A tough game to change the game of chess

Image source @ Visual China

Text | Explorer Deep Technology, author | Yin Taibai, Editor | Egg total

Recently, after the release of the first quarter report of 2022, the stock price of "Ning Wang" fell one after another, which attracted people's attention. As a global hegemon in the field of power batteries, the production and development of the Ningde era directly affects the huge new energy automobile industry.

After all, the quality and endurance of power batteries have always been an important factor affecting the sales of new energy vehicles. According to the survey data of Huge Arithmetic, among the reasons why consumers give up buying new energy vehicles, the endurance problem accounts for 45.3%.

However, it is not that there is no solution to the endurance problem, for example, the most once and for all solution is to improve the endurance by equipping a high-energy density power battery.

"In fact, under the existing technology system, carrying a high-energy density power battery may not be the best choice." Cao Xu, a person in the power battery industry, explained to "Tanke Deep Technology" that "the type of high-energy density power battery is mainly ternary lithium battery, and the content of nickel metal in ternary lithium batteries accounts for a relatively large proportion, although the energy density can be improved, but it will also lead to a decrease in the thermal runaway temperature and safety of the power battery, which is more likely to cause safety hazards such as spontaneous combustion." ”

A general consensus is that before the revolutionary progress of battery technology and battery materials, the solution to the endurance problem of new energy vehicles is mainly around the charging mode and power exchange mode.

Charging mode is seen as the most straightforward solution, but in the case of imperfect charging pile equipment, the power exchange mode is pushed to the front as a compromise solution.

The power exchange mode refers to the energy replenishment scheme to solve the problem of endurance by directly replacing the power battery of the new energy vehicle. The power exchange industry started in 2007 and entered a period of rapid development in 2020. According to Tianyancha data, there are currently more than 81,000 power exchange-related enterprises in China, of which 45,000 new enterprises will be added in 2021, an increase of 171.1% year-on-year, while 16,600 new enterprises will be added in 2020, an increase of 348.7% year-on-year.

The other side of the surge in the number of power exchange-related enterprises is that the power exchange industry is a 100-billion-scale track with huge market capacity. According to the research report of Orient Securities, the number of power replacement models in China is expected to reach 5 million in 2025, about 22,000 substations are landed, the operating market size is expected to touch 263.1 billion yuan, and the average annual compound growth rate from 2021 to 2025 is more than 100%.

After entering 2022, ningde times, GAC Aian and other industrial chain related parties have entered the game strongly, bringing a broader imagination space to the power exchange industry.

On April 18, the EVOGO (Lexing Power Exchange) power exchange project launched by Times Electric Service, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, was officially landed in Xiamen. The first batch of 4 express stations to start the service is expected to complete the construction and start-up of 30 express stations in Xiamen by the end of this year, when there will be at least 1 change station within every 3 kilometers of service radius.

After the start of the express station in Xiamen, the power exchange business of the Ningde era has accelerated again.

On April 27, CATL and AIWAYS Automobile launched a cooperation on the EVOGO power exchange project, and the two sides will jointly develop a combined power replacement model with Aichi's first model, U5, as the carrier, and plan to launch it to the market in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Coincidentally, GAC Aeon also announced on April 21 that its first super charging and replacing center landed in Guangzhou, and unlike the EVOGO express change station, the former integrates photovoltaic, energy storage, charging and power exchange.

According to the plan, GAC Aeon will invest in the construction of 220 super charging and replacement centers in Guangzhou this year to achieve a 3-kilometer service radius coverage, and in 2025, it will expand to 1,000 to achieve 1.5-kilometer service radius coverage.

However, although the power exchange track is crowded with the best in various fields, it is extremely difficult to implement in practice.

Whether it is New Energy Vehicle Manufacturers such as Weilai, Geely Group, BAIC New Energy, or third-party power exchange operators such as Aodong New Energy and GCL Energy, they have not been able to truly popularize the power exchange model, and they have always fought for each other and made no compromises with each other, and no one can break the long-standing deadlock in the power exchange industry.

This "game of chess" is entering a difficult game stage.

01 The electric outlet has arrived, and the forces of all sides have entered the market

Objectively speaking, the advantages of the power exchange mode are worthy of recognition.

Cao Xu told Tanke Deep Technology that at the consumer level, the power exchange mode can improve efficiency, safety and convenience, save energy replenishment time and new energy vehicle purchase costs;

At the level of new energy vehicle manufacturers, the cost of power batteries accounts for more than 40% of the cost of the whole vehicle, and the power exchange mode will further reduce the cost of the whole vehicle and eliminate the maintenance cost of the power battery;

At the level of scarce resource consumption, the power exchange mode can maximize the value of each power battery, reduce the consumption of lithium, nickel, cobalt and other metals, and is an effective way to resist the soaring cost of raw materials for power batteries.

"Many parties can benefit from the power exchange mode, and 2022 is the year when the power exchange mode is truly popularized, and the power exchange industry has ushered in the outlet." Cao Xu predicted.

This prediction is not unfounded, and the advantages and value of the power exchange model are gradually being seen by all parties in society.

Since 2021, policies to support the development of the power exchange industry have been frequently introduced, among which the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work on the Application of new Energy Vehicle Power Exchange Mode" with a wind vane significance has decided to start the pilot work of the application of new energy vehicle power exchange mode, and a total of 11 cities have been included in the scope of the pilot, with the goal of promoting more than 100,000 power exchange vehicles and more than 1,000 power stations.

In March 2022, the "2022 Automotive Standardization Work Points" clearly required that we accelerate the construction and improvement of the electric vehicle charging and replacement standard system, and promote the formulation of standards for pure electric vehicles such as on-board power exchange systems, power exchange general platforms, and power exchange battery packs.

"The policy level has successively promoted the development of the power exchange industry, which means that new energy vehicles with power exchange models are the trend of the times, but considering that the policy turn time is not long, and the commercialization of the power exchange model is still in the exploration period, the industry generally predicts that the number of new power stations will exceed 3,000 in 2022, and release nearly 10 billion yuan of market capacity." Cao Xu revealed to "Explorer Deep Technology".

Among the new car-making forces, Weilai is the most sensitive to policy orientation.

In May 2020, the replacement power station was written into the government work report for the first time as an important part of the "new infrastructure", and a month later, Weilai officially launched the BaaS (battery rental service) car purchase plan based on the power exchange model: consumers can buy naked cars that do not contain power batteries at a price lower than the price of 40,000-70,000 yuan for the whole vehicle, and the power batteries are leased, and only need to pay the rental fee every month.

The benefits of the BaaS car purchase program are obvious, such as a significant reduction in the cost of car purchase for consumers, while no longer having to worry about the life of the power battery.

But Weilai does not intend to give up this "hard bone", and the power exchange mode is still the focus of its development.

For example, Sinopec is preparing to build 5,000 charging and replacing power stations; will add a total investment of 115 billion yuan to build 4,000 substations and 228,000 sets of power batteries; Geely Group will operate 5,000 ultra-fast substations around the world and cover more than 100 core cities; Aodong New Energy will plan to land 10,000 substations...

After the forces of all parties enter the market, the development speed of the power exchange industry may greatly exceed expectations.

02 The power exchange industry faces multiple challenges

Although the power exchange industry has arrived, it still faces multiple challenges.

The first is the lack of a unified standard for power batteries. Due to the differences in the design, materials, uses and many other aspects of the power battery, the power battery in the energy density, size type are not the same, and the power battery is very different, which means that the replacement power station can only serve a single model, which is easy to cause the replacement power station resources to be idle, the operation efficiency is low, and invisibly increases the operating cost of the power station and the difficulty of large-scale application.

But no matter what type of participant, it is impossible to break the current stalemate in the power exchange industry.

Therefore, most of the power exchange models are concentrated in the range of online car-hailing, taxi and other operating vehicles, such as catheter times quickly reached cooperation with FAW Besturn after launching the overall solution of power exchange, according to the cooperation agreement, the two sides will take the lead in promoting the power exchange mode through taxis and online ride-hailing models with the help of Besturn NAT models.

Wu Bo, an analyst in the power battery industry, told "Tanke Deep Technology" that it is extremely difficult to unify power battery standards, because there is a general competitive relationship between new energy vehicle manufacturers, and the design and replacement of power batteries represent the core competitiveness to a large extent, so no one is willing to adopt competitors' solutions.

"There are as many as 145 types of power batteries, and the power exchange methods include side power exchange, sub-box power exchange, chassis power exchange, etc. Even if it is a power battery manufacturer, it is difficult to change the design ideas and standards of new energy vehicle manufacturers for power batteries." If the universal power exchange between new energy vehicle manufacturers is realized, a huge gap needs to be crossed. Wu Bo said.

Xu Hui, a practitioner in the new energy automobile industry, also expressed a similar view to "Tanke Deep Technology", which believes that although the market share of the Ningde era is high, it is still difficult to reach the height of the standard setter, and how many new energy vehicle manufacturers are willing to respond and adopt is still unknown.

The second is that the power exchange industry is difficult to make a profit. Take Better Place, an Israeli power exchange service provider that first proposed the power exchange model, as an example, as early as 2007, it put forward a concept: to establish a complete set of power exchange systems and technologies, so that new energy vehicles can solve the endurance problem and slow charging bottleneck by replacing the power battery.

The novelty of the idea won a lot of attention and support for Better Place, and Better Place quickly raised $850 million, even former Israeli President Peres stood for it.

In order to put the power exchange mode into place as soon as possible, Better Place signed a cooperation agreement with Renault for 100,000 Fluence Z.E models. Subsequently, it built its first substation in Tel Aviv, Israel. From 2009 to 2011, Better Place has successively built substations in Japan, Denmark, Australia and other countries, with a valuation of up to $2.25 billion.

However, the Fluence Z.E eventually sold just over 1400 units, and Carlos Ghosn, then CEO of Renault, even pessimistically stated that the Fluence Z.E was the last model of Renault to be designed according to the power exchange mode, which was a dead end.

The army was defeated. In 2013, Better Place had to close its california headquarters in favor of focusing on the Israeli and Danish markets, and soon after declared bankruptcy.

The main reason for the difficulty of profitability in the power exchange industry points to high input costs and low operational efficiency.

According to the calculation model of CITIC Securities Research Institute, the single station input cost of passenger car replacement power station is about 4.9 million yuan, and the single station input cost of commercial vehicle replacement power station is about 10 million yuan. The break-even point of the passenger car substation corresponds to a utilization rate of about 20%, that is, 60 vehicles per day, while the break-even point of the commercial vehicle substation corresponds to a utilization rate of about 10%, that is, 24 vehicles per day, and when the number of services per day reaches 100, the net interest rate of the two is 18% and 19%, respectively.

However, at this stage, the replacement power station obviously cannot reach the single-station utilization rate of the break-even point, taking the third-party power exchange operator Aodong New Energy as an example, its total revenue in 2018-2020 was 82.4749 million yuan, 212 million yuan and 190 million yuan, and the net loss was 186 million yuan, 162 million yuan and 249 million yuan, respectively, and the cumulative loss in three years was 597 million yuan.

"The premise of solving the difficulty of profitability is to improve the utilization rate of a single station, and improving the utilization rate of a single station requires the establishment of a unified standard with major new energy vehicle manufacturers and power battery manufacturers, but the formulation of the standard will inevitably affect the interests of all parties and the development route, so the implementation of the power exchange model will be a long and difficult process." Cao Xu concluded to "Explorer Deep Technology".

03 Who is using the swap mode at this stage?

At present, the power exchange industry is moving towards a very contradictory state: consumers are reluctant to buy power exchange models in the case of a small number of power stations and mutual non-universality, new energy vehicle manufacturers due to poor sales of power exchange models, coupled with excessive input costs and difficult to make profits, for the layout of power stations have more than enough and insufficient strength, and third-party power exchange operators in the case of not seeing a large number of market demand, do not dare to rush to large-scale layout of power stations.

However, similar contradictions may be forcibly cracked in the field of heavy trucks.

According to the terminal license plate information, in the first quarter of 2022, the sales volume of new energy heavy trucks was 4764 vehicles, an increase of 653% year-on-year, of which the sales of heavy trucks for power exchange were 2130 vehicles, a sharp increase of 4741% over the same period in 2021. In contrast, sales of rechargeable heavy-duty trucks were 2,520 units, up 398% from the same period in 2021.

Due to the large energy consumption of new energy heavy trucks and the need for long-term continuous operation, the frequency of energy replenishment is high, and the speed of energy replenishment has a huge impact on work efficiency. Compared with charging heavy trucks, it takes only 3-5 minutes to complete the energy replenishment of the heavy truck. At the same time, most of the heavy trucks for power exchange adopt the "vehicle-electricity separation" mode, which can reduce the initial input cost and reduce the operational burden.

With the concentrated outbreak of demand for power exchange mode for heavy trucks, the policy of unified standards for power batteries is also being followed up in a timely manner. On April 23, the Jiangsu Automobile Industry Association organized the review and approval of the "Jiangsu Pure Electric Heavy Truck Battery Pack System Technical Specifications" group standard, or will become China's first pure electric heavy truck battery pack standard.

In addition to heavy trucks, the demand for power exchange modes for taxis, online ride-hailing vehicles and other operating vehicles is also extremely strong. On the one hand, the power battery specifications of the operating vehicles are unified, the range is relatively fixed, and there is no need to distribute the layout of the power station; on the other hand, the refueling frequency of the operating vehicles is high, and the time for replenishment is also more sensitive.

A new energy taxi driver told "Tanke Deep Technology" that the power exchange mode is lower than the cost of fuel vehicles and more efficient than the charging mode, "Charging can only be plugged in, such as waiting until dinner or after work, and the power exchange is very convenient, five minutes can be full of blood, and the time saved can also run one or two orders." ”

Everbright Securities also pointed out in the research report that the power exchange mode improves the efficiency of vehicle operation by solving the pain point of charging time is too long, taking Beijing taxi as an example, the monthly net income of taxi drivers who currently use the power exchange mode is about 23,000 yuan, which is about 4,000 yuan higher than the net income of taxi drivers who use charging mode or fuel vehicles.

At present, most of the participants on the power exchange track only provide power exchange services for the B-end market, and only a few new energy vehicle manufacturers such as Weilai try to face the C-end market, so it often causes an embarrassing situation of "changing the power for 5 minutes and queuing for 1 hour".

"There are a lot of charging piles installed in the underground garage of the community, but it is still not enough, although the power change time is very short, but the queuing time is very long." A Weilai car owner complained to the "Tanke Deep Technology", "Especially in places with large traffic, there are often queues, sometimes it can be queued for an hour or so." ”

In Cao Xu's view, the participants on the power exchange track to focus on the B-end market is a helpless move, the full development of the B-end market, is an important basis for the development of the power exchange model in the C-end market, "At this stage, how to actively promote the establishment of a unified standard for power batteries from the policy level will be the key to breaking the situation of the power exchange model in the C-end market." ”

*Cao Xu, Wu Bo, and Xu Hui are pseudonyms.