The most critical thing is to solve 3 problems that are not related to technology.
Text | Chen Chen
Source | Lithium Cat Lab
In the history of the development of electric vehicles, there was once an Internet celebrity company with the same name as Tesla, and its founder, Shai Agassi, was also a star like Musk.
Or maybe even Musk is a big fan of his.
In 2009, at the silicon valley index annual meeting, the Israeli man with sharp brown eyes ambitiously introduced his vision:
"You're driving an electric car on the road, and when the battery's power reserves are close to 50 percent, it automatically prompts you to recharge and takes you to the nearest BetterPlace road charging station with the on-board mobile navigation system. When the car drives into the delicate 'battery house' of the charging station, an electric hand will replace the prepared battery for your car. The new battery can support your ride of at least 160 kilometers. ”
He was the first proposer of the "power exchange concept" and also led Better Place, the original "power exchange concept" company, into a generation of Influencers, and was favored by the Renault-Nissan alliance and raised $850 million.
In early May 2013, the Israeli star entrepreneur also visited China with the israeli prime minister at the time.
However, only 20 days later, Xia Jiaxi and his dream of "changing electricity" collapsed - Better Place entered bankruptcy liquidation.
It is often used "Tesla to the left, Weilai to the right" to describe the different choices of Tesla and Weilai for the energy supplementation solution, but this is not the case:
Tesla has already crossed the river of power exchange and knows the depth.
Just after Better Place declared bankruptcy, loyal fan Musk took over the mantle of Xia Jiaxi, and also released a power exchange plan for Model S, becoming a lone brave on the road to power exchange.
However, as we all know, Tesla eventually gave up and led the industry on the road to charging.
But after many years of silence, the power change suddenly appeared in front of everyone again.
First, Weilai fired its first shot in 2020, and then the NINGDE era also officially released the power exchange plan in January this year, and announced two days ago that it had begun to be officially implemented in Xiamen.
So this time, will the end of the power exchange be the same as last time? Standing at a new crossroads, how should manufacturers choose?
01
The first death of the power exchanger
The battle between charging and swapping didn't start now, but back in 2007, when Better Place was founded.
At that time, Better Place's idea of the development model of electric vehicles was to establish a complete set of electric vehicle charging, power replacement station system and technology, so that electric vehicles can break through the battery mileage and slow charging bottleneck by replacing batteries, so as to promote electric vehicles faster.
However, under this concept, Better Place needs to have enough car companies to support it, because it does not build its own cars, but only provides customers with power exchange services.
In terms of cost, the construction cost of substations is high, including power exchange equipment, spare batteries, site lease fees and other operating costs, and the investment in each substation is in millions of yuan or more.
In order to support the normal operation of the power exchange vehicle, it is necessary to establish multiple power exchange stations to form a power exchange network, and at the same time, there must be a sufficient number of power exchange vehicles on the market to support the operation of the power exchange field station, so as to ensure that the power exchange operator can make a profit.
But only French vehicle manufacturer Renault has partnered with Better Place, and the number of vehicles is completely unable to support the operation of such an asset-heavy business model.
BetterPlace ordered 100,000 Fluence ZE electric vehicles from Renault, but only about 2,000 were sold, causing the company a huge loss.
In 2010, Better Place came to China, first reaching a cooperation agreement with Chery Automobile to develop a mass-produced version of the power exchange model application plan, and in April of the following year, it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with China Southern Power Grid on the power exchange model, and set up a substation and experience center in Guangzhou.
However, the dispute between charging and replacing electricity in the Chinese market ended with the victory of charging after the State Council issued the "Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2012-2020)".
The $850 million and the support of the Israeli prime minister did not buy Xia Jiaxi to survive, and in the end Better Place fell into this initial business model.
Just a month after the fall of Better Place, Tesla founder Musk released a "power swap technology" in the United States that can be completed in 93 seconds.
In the 3 minutes of the display of an Audi A8 fuel tank being fully charged, two Tesla Model Ss were revived with full power.
However, such a good solution is not supported by users, because the cost of a single power exchange is as high as 60-80 US dollars, and the supercharging station can charge about half of the same car in 20 minutes, without spending money.
Musk himself said of this:
"The use of the battery swap service is surprisingly low, and most car owners are still willing to choose a more widely distributed supercharger station, where they can drink coffee and rest while charging."
But the truth seems to be more than that, people don't love coffee and rest, everyone loves free cheese.
From the first attempts of Better Place and Tesla, those who have a heart may find that in the road to death before "changing the battery":
BetterPlace died in a single-link (car companies don't have enough) business model;
Tesla died in the user experience brought about by the high cost of passing on;
The domestic market has died in a policy orientation that clearly supports charging.
So now, what's changed about all of this?
Others put aside, in terms of policy, power exchange has ushered in a spring breeze.
The General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Notice on Launching the Pilot Application of the New Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Mode (hereinafter referred to as the Notice), and decided to start the pilot work of the application of the new energy vehicle power exchange mode.
There are 11 cities included in the scope of the pilot, including 8 cities with comprehensive application (Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, Sanya, Chongqing, Changchun, Hefei and Jinan), and 3 cities with heavy truck characteristics (Yibin, Tangshan and Baotou). The goal of the first batch of pilots is to promote 100,000+ vehicles and 1,000+ power stations. The pilot content includes the power exchange mode vehicle, power battery, and power exchange equipment.
02
All the links have come to the end
After smelling the policy, Weilai took the lead in firing the first shot.
In June 2020, WEILAI officially launched the BaaS (Battery as a Service) car purchase plan: the owner buys the body at a price lower than the price of the whole vehicle, and the battery adopts the rental method, the most direct benefit is that the purchased model can be obtained at a lower price, but the use of the battery requires a monthly rent fee.
However, Weilai has not been supported by car owners, and even many people have proposed to short Weilai because of the "power exchange mode".
Source: Zhihu
Later, a Weilai car owner from Nantong, Jiangsu Province, sent a "pennant" to Weilai to vent his dissatisfaction, and the content of the pennant was "wait for 1 hour, change the power for 3 minutes" Ironic words.
Later, after some media actual sports car verification, the conclusion is:
Places with low utilization rates of substations do not need to queue, and places with high utilization rates do have to queue for an hour or more.
From the perspective of the official plan, from 2022 to 2025, WEILAI will add 600 new power stations per year in the Chinese market; by the end of 2025, the global total number of Weilai power stations will exceed 4,000, of which about 1,000 are in the market outside China. In terms of high-speed power stations, the number of high-speed substations at the end of 2021 will be more than twice as large as at the beginning of the year.
Previously, Weilai also proposed the concept of "electric zone house", which is defined as a residence within 3 kilometers of the substation. By 2025, NIO aims to let 90% of users live in the electricity district.
Now, more and more companies have decided to change power: Geely and BAIC have also begun to build their own power stations.
After the car companies began to act, in January this year, NINGDE times also began its own "power exchange" road - the launch of the chocolate power exchange block EVOGO (Lexing power exchange), officially announced from the battery into operation.
On this point, the lithium cat has previously mentioned in the article "The Last Piece of the Puzzle of the Ningde Era":
In addition to the power exchange itself, this measure is also the layout made by the Ningde era in order to open up its own industrial chain.
In addition, GCL Energy also from the clean energy operation into the operation of the substation, its substation brand "GCL Electric Port" from October last year into operation, according to the plan, it relies on the listed company to complete a fixed increase of 5 billion, planning to build a total of 488 substations next year.
In addition to car companies and battery manufacturers, third-party substation operators have also begun to act. Led by Aodong New Energy, in the "Red Aodong Strategic Plan" released in 2021, it set the 2025 substation plan to 10,000.
Among the giants that cut into these different links, the NINGDE era chose the mode of sub-box power exchange, that is, the battery is designed as a minimized standard module, and the owner can choose different numbers of batteries according to the needs of the free combination, more flexible.
Weilai and Aodong New Energy have both chosen the whole package replacement scheme, which is simpler and faster.
Source: Orient Securities
03
Battle for key points
The power exchange mode is mainly through the centralized charging station for a large number of batteries centralized storage, centralized charging, unified distribution, and in the station for new energy vehicle battery replacement or battery charging, logistics allocation, and power exchange functions in one of the rapid power replenishment mode of new energy vehicles.
As early as 2013, Tesla has proved that the power replacement time can be comparable to the refueling time of fuel vehicles, which can greatly shorten the recharge time, increase the convenience of consumers, and alleviate consumer mileage concerns.
Therefore, the root cause of whether the power exchange can be developed in the long run is not in the technology itself. Comparing it with the data of fast charging, it can be seen that:
1. Cost
(1) Construction cost:
The investment cost of a substation ranges from about 1.5 million to 4 million yuan, including fixed asset investment, site cost leasing, personnel operation and maintenance and other costs. The cost of the first generation of WEILAI substation is 3 million+, and the cost of the second generation is 1 million+.
The ordinary fast charging pile, according to the charging power, the cost ranges from tens of thousands of yuan to hundreds of thousands. Slow-charging piles are cheaper and can usually be built within 10,000 yuan.
(2) Cost of use:
If calculated according to the current cost, at WEILAI's 180 yuan / time calculation, the endurance is 420 kilometers, equivalent to 0.42 yuan / kilometer, and BAIC is about 0.34 yuan / kilometer.
The cost of daily use of charging pile charging is about 0.25 yuan / km, which is much lower than the cost of power replacement.
2. Financial pressure
Compared with the charging pile, even if the charging fee of the replacement power station is close to twice that of the charging pile, the pressure on the manufacturer to recover the cost is still not small.
Take Weilai as an example, its early charge of 180 yuan / time, remove the cost of the battery itself, Weilai to the user to change the electricity to earn 130 yuan, in addition to the free to change the power of the seed users, the current use frequency of most of the weilai power station is not high.
According to the calculation of the Zhihu Answerer, there are 40 people per day per substation, and the profit cycle will directly exceed 3 years, which will also face the problem of lithium battery attenuation.
3. User experience
Ideally:
If the battery is fully charged, there is no need to queue, and most of the replacement stations can make the power exchange time within 5 minutes;
The charging time of fast charging piles using direct current is about 30-60 minutes (80%).
But the reality is usually bone-chilling, and the replacement station may be queued for an hour; fast charging is limited by battery capacity, charging pile power and rate limits, and may not be able to reach the rated power.
In addition to these, the biggest problem facing the substation is that the battery has not been standardized.
In contrast, due to the earlier time of charging support, the charging interface of each house has been basically unified. But the problem to change the power, it is not the same, the standard problem involved in the power exchange is very complicated.
Just think about this question a little:
If you buy a fuel car and you can only refuel at certain gas stations, there is a gas station here, but you can't give it to your car, what will be the situation in the world?
The current substation is still at this stage.
The standard of battery capacity, the size of the battery pack, the type of battery pack, and the power exchange connection are each a test.
It is known that the respondent, the automotive-grade BMS generally uses CAN communication, but the communication protocol of each manufacturer is not public and inconsistent, involving security issues and trade secrets, and it is difficult to unify all electric vehicle factories.
The current situation is that even whether the material is lithium iron phosphate or ternary lithium has not been standardized.
On the day of reunification, there is still a game problem to be solved:
In the end, the owner built the power station by himself or the battery manufacturer built the power station by himself, or handed over to a third-party operator to do it? Is it reassuring to put parameters in the hands of others?
So in general, if you want to change the power to become more acceptable, or even beyond fast charging, what you need is:
First, the policy introduces a unified battery standard.
Second, it is the commercial game of each link to reach a compromise.
Third, manufacturers and investors have to be prepared that they may not be able to recover their costs within three years.
Many manufacturers obviously do not make a desperate bet, but choose to ride on the wall and watch, after all, they have long been willing to learn from the past.
Children make choices, mature enterprises choose all: one hand is fast charging and one hand is not wrong, after all, they can also be put together as a "charging and replacing power station".
04
End
There is no doubt that no matter which route, in the end, the "user experience" must be used as the test.
In the ideal, the power exchange can better solve the long-term problem of charging difficulties, and can solve the problem of fast-charging DC acceleration battery attenuation, which should be a more optimistic technical direction.
But since the time Of Place died 9 years ago, the problem has never been technology.
The biggest difficulty in changing electricity lies in policy strength, commercial game and the ability to operate a large amount of capital.
Whether you're a fan of fast charging or a fan of battery swappers, one reality is:
From being rejected at the beginning to standing on the cusp now, the most critical issues in the power exchange are still unresolved.
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