In addition to building cars, the new forces are only crazy for this business

In 2012, China's new energy vehicles just started, and there was an Israeli company on the market that specialized in power exchange, Better Place, which created a great momentum.

At that time, almost no car companies in China took the power change route, but the power grid company highly recommended it. The appearance of foreign bet places with its light in the European market provides arguments for the power exchange faction and intensifies the discussion of the "charge and exchange route dispute".

I talked to the owner of Better Place China on the phone for an afternoon, and I felt that the business logic was fine, but there were some doubts that could not be said. Describe how you feel after the conversation, in one sentence:

Listen to the king's words, as if listening to one seat.

It wasn't until nearly a decade later, when a large wave of new car-making forces entered the energy supplementary market and planned a super business plate, that I reconsidered that conversation and understood the strength and Achilles heel of the better place idea.

Better place disappeared from the Chinese market around 2014, and that's when most of the new car-making forces haven't yet entered. Later, Weilai Automobile spent billions of dollars to make up energy, and GAC Aeon built a "supercharged capital" in Guangzhou, which can be said to be an upgrade of that set of business logic.

Better place can't be done, essentially the same as the grid alone, and faces a major flaw: not controlling the car and the battery. Therefore, a large number of third-party charging pile companies in the current market, although many charging piles have been built, may only survive in the cracks in the future.

There is only one main body of operation of the mature market replenishment ecology, that is, car companies. How not, that is, the car companies have not yet made efforts, or the market is not yet mature.

01.

Build another "moat"

As a plug-in mixed car owner, for the current public charging facilities, you can spit for a week continuously, without rest.

The charging time is long, and it takes an hour to charge fast with a 100-kilometer endurance; there are not enough charging bits; the charging gun is not easy to operate; the charging program is complicated, etc., which makes people have an inner breakdown.

To change this situation, charging pile companies are difficult to do. The reason is very simple, one is the problem of investment, charging pile companies are difficult to do a rapid replacement of charging equipment, replacing the original equipment; on the other hand, the charging speed should not only increase the power of the charging pile, but also develop a fast-charging battery that matches it.

This matter, only the vehicle company is the most suitable.

On April 21, GAC Aean made a big move, shocking the entire energy supply industry. On the same day, they launched the world's first supercharge capital (Guangzhou) supercharge center.

Take a closer look, their overcharge, basically solved my owner's "charging slot point".

To sum up, GAC Aean's super energy replenishment center has four characteristics:

The first is "charging and replacing". Users can flexibly choose A480 super charging pile charging energy according to their own needs, and can also choose Aian's original bolted ultra-fast power exchange method;

The second is "super fast". 2.5 minutes can complete the battery quick change, super 200km endurance only needs to charge 5 minutes;

The third is "automatic". It is understood that facing the future of unmanned driving, AION Robot Charger, China's first automatic charging and replacing system launched by Aean, can be based on flexible motion control, vehicle auxiliary guidance, visual dual positioning, non-inductive start, to achieve fully automatic unmanned parking and unmanned charging and replacing;

The fourth is "zero carbon". Photovoltaic power generation + smart energy storage to achieve comprehensive clean energy cycle self-sufficiency。

This kind of play basically makes it impossible for third-party charging companies to fight back, and the dominance of car companies to enter the energy supply market has been very clear.

Therefore, whether it is the power grid, gas stations or existing charging companies, they have chosen to enter the energy replenishment system of car companies to play together, mainly car companies, and integrate resources.

Now, even if the better place still exists in the Chinese market, when the new energy vehicle market breaks out, it is estimated that it is "waiting for a lonely".

In terms of competition between vehicle companies, in addition to the field of automotive products, competition in the energy system is also unfolding. A strong energy replenishment system can be said to be the second "moat" of car companies.

Slow charging each car company is similar, there is no advantage or disadvantage, the real competition in the solution of energy replenishment speed of overcharge and replacement. Now, in front of the curve are GAC Aean, Nio and Tesla.

GAC Aeon has not only mass-produced overcharged models, but also the first car company in the world to launch a high-power overcharge technology system, the earliest mass production.

It is said that first-class enterprises formulate standards, and at present, the state is formulating high-power charging standards, and GAC Aeon's technology has played a reference role in the formulation of national standards.

Solving the problem of time to replenish energy, for car companies, is ultimately to solve the user experience problem. The competitiveness built by the new car-making forces, like the product experience, has a high practical significance.

Moreover, the replenishment facility is a public resource, and after entering with an advantageous posture, it is difficult for other competitors to lay out in the area. This is of strategic significance for the competition of the vehicle market and the establishment of a supplementary energy ecology.

02.

Super business

The general manager of GAC Aean said a very classic sentence, which I agree with. Roughly meaning:

If the super energy replenishment center is regarded as a charging and replacing business, the power grid is enough to do it, and there is no need for car companies to do it.

GAC Aean's super charging and replacement center, as well as the supercharge capital, is actually an ecology behind it. The super charging and swapping center is just a carrier.

Behind the super replenishment center is another huge business for car companies in addition to the vehicle business. At present, this set of logic is clearly thought out, and it has begun to strongly promote the three new forces of head car manufacturing: Tesla, GAC Eian and Weilai.

It is not only an energy ecology, but also the ecology of the owner's life and the ecology of business.

For example, shared cars and driverless cars can choose to charge and replace according to the peak and trough of electricity prices, the efficiency of charging piles, and the life scenarios of car owners.

At the same time, the life needs of car owners such as dining, travel, and shopping scenes are also connected. The super charging and replacing center, the future is the key connection point of the car owner's car scene, connecting everything in the owner's life.

In the past, the intersection of traditional car companies and car owners was mainly in 4S stores. This connection is low-frequency and no longer applicable to new energy vehicles. However, new energy vehicles have charging and replacing services, and the imagination space of this scene is far greater than that of traditional energy vehicles.

GAC Aean plans to build 1,000 super charging and replacement centers in Guangzhou by 2025, with at least one every 1.5 kilometers, reducing the time to find a station to less than 5 minutes. There are more super charging and swapping centers than there are today's gas stations.

Because of the rapid increase in ownership and the more forward-looking understanding of the business model, the layout of the energy ecology of the new forces of head car manufacturing is also the earliest. Last year, NIO held an energy day, planning to add 600 new power stations in the Chinese market every year from 2022 to 2025; by the end of 2025, the global total number of NIO substations will exceed 4,000, of which about 1,000 are in markets outside China.

GAC E-An and NIO have the same expectations for the prospects of energy business, but the path chosen is different: GAC E-An chooses to charge mainly, supplemented by power replacement, and Weilai mainly builds a substation; GAC E-An takes a centralized pilot project to create a supercharged capital, and then replicates it, and Weilai is fully rolled out.

Although the upfront investment is very large, car companies are not worried about the business logic of energy ecology. The future will definitely be profitable, and there is a lot of space, which is already a consensus.

Tesla has built and opened 1,100 superchargering stations in Chinese mainland, and is still desperately investing in construction. For the decision-makers of car companies, this is not a question of whether they should invest, but a question of whether they have the courage to invest.

"Because the integration of light storage and charging, the charging and replacing link itself is just a carrier, maybe one day this is free, just provide a service to you, you consume other on the line." Gu Huinan believes that this business is endless, so it is also the significance of the layout of car companies.

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