The taste of the year is getting stronger, and the cold wind is expected, as if urging the wanderers to return home.
There is a group of people who may come from the south and the north, but they all stop on the long road home for the same reason.
In the past year, the penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles has passed the threshold of 25%, and more and more people choose new energy vehicles as their first choice for car purchase. In the urban car scenario, electric vehicles do have many advantages, energy saving, environmental protection and money saving, as well as various subsidies and driving restrictions.
However, electric vehicles still need to face persistent diseases, such as low battery life, difficult charging, especially the problem of winter mileage attenuation, which also makes many people discouraged from new energy vehicles, so electric vehicles are also ridiculed as "electric daddy".
In low-temperature, long-distance and concentrated travel scenarios such as returning home during the Spring Festival, the phenomenon of electric vehicles queuing up for charging in high-speed service areas around the world has still become a hot topic of discussion.
In this regard, Titanium Media App conducted a number of interviews and research, and based on the travel stories shared by many netizens across the country, summarized the "those things" they encountered on the way home for the New Year when driving an "electric daddy".
For long-distance cars in winter, it is not recommended to drive an "electric daddy" in the northeast
The first protagonist of the story is Mr. Zeng (pseudonym) from Heilongjiang, who works in Qingdao, rents a fuel car in previous years, and the family drives back to his hometown in Heilongjiang for the New Year. This year, because he bought his first car, the Tesla Model Y Standard Range, he decided to drive it home this year.
In order to be able to drive an electric car home, according to Mr. Zeng, he made a lot of preparations before going on the road, and the route and charging piles along the way had been determined in the early stage, and he also deliberately chose the route of the service area with more charging piles.
Since Mr. Zeng set off on January 15, although it was also during the Spring Festival, the road conditions were not particularly congested. At the beginning, Mr. Zeng's journey was very smooth, after all, a lot of preparation was done in the early stage. Although I still have to queue for an hour or two when charging, Mr. Zeng should take a long break after driving, and his mood is still very relaxed.
But as he gradually went deeper into the north, the harsh weather conditions made Mr. Zeng's heart lift.
The official range of his Tesla Model Y standard endurance version is 525km, and when he is in Qingdao City these days, the actual cruising range is about 350 km in daily use. But as he entered Liaoning Province, Mr. Zeng was surprised to find that the actual cruising range dropped to about 240 kilometers, which also led to the original charging plan being completely disrupted.
One of Mr. Zeng's most "thrilling" experiences was that the charging pile in one of the planned service areas could not be used for repair, and he was forced to go to the next service area to charge. But halfway through, Mr. Zeng's cruising range shows that there are still 60 kilometers left, but the next service area still has more than 30 kilometers, according to the previous mileage shrinkage, there is basically no hope of sticking to the next service area.
When he was anxious, Mr. Zeng got off the highway and found a fast charging station in the city more than ten kilometers away, and the mileage was less than 10 kilometers when he arrived. Mr. Zeng later recalled: "At that time, I remembered a strategy I saw before traveling, you can get off the highway to go to the city to find a pile, in fact, I am not sure if I can find it even if I get off the highway, but at that time there was no other way, I had to bite the bullet and try, fortunately the result was good." ”
Finally, Mr. Zeng drove back to his hometown in Heilongjiang from Qingdao, charging a total of 14 times and spending 699 yuan. Previously, he rented a 1.5L SUV model to drive home the same route, and the fuel cost for the whole process was about 900-1000 yuan. Mr. Zeng finally said that the cost did save two or three hundred yuan, but the experience of finding piles throughout the process was not very good, and he also suggested that friends who have traveled too far or live in the northeast should choose other modes of transportation.
In fact, many electric car owners have Mr. Zeng's experience, every winter, the cruising range of the vehicle plummets, showing 500 kilometers, but the actual may not drive less than 250 kilometers, which is still in the case of not daring to turn on the air conditioner.
Could it be said that after so many years, the endurance achievement rate of electric vehicles has not improved?
From the current stage of battery technology, as long as it is an electric vehicle with lithium batteries, then its winter endurance will be discounted. Because, as the temperature decreases, the liquid electrolyte of the lithium battery will be relatively viscous, and the activity of lithium-ion work will be greatly reduced, thus affecting the actual cruising range of electric vehicles.
In fact, to design a power battery that improves cruising range from the perspective of materials and technology, the technology at this stage is not impossible. But the cost of this battery will be very high, consumers may not be able to accept, and the battery with good low temperature performance will also become larger, and the battery life may not actually be higher. As a result, major car companies have adopted this relatively "balanced" scheme.
According to industry insiders, the progress of battery technology in recent years mainly lies in two aspects, one is that the low-temperature cold start performance has been improved, and many electric vehicles can not be started at minus 20 °C before, and now it can be started smoothly by self-heating and all-climate technology; Second, the energy density of the battery has increased, the overall endurance has improved, and even if it is discounted at minus 20 °C in winter, it is much stronger than the previous winter endurance of tens of kilometers.
In winter, the southern car plans the replenishment route in advance to reduce the anxiety of battery life
After reading Mr. Zeng's story, some friends will ask, "If my journey home is only five or six hundred kilometers, and it is all in the southern region, can I drive an electric car?" The next story of Ms. Wu (not her real name) answers this question.
Ms. Wu, who lives in Wuhan, used to take the high-speed train back to her hometown in Wuxi, but this year's new puppy made her feel at ease, so she chose to drive her electric car home. According to Ms. Wu, her electric car was purchased early last year, and the daily full battery mileage is about 500 kilometers, but it can only run more than 300 kilometers in winter.
However, considering that the whole journey is only about 700 kilometers, Ms. Wu thinks that she can get home after charging twice along the way.
On January 19, Ms. Wu set off from Wuhan on a full battery, and not long after she encountered a traffic jam in Anhui, seeing that the cruising range was less than 100 kilometers. She quickly found the nearest service area, but she did not expect that one of the four charging piles in this service area was broken, and the other three were also charging very slowly because of insufficient power. Seeing that the queue was far away, Ms. Wu decided to try her luck in the next service area.
After driving for more than 30 kilometers, Ms. Wu kept walking in the outermost lane in order to save power, keeping the speed below 100 kilometers per hour, and did not dare to accelerate and brake sharply. The air conditioner in the car did not dare to turn on at all, and even the mobile phone used to listen to songs was played publicly. Finally insisted on the next service area, only to find that the service area here was being renovated. Ms. Wu said, "The next service area is still 40 kilometers, and my cruising range is also 40 kilometers, and I was blinded at once. ”
Forced to helpless, Ms. Wu found a nearby exit and got off the highway to see if there was a charging pile nearby. In the end, she could not find it, and seeing that her mileage was about to run out, she had to call roadside assistance. Ms. Wu also felt a lot of feelings during this experience, she said that even if the journey is short, the charging facilities along the way are likely to have unexpected conditions, which will "drive us to a corner", and we still have to make a good strategy before departure, reasonably plan the route and prepare alternatives.
The huge flow of people returning home during the Spring Festival, coupled with the cold weather, further tests the charging and replenishment facilities of the highway network, and this piece is indeed weaker than the roads in the city. According to relevant survey data, the failure rate of charging piles in most high-speed service areas before the holiday was about 25%, and there were still many power shortages that could not support the fast charging function.
Relevant people said that the overall utilization rate of charging piles in high-speed service areas is low, which makes it difficult for charging operators to achieve profitability, so the current layout of charging piles in high-speed service areas is still mainly dominated by national teams. To some extent, this hinders operators' further confidence in layout, limiting the growth of the number of high-speed charging facilities as a whole, and the failure rate is relatively high.
As far as electric vehicle users are concerned, you can check the distribution of charging stations on the road in advance on the charging app before traveling, and reasonably plan charging according to the vehicle power. And continue to pay attention to the busy situation of high-speed charging stations during the road, and reasonably plan charging stations. If the station is busy or malfunctioning, do not hesitate to turn around and get off the highway to look for a charging station in the city to prevent a "desperate" situation.
Under extremely cold conditions, fast charging and battery replacement are still limited
At the same time, in recent years, "southern overcharging, northern power replacement" has been regarded by the new energy automobile industry as an excellent means to "solve the problem of energy replenishment in the north and south".
So, in the Spring Festival homecoming boom, can power exchange solve the problem of charging difficulty and mileage anxiety under low temperature conditions of electric vehicles? Ms. Wang (pseudonym), a post-95 generation who is engaged in the IT industry in Beijing, drove her NIO EC6 a few days ago.
Since Ms. Wang usually lives in Beijing, the lottery is more difficult, and there is only one electric car at home. She has not returned to her hometown for three years under the epidemic, and this year is also the first Spring Festival after the release, and she is ready to try driving an electric car home.
Since it was the first time to run a long distance with an electric car and was still returning to the northeast, she cautiously took annual leave in advance to make sufficient preparations, and set off from Beijing to return to Hegang on January 13. According to Ms. Wang, her NIO EC6 officially marked cruising range is 430 kilometers, and the actual mileage in Beijing is about 300 kilometers in winter.
Considering the weather conditions in the northeast, Ms. Wang made a conservative estimate and planned the charging route according to the scheme of charging once in 200 kilometers. Since Ms. Wang set off very early and successfully staggered the peak, she did not encounter major congestion along the way.
Finally, Ms. Wang charged a total of 8 times and changed the power 4 times along the way, and the cost of each charge ranged from 70-80 yuan. It is worth mentioning that NIO works 24 hours a day during the Spring Festival and is still free, which also saves Ms. Wang a lot of charging costs. According to Ms. Wang's recollection, on the highway from Beijing to Shenyang, there should be at least three power exchange stations, and self-service power exchange can be completed in 10-15 minutes at a time, which is very fast and convenient.
For the experience of driving an electric car home, Ms. Wang believes that the whole process is smooth, without the difficulties and anxiety she imagined, and she is ready to drive her tram home next year. Regarding the charging experience, Ms. Wang said, "Perhaps because we left early, the queue for charging piles in various service areas was generally less than an hour, and it was just a good time to take a break from eating a meal and going to the bathroom, and I didn't feel very delayed." ”
However, Ms. Wang also said, "If the electric car is left outside overnight, the charging efficiency will be terribly low the next day." It is clear that the power of the charging pile is 120kw, but the actual charging is only about 20kw. In addition, Ms. Wang also reported that as the rain and snow conditions intensified, the chassis of the vehicle would freeze to a certain extent, and if you wanted to change the power, you had to wait for the ice to melt, which also delayed a lot of time.
In this regard, Titanium Media App also interviewed some electric taxi drivers in the northeast. They said that due to low temperature snowfall, the chassis of pure electric vehicles is iced, and the driver needs to use tools to knock out the ice or use a heater to de-ice before the vehicle changes the battery, resulting in an increase in the power change time of each vehicle, and the time to queue down is actually not much different from charging.
In fact, when it comes to the north's power exchange strategy, it is more of a "helpless move". Although the DC fast charging piles in northern cities have increased in the past one or two years, when it is cold, the DC fast charging piles that were barely enough are obviously stretched, and the emergence of the power exchange mode is precisely to solve this problem.
However, the extremely cold weather in the north has not been calculated, which will cause the vehicle chassis to freeze, and it has directly become the biggest obstacle to the power change of the owner in winter.
epilogue
From the current stage, further improving the construction of charging infrastructure is still the focus of development in the industry, which is also a task that requires the joint efforts of all parties to promote for a long time. After all, for operators, whether it is high-voltage charging or replacing power stations, there are high construction costs. In addition, problems such as insufficient grid capacity and the layout of charging and swapping station sites also limit the construction of energy replenishment facilities in the high-speed road network.
In general, under the existing energy replenishment system, it is recommended to choose fuel or hybrid models for long-distance driving on major holidays, although the cost of the car is slightly higher, and it is better to be worry-free and steady. Of course, as long as reasonable planning and various preliminary preparations are made, driving an "electric daddy" home is not a distant dream.
If it were you, would you choose to drive the "electric daddy" to go home for the Spring Festival?
(This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author | Changxiao, editor | Zhang Min)