mainly include Penghui Energy, CATL and Xingheng Power, and the main vehicle suppliers are Yadi, Xinri, Tailing, Knife and Emma.
Importantly, the number of battery cells for electric two-wheeler vehicles is small, and lithium iron phosphate has advantages in life, energy density and cost performance, but its voltage platform is too low, resulting in the need to use more single cells for combination.
The ternary battery material system has high energy density, but high cost and relatively low life, and its application in the electric two-wheeler power exchange industry has gradually been replaced by lithium iron phosphate.
So the problem with lithium iron phosphate today is that once the lithium battery is combined with multiple monomer cells, it will increase in both weight and volume.
On the other hand, because there is a difference in parameters such as voltage platform, constant current rate, internal resistance, cycle life and so on between the cells, when the cells form a battery, if the cell consistency of the battery pack is not good, the parameter difference is large, and after a long time of use, this difference will gradually increase, resulting in an imbalance between the cells.
To this end, for battery suppliers, how to achieve the consistency of the attenuation trend of the same battery pack through screening and matching, and ensure that there is no problem in long-term use, is a very important topic and technology, which is the biggest obstacle to the current application.
To some extent, if the problem at the battery level is not solved, then this will not be too friendly for midstream battery replacement operators.
On the other hand, shared motorcycles mainly solve the pain points of 3-10 kilometers of travel, and after the completion of the "shuffle" of shared bicycles, shared motorcycles will become a new round of competition for several major players.
According to iResearch's forecast, the number of shared electric vehicles will exceed 8 million in 2025, and the compound growth rate from 2019 to 2025 will reach 41%. High-base users of shared bicycles (380 million in 2019) are expected to convert to shared electric vehicle users.
We can glimpse that the launch of a large number of shared electric vehicles in the future has become the object of contention between power exchange operators to a certain extent.
Of course, in the context of the power exchange becoming a new infrastructure for electric bicycles, and has strong feasibility and the introduction of policies to improve the industry system, the industry competition will be far more than this, because the B-end shared travel brand and express delivery and other service industries may have the possibility of launching a battery cabinet business.
Judging from the development of most industries in the past, similar problems such as industry competition, norms, and technology have been inevitable in various tracks, and even if they finally become the head, it is difficult to step through the link of burning money.