Extreme Daily (ID: rancaijingapp) original
Author | Hui Peng Quan
Edit | Rao Xiafei
After the charging station in Maoming, Guangdong Province opened for a full month, Lin Lin, general manager of Guangzhou Danci New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., focused on updating the status of the social platform: lying down and earning 2,500 yuan a day.
Lin is very satisfied with this achievement. His careful and careful site selection, continuous improvement of event planning and careful and thoughtful operation services have paid off, and of course, Lin has paid 1.3 million yuan in key funds.
In the eyes of Lin Jiao and other charging station investors, the site is the key to the whole link, "as long as the location is not too remote and there is no dispute over the land, basically there will be no loss of money." ”
Lin Jianjian also pointed out that the construction of charging stations is a heavy asset investment, although the income is stable, but the return cycle takes 3-4 years, "to small broad" "overnight wealth" is almost impossible, "if you do not have a certain amount of funds, there is no need to join this industry." ”
Therefore, in addition to a certain amount of capital reserves, finding the ideal venue has become the focus of charging station investors.
Lin used to tour 200-300 kilometers a day, and visited more than 200 sites in 10 days, from the corner to the city center, from the township and rural areas to the high-rise buildings, and there were only 1-2 sites that met his requirements.
Mr. Wang, who invests in the construction of a charging station in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, told Jipai Daily that they go out three cars a day, and they can't wait to knock on the door, asking if the venue is rented, "It's good to find a more suitable one in a week." ”
Mr. Song from Weifang, Shandong Province, has had the idea of investing in a charging station since mid-2022, and has not yet started construction because there is no ideal venue.
Photo: Lin focuses on the charging station in Maoming, Guangdong
Source/Photo courtesy of Lin Focus
So what kind of venue is "ideal"? Lin focused on telling Extreme Daily that the central circle of the city or the transportation hub area, such as shopping malls, CBD, hospitals, railway stations, airports and other surroundings, has a large population density and is a better venue. However, such sites are generally developed, so retreat to the second, some plots near the main roads in urban areas are also good choices. "The lease period should preferably be more than 8 years, and a good venue can be relaxed appropriately, and 4-5 years can also be accepted."
But even a demanding person like Lin Jianjian has suffered a lot of losses in the venue.
Of course, infrastructure and equipment have also caused Lin Jiaojian a headache. However, recalling his experience in building the station for more than a year, Lin emphasized that it was all relatively ordinary content. And he frankly shared the pits he stepped on and how to solve problems on social platforms, and also gained thousands of "spiritual shareholders".
Li Yunlong, general manager of Honghe Shun Rongjie New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., invested more than 600,000 yuan to build his first charging station. At present, his charging station has been open for one month, and his revenue is only 15,000 yuan.
In Li Yunlong's view, charging stations are not a business that is easy to build and collect money. "In addition to doing a good job in daily management, fully driving the time of customer charging gap and driving the development of small industry chains is the most important."
Extreme Daily understands that Lin focuses on the same idea as most charging station operators: although the best time to invest in building a station has passed, there are still opportunities to enter.
Currently, Lin's third charging station in Guangzhou and fourth in Zhuhai are under construction, and he plans to build about 10 charging stations in the Pearl River Delta region or provincial capital cities in 2023. And Li Yunlong is preparing to build his second charging station, while looking for a venue in "crazy", and is also preparing to build two more charging stations in 2023.
Is it time to invest in a charging station?
Li Yunlong told Jupai Daily that he was the service director of a brand car 4S shop before 2022. Because of the nature of his work, he often goes to meetings all over the country and sees that the new energy automobile industry in big cities is very mature, and they are just starting out locally, so they have the idea of investing in charging stations.
In Li Yunlong's view, the country is vigorously developing green energy, while the current development trend of hydrogen energy is slow, "one era is coming to an end, the next era is coming, to keep up with the pace of national new energy, so the time is good." ”
Photo: Charging station
Source: Photo courtesy of Li Yunlong
As a result, Li Yunlong resigned from the position of service director and devoted himself to the charging station. In order to be safe, he chose the model of co-building with a brand of charging station, where the brand party issued the charging pile and he paid other expenses. Each charging pile is about 50,000 yuan, which means that his "5 piles and 10 guns" charging station saves about 250,000 yuan in the charging pile alone.
"Because the South Grid needs to be built by myself from the access point to the destination, I pulled an iron tower, four cement poles, and invested about 600,000 yuan, including transformers and capital construction costs." Li Yunlong told Extreme Daily that his cost is slightly higher than that of his peers.
However, Li Yunlong is full of confidence in the later earnings, "It is expected to return in 2 years." ”
Lin focused on the charging pile industry slightly earlier than Li Yunlong.
At the end of 2021, Lin Jianjian, who majored in electrical automation, found that the number of new energy vehicles has doubled, but the charging pile is relatively insufficient, so he felt that investing in charging stations should be a good choice, so he began to learn the relevant knowledge of charging stations and the process of building charging stations.
In March 2022, Lin Jiao began preparing his first charging station in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Lin Jianjian told Jipai Daily that his Qingdao charging station is "9 piles and 18 guns", and it is also chosen to cooperate with the charging pile brand to build together, with a total investment of about 350,000 yuan, and is expected to return in 3-4 years.
Since the opening of the charging station in July 2022, Lin has been encouraged by activities such as "charging courtesy", and the Qingdao charging station has gradually been on the right track.
Now Lin is already an expert in the field of charging stations, he knows everything about each "spiritual shareholder", and plans to broadcast live in March to answer questions for more people who pay attention to charging stations for free.
Mr. Song is also one of Lin's "spiritual shareholders". Although his charging station has not yet found a good place, he still feels that it is not too late to enter, "Except for one charging station of a certain brand, the rest of our county is all from the power grid. ”
Mr. Song told Extreme Daily that he saw that a friend had invested in a charging station, "10 piles and 20 guns", the business was relatively good, and the peak period was basically full, so he also planned to invest in one.
Referring to the investment specifications of 1 million yuan from friends, Mr. Song is ready to use 500,000 yuan to build a charging station with "5 piles and 10 guns". "I am ready to buy a charging pile by myself and build it together without 'getting the head'." Mr. Song believes that although the risk of co-construction is small, it is relatively slow to earn in the later stage.
In Mr. Song's expectations, 3 years can be accepted. However, Mr. Song admits that because he currently has to run a fast food restaurant at the same time, his energy cannot keep up, so the charging station has not made substantial progress now.
Of course, the most important reason is that he did not find the "ideal" venue.
Venue, venue, or venue
Extreme Daily contacted many charging station investors, and they agreed that a good venue is half the success of building a charging station.
In this way, the know-how of building charging stations and operating real estate is similar, because Li Ka-shing's famous saying is "location, location is still location." ”
Therefore, charging station investors such as Lin Jiaojian, Li Yunlong and Mr. Wang in Shenyang, they invested the most energy and time in the entire station construction process is to find a venue.
Lin Jianjian also shared his venue finding "strategy" with Extreme Daily.
Lin emphasized that in addition to finding it yourself, you can also entrust local people or real estate agents to screen.
Secondly, it is necessary to stick to the venue, because there are new venues released every month or even every week. "I came across a particularly ideal venue, but the first time I went there was a used car park. The day after it was vacated, more than two dozen customers and agents met to see the venue, which was very sought-after. ”
In addition, in Lin's view, "ideal" sites sometimes require a certain degree of foresight and long-term vision. He once saw a charging station built in an "ideal" site in Panyu, Guangdong. The station is located at a crossroads and is very well located, next to both office buildings and shopping malls, as well as residential areas and urban villages. With a learning attitude, Lin asked the boss how he got the venue, and the reply was, "I rented it four years ago, and it was still relatively desolate at that time." ”
Of course, choosing a good site is not a big deal, and Lin's key Qingdao charging station has a problem with site planning.
Photo: Lin focuses on the charging station in Qingdao
Source/Photo courtesy of Lin Focus
Lin Jianjian told Jipai Daily that the 800-square-meter site could accommodate 18 parking spaces, but after completing the fence and barrier, it was found that the traffic on both sides of the site was not smooth. After weighing the trade-off, Lin decided to expand the site by 3 meters to the north, but the open space in front of the landlord's office would be narrowed, so the office needed to be shifted. "From leveling the land, demolishing the office, and finishing the scenes, every link is a conflict between me, the workers and the landlord, and the cost is doubled."
This incident also made Lin understand that the construction of charging stations requires site planning in advance and sufficient reserved space. In addition, each work needs to communicate with the other party, clarify the responsibility for each matter, and avoid follow-up incidents.
Li Yunlong also almost fell on the field.
Li Yunlong told Extreme Daily that he originally chose a good location near the motor city and subleased it through a third-party tenant. When it came time to sign the contract, he asked the owner to be present to sign it, only to know that the owner would rebuild in the next two years.
"Therefore, the site lease must be understood by many parties, the property owner knows what you are renting the site for, and you must also find a site with a land certificate and divide the liability for breach of contract."
Lin also said that the absence of a land certificate means that there will be no compensation for future demolition or land requisition, "Even if the collective or village gives you a certificate, don't take it lightly." ”
Is it sure to make money to build a charging station?
In Lin's view, building charging stations is an asset-heavy investment, and "people who don't have idle funds in their hands don't have to take risks." ”
Lin focused on saying that his Maoming charging station is "16 piles and 32 guns", and also adopts the model of cooperation and co-construction, and his own investment is about 1.3 million yuan.
"Why is the difference in the cost of your two charging stations about 1 million yuan?" To this question, Lin's reply was "normal expenditure". He took the 800KVA box transformer as an example, if in Guangzhou, the site is 100 meters away from the high voltage, it basically needs 500,000 yuan. And if in Qingdao, it may only cost about 200,000 yuan.
Lin Jiao also said that Guangzhou is not expensive, "It is not uncommon to collect 1 million yuan." ”
It is precisely this kind of investment that "dissuades" some people who want to invest in building charging stations.
Photo: The "Spiritual Shareholders" group is hotly discussing the topic of charging station investment
Source/Extreme Daily screenshot
However, Lin and Li Yunlong are still looking forward to the future of the charging station, although the data of their new station in the first month of operation is quite different.
Lin's Maoming charging station was launched on January 3, 2023, and officially opened on January 5, and it took only 4 days to charge a single gun day to 200 degrees; 300 degrees around January 18; On January 23, the service fee income of Maoming charging station reached 2533.60 yuan. According to the cooperative website construction agreement, Lin Jiao can get 65%, that is, 1646.84 yuan. "In addition to the power loss every day, it is the rent, and the other expenses are negligible."
According to such revenue, Jipai Daily's initial calculation learned that the Lin Key Maoming charging station can recover the cost in less than 3 years.
Picture/day earned 2533.6 yuan
Source/Photo courtesy of Lin Focus
But obviously, revenue from a venue is not universal.
Lin's charging station in Qingdao was launched in July 2022, charging 1200 degrees on the first day, 2500 degrees on the second day, and 2400 degrees on the third day, which is far from his target of "4500 degrees per day". So in Lin's words, "If you go on like this, you will lose everything." ”
More netizens commented, "You may not believe it, I invested 1 million yuan in a charging station, and I charged 4 cars on the first day." ”
Some people even said that they invested in a charging station in Shenzhen, read the report and found a loss of 2 million yuan, "I don't know how to do it, I buy the most expensive everything, and I was deceived." In response, Lin focused on responding, "What defrauded you is not the business of charging stations, but a financial scam disguised as a charging pile." ”
Li Yunlong's charging station also performed poorly in its first month of trial operation. "One month of operation, the income is 15,000 yuan." Such data obviously cannot meet Li Yunlong's expectation of "returning capital in 2 years".
Li Yunlong tried to do a review, "The reason why there were not many vehicles in the first week of opening was that we carried out ancillary services, so it was a few cents more expensive than other stations. Therefore, in Li Yunlong's view, in the current environment where charging vehicles are mostly operating vehicles, characteristic services can only be the icing on the cake, not as a marketing method.
Li Yunlong told Extreme Daily that he needs to spend time on operating charging stations, "There can be many charging stations, but they can't be too dense." In the future, I will establish a charging network, launch a charging membership system for the local market, and connect resources such as car decoration, maintenance and catering to truly achieve one-stop service. ”
Therefore, for the results in 2022, Li Yunlong gave himself a passing score of 60 points, "there is still a lot of room for improvement in 2023."
In fact, in the operation of the new charging station, Lin Jianjian has his own understanding. When he saw the poor performance of the opening of the Qingdao charging station, he actively changed his operation thinking, not only "0 service fee", but also at a specific time, "charge 20 yuan and get 10 yuan cashback", and this strategy also made the daily charging of the charging station climb to a new high of 3100 degrees.
"Don't skimp on the energy and financial investment in the early stage, the most important thing is to revitalize the entire business as soon as possible."
Of course, the most unacceptable thing for Lin to accept is the "price war" in the charging station industry.
Lin Jianjian posted a circle of friends on January 20: there are 15 or 6 charging stations within a radius of 3 kilometers, two of which have been in a stalemate for several months compared to the price reduction, counting the power loss, and still losing money, and the surrounding stations that are not firm in their position can not survive, and follow the price reduction.
"This will only be a vicious circle", so Lin focused on calling for the healthy development of the industry not to fight a "price war". "The charging station industry belongs to the sunrise industry, with good development prospects and policy support, as long as practitioners operate carefully, they can have stable income."
*Caption images and accompanying pictures are provided by interviewees.
*Disclaimer: Under no circumstances does the information in this article or the opinions expressed constitute investment advice to anyone.
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