Text: Zhang Haoran Zhu Yun
ID：CBJTHINKTANK
"Queue for 4 hours, charge for 1 hour", the National Day holiday that just passed, let the drawbacks of new energy vehicle charging difficulties exposed.
On October 4, CCTV Finance reported that a new energy vehicle owner who returned to Hunan from Shenzhen spent more than 5 hours charging the vehicle in the Service Area of Leiyang, Hunan. What was supposed to be more than 8 hours of travel ended up taking 16 hours to get home.
"Charging pile facilities did not keep up with the sales of new energy vehicles" "When I was afraid of charging far away, it was difficult to find a charging station and did not choose new energy, now it seems that this is a very wise choice" "Driving electric daddy running high-speed is really a warrior" "Now many charging piles are bad, no one manages, no one repairs..." For the National Day holiday, the problem of charging new energy vehicles has triggered continuous hot discussions among netizens.
Under the hot search, it reflects the problem that the corresponding infrastructure behind the accelerated development of new energy vehicles has yet to be improved; in addition to ridicule, it is the widespread concern of new energy owners about charging problems and the concern of being trapped in the middle of the road.
But as Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Automobile Association, said at the monthly information conference on October 12, there may be car owners who do not know that there are charging piles on the highway, with the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, the charging difficulties exposed by the peak of charging on holidays are also a good thing, and the problem means to solve the problem.
When will the new energy vehicle of "queuing for 4 hours and charging for 1 hour" achieve "flash charging" to reduce waiting time? The National Day holiday concentrated outbreak of "long queues, charging difficulties", is it just a peak phenomenon or has accumulated drawbacks for a long time? In the face of rapid development of new energy vehicles, how to improve the construction of corresponding charging infrastructure? What are some ways to solve it effectively?
The growth of charging piles cannot keep up with the growth rate of new energy vehicles
On the highway of this year's National Day holiday, the long queue of new energy car owners has become a new "landscape" on the highway, and new energy car owners have felt headaches but helpless for the journey anxiety.
Are there enough charging piles on the highway? Who should compensate for the time wasted on the highway? In this case, will car owners dare to drive new energy vehicles on high speed during next year's National Day holiday?
According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to September, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 2.166 million units and 2.157 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.8 times and 1.9 times year-on-year.
【Source: China Association of Automobile Manufacturers】
The data shows that new energy vehicles are in a stage of rapid development, and the corresponding amount of charging infrastructure is far from enough. According to the data released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, from January to September 2021, the increase in charging infrastructure was 542,000 units, the increase in public charging infrastructure increased by 164.5% year-on-year, and the increase in charging facilities built with vehicles continued to rise, up 178.5% year-on-year. As of September 2021, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in the country was 2.223 million units, an increase of 56.8% year-on-year.
【Source: China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance】
In contrast, the increase in production and sales of new energy vehicles is almost 4 times the increase in charging infrastructure, and in the case of the increasing number of new energy vehicle users, the corresponding infrastructure construction needs to be accelerated.
For the National Day holiday on the highway new energy vehicle charging difficulties, long queuing time problems, the automotive industry well-known commentator Zhong Shi analyzed that all services during the peak travel period of holidays are not normal, so it can not be said that the use of charging piles at holiday highway rest stations is full. Mainly depends on the charging conditions of the usual highway rest stations, in general, it is barely enough. If you want to fully meet the peak charging demand of holidays and build piles, then there will be a large number of idle situations in normal times, and as a charging station operating enterprise, it also depends on the efficiency of input and output.
Zhong Shi believes that at present, pure electric vehicles are not suitable for long-distance driving across provinces during peak holiday hours. Charging infrastructure construction and electric vehicle ownership are complementary, and they need to have a long run-in process.
In Zhong Shi's view, the charging of the National Day holiday is a peak phenomenon, so for the new energy owners who travel every day, is charging convenient?
"I have hardly ever had a problem with charging difficulties, and the general charging queue does not last long. Because of work reasons, I will also run long-distance highways, such as from Beijing to Tianjin, but before I set off, I will first make travel planning, and the battery can generally support 400 kilometers of endurance, in this case, running a round trip does not require additional charging. If I do need to charge, I charge more in the city. A Weilai new energy vehicle owner told the "Business School" reporter. For the phenomenon of highway charging difficulties that occurred during the National Day holiday, the owner said that the current total number of charging piles does not match the total amount of new energy vehicles, and it is far from enough, and the development of new things also needs a long-term adaptation process.
But another BAIC new energy vehicle owner told the "Business School" reporter that he had been trapped on the road because the vehicle had no electricity, there was no charging pile nearby, and finally he could only wait for rescue. "The AC charging pile on the road is charging time is very long, once I went home at night before there was no electricity, I slept in the car for one night, but only charged 60% of the electricity the next morning, very inconvenient, often worried that I would be stuck on the road." the owner said.
Charging difficulties reflect the lack of infrastructure and the problem of long charging time, in this regard, Qiu Kai, director of the Industrial Coordination Department of the China Automobile Circulation Association, said that the construction speed of charging infrastructure can not catch up with the development speed of new energy vehicles, the key to solving the problem lies in a speed up and a slowdown, accelerate the construction speed of supporting charging infrastructure, but charging infrastructure can not be increased uncontrolled, it is necessary to achieve scientific planning, reasonable layout, orderly construction on the basis of the existing scale; "reduce" The development speed of new energy vehicles does not mean that the new energy industry should be cooled, but on the basis of pure electric vehicles, accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, reduce dependence on charging infrastructure, and build a diversified industrial ecology.
The increment and the stock complement each other, and improving the penetration rate of private piles is the path
In addition to the mismatch in the number of charging piles, new energy vehicle charging piles are also facing the dilemma of difficult operation and maintenance.
"Business School" reporter learned from the owner of Weilai new energy car: "I have encountered the problem of 'waste pile' and 'zombie pile' before, my mobile phone APP shows that there are charging piles nearby, but after the car drove past, it was found that it could not be used at all, especially delayed." The user believes that this should be the responsibility of the charging pile operator, do a good job in the operation and maintenance of the charging pile, and timely dock with the user the use of the charging pile.
For the current problem of "waste piles", Zhong Shi believes that consumer complaints and publicity can be launched to pressure charging operation enterprises to solve problems in time.
Qiu Kai said that in addition to the small number of public charging piles, which account for less than 50% of the charging piles and the location of many charging piles is not reasonable, some are in the suburbs, and it is very inconvenient to use. In addition to the reasons for the low utilization rate, he also mentioned the problem of waste piles in the charging piles of new energy vehicles. He pointed out that some charging piles lack the necessary maintenance and management can not be used normally, belongs to the "waste pile", so now both need "incremental", but also to strengthen the "stock" management, and increase the number should also be scientific planning, rational layout, orderly construction, but also need to pay attention to the effective allocation of parking resources, both to ensure that airports, railway stations, hospitals and other public places equipped with a certain number of charging piles, but also to avoid too much occupation of limited parking resources, resulting in idle resources. Qiu Kai believes that the operation and maintenance of charging piles should be responsible for operators, such as the State Grid, special calls, etc.
According to data from the State Power Dispatching and Control Center, from October 1 to 6, the average daily electricity generated and received by the State Grid Operation Area was 15.245 billion kilowatts, an increase of 15.75% over the same period last year; the maximum load appeared on October 4, which was 731 million kilowatts, an increase of 12.19% over the maximum load of last year's National Day holiday. The average daily power generation in the country was 20.567 billion kilowatts, an increase of 14.45% year-on-year; the highest daily power generation appeared on October 5, at 21.285 billion kilowatts, an increase of 10.40% over the highest value of last year's National Day holiday.
For the management of charging pile operators, Qiu Kai said that what enterprises can do is to improve the penetration rate of private piles, and now the proportion of some brands of piles is about 40%-50%, and the difference between different brands is very large, mainly because many car owners do not have private parking spaces, residential property obstruction and power grid expansion is difficult.
The data shows that there are only 3 merchants that share private piles. The total number of Star Charging 298084 units contains 67163 shared private piles, 1226 shared private piles under the total number of special calls 231179 units, and 87 shared private piles are included in the total number of cloud fast charging 122156 units.
"Wanbang New Energy (Star Charging) is now doing private pile sharing, is a solution, the owner's private charging pile to take out to share, equivalent to 'private pile public', the owner of the charging pile to share with others themselves can also get a part of the income, the future may be a development trend." However, there are also certain limitations, after all, many private piles are in the community, non-community owners may not be able to use, especially during the epidemic period, many communities are closed management, so the scope of 'private pile public' can be relatively limited, limited to the owners of the community or surrounding communities. Qiu Kai said.
Looking for an alternative product to charge quickly or change the battery? Where are the technical barriers?
For the problem of difficult charging of new energy vehicles, power exchange is an alternative way, but can the power station really be popularized in a large area?
According to data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, the main operators of domestic replacement power stations are only Weilai, Aodong and Hangzhou Botan.
On October 13, a reporter from the Business School visited a Weilai substation in Beijing. The reporter noted that there are also 4 DC charging piles installed next to the replacement power station. Weilai replacement power station staff told reporters that the charging pile is the national standard, in addition to the owner of Weilai, other brands of new energy vehicles can also choose to come here to charge nearby. The reporter observed that at that time, there were three Weilai cars and one BAIC new energy vehicle charging, and the charging vehicles were endless.
【Photo: Zhang Haoran, reporter of "Business School"】
Weilai replacement power station personnel said that every day, about 40 or 50 cars will come to change the electricity, basically there will be no queue waiting phenomenon. The process of changing the power supply is fully automatic, and the process of changing the power can be completed automatically by driving the vehicle in. The owner of the Weilai car who came here to change the power told reporters that each time the power change can be completed in about seven or eight minutes, the replacement power station is very close to the work unit, so it is very convenient, basically there will be no queue waiting.
For the alternative model of the replacement power station, Qiu Kai said that due to the cost problem, the bottleneck of the power exchange mode is that the network layout is not extensive enough. NIO is already working with "two barrels of oil" to build a replacement power station in a gas station, which can improve network density and user reach.
So for the problem of difficult charging of new energy vehicles, what technical barriers exist in the future of fast charging and power replacement technology? How can new energy vehicle companies effectively alleviate the problem of difficult charging for car owners?
In this regard, Qiu Kai said that the impact of fast charging and slow charging on the attenuation of power batteries is not the same, if the use of fast charging for a long time, the speed of battery capacity attenuation is faster, and this will definitely involve the problem of three packs and the residual value of the future in the future.
Zhang Hong, secretary general of the New Energy Vehicle Branch of the China Automobile Circulation Association, believes that at present, the common AC charging pile power of China's independent brands is 3.5kW and 7kW, the maximum charging current of the 3.5kW charging pile is 16A, and the maximum charging current of the 7kW charging pile is 32A. With 3.5Kw, charging 50kwh takes 14 hours. Use 7kw, charge 50kwh, it takes 7 hours. 50kwh can travel about 225 kilometers. Therefore, the long charging time and short driving distance are one of the obstacles to the development of new energy vehicles. This "Eleventh" long holiday, the problems exposed by new energy vehicles also confirm this.
Zhang Hong also analyzed that from the technical theory, increasing battery capacity and increasing the power of charging piles is the most direct solution, of course, power exchange is a fundamental solution. It is only that the construction cost of a substation is several times that of a charging pile, which is the reason why the substation has not been popularized for a long time. He believes that the barrier to popularizing power exchange technology is that the power exchange standard is difficult to unify, resulting in different main engine factory battery packs can not be unified, can not form a scale effect; the biggest barrier to the use of power exchange is still the user's acceptance is not high, the reason is very simple, worry about changing to a bad power battery.
According to the data, as of September 29, WEILAI has built a total of 504 substations in the country. In the face of the phenomenon of difficult charging, will weilai replacement power station be the direction of new energy vehicle companies in the future?
Zhang Hong said that the separation of vehicle and electricity is undoubtedly a milestone event in the history of the development of new energy vehicles, which allows the price of vehicles to be greatly reduced and enhances consumers' desire to buy new energy vehicles. In addition, power exchange is time-saving and convenient than charging, and the efficiency of energy replenishment is improved. In addition, the battery is responsible for professional car companies to reduce the safety hazards in the process of using the battery. However, looking back at fuel vehicles, even if the number of fuel vehicles reaches 250 million, there are more than 100 kinds of brands, and the oil is the "three barrels of oil", and the models of the oil are unified, and it is very convenient for consumers to refuel. Therefore, if the power exchange model can be accepted by the market, then it is certainly not possible for each car company to have its own replacement power station, and the energy replenishment cannot be universal. This will not only bring inconvenience to consumers, but also the cost of power exchange equipment for car companies will be high, and social resources will cause huge waste.
Qiu Kai also analyzed and pointed out that the power exchange mode is only a way for Weilai to provide users with diversified charging, the essence of the power exchange mode is actually the separation of vehicle electricity, the owner buys only the ownership of the car, does not include the ownership of the battery, which will affect the future of the second-hand car replacement and vehicle residual value, as for whether there are companies will follow suit, at present, only Weilai should adopt the power exchange mode, after all, the construction of the replacement power station requires a lot of cost, but also involves site selection, which is a heavy asset operation. Different enterprises have different development ideas, and Weilai's power exchange model has merit, but whether it is imitated depends on the development and positioning of the enterprise itself.
For the prospect of the power exchange model, Master Zhong believes that the power exchange service model is very vital, but it also has limitations. It is most suitable for the commercial operation of fleets in certain scenarios, and a small number of passenger car companies can try, which is difficult to promote on a large scale. "Charging service model has advantages and disadvantages, charging infrastructure input must have output benefits, all phenomena are contradictory, need time to run in, government support and market competition are two-pronged." There are not too many technical barriers to the construction of charging and replacing facilities, mainly the contradiction between construction investment and return, that is, the contradiction between chicken and egg and egg and chicken. Car companies are not the main force in the construction of charging and replacing facilities, the art industry has a specialty, but can do their best, especially in the early stage can actively do some exemplary construction and operation. Master Zhong said.
Improve charging infrastructure
Judging from the analysis of experts, the development and popularization of power exchange and charging technology still need time. In this process, focusing on the current situation, how to solve the problem of charging difficulties of new energy vehicles exposed with the National Day holiday in the short term?
On October 12, at the monthly information conference held by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the relevant person in charge of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance said that on the one hand, the car mainly made travel planning, on the other hand, improved the corresponding charging pile infrastructure construction. Xu Haidong gave the solution direction to alleviate the future highway charging difficulties, similar to increasing charging piles in the highway service area and near the highway intersection, developing fast charging such as 20 minutes to fill to reduce charging time, and adding charging service vehicles on highways on holidays.
Zhang Hong, secretary general of the New Energy Vehicle Branch of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said that in April this year, Premier Li Keqiang stressed in the "Government Work Report" that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, it is necessary to vigorously develop the cascade utilization of charging and replacing facilities and power batteries and recycling systems. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in China will reach more than 8 million, while China's charging and replacing facilities are only 1.9 million / seat, if according to the ideal design of one car and one pile, the gap will reach 6 million / seat.
If you want to alleviate this huge pressure as soon as possible, Zhang Hong believes that first of all, we must unify the cognition of whether to take the road of charging or the road of power replacement, and avoid multiple situations in which various manufacturers choose different power-up modes, so that consumers are at a loss. Secondly, it is necessary to try to unify the standards of various types of charging facilities and power exchange facilities to facilitate consumers. Third, let all kinds of social capital enter the charging and replacement facility industry and accelerate the pace of manufacturing. Local governments give preferential policies and preferences, which may be the key to solving the problem of charging and replacing electricity.
Under the promotion of the "double carbon" goal, new energy vehicles have become a new way and new choice for energy-saving and emission-reducing travel, and it is also a green development direction to achieve carbon neutrality in the future. The production and sales of new energy vehicles are increasing, and the corresponding supporting facilities have not kept up with the construction speed. Encouraged by the policy, it is imperative to continuously improve the infrastructure and help car owners reduce their travel anxiety. So, as a public infrastructure, how should charging piles keep up with the rapid development of new energy vehicles? How can governments and businesses balance their respective roles?
Zhang Hong believes that like the development of new energy vehicles, the development of charging and replacing facilities cannot only rely on policies to drive, but must rely on the market demand power, and the allocation of resources in the market has the final say. When the market demand for new energy vehicles is very large, and the charging and replacement facilities cannot keep up with the development needs of new energy vehicles, this will form an opportunity for market development, and I believe that all sectors of society will not miss it.
"When encouraging the new energy automobile industry, the competent government departments focused on supporting the whole vehicle, and slightly despised the ecological construction of supporting supply chain enterprises and service enterprises, making the entire industrial chain not a balanced development in parallel." Press the gourd to float the scoop, taking care of one or the other. However, after the problems were continuously exposed, all parties were working hard to overcome difficulties and make up for shortcomings. In this process, there will also be various incongruous problems that need to be solved by all parties. Master Zhong pointed out.
Qiu Kai analysis pointed out: "This year's State Council government work report also mentioned to accelerate the construction of new energy infrastructure, charging piles belong to infrastructure, it is reasonable to say that it should be led by the government, but only relying on the government is not enough, but also need enterprises and consumers to play a role, in the past charging pile is heavy construction, light operation, the future should be light construction, heavy operation, through the introduction of social capital, strengthen the later operation, improve operational returns, because now the operation is basically losing money, so to a large extent, the enthusiasm for enterprise participation is not high, If some policies to strengthen operation and management can be introduced at the policy level and encourage enterprise investment and social capital to join, the market order and development quality of the charging pile industry will definitely rise to a higher level. ”
Zhang Hong analyzed that effectively alleviating the problem of charging difficulties for car owners requires car companies, charging and replacing equipment manufacturers and local governments to work together, such as building more charging and replacing equipment in areas with large traffic flow, so that charging and replacing equipment can enter residential communities, large shopping mall parking lots, highway rest areas, etc., so that charging and replacing power is convenient, even if the power battery and charging and replacing facilities Technical level there are still capacity and power constraints, relying on charging and replacing convenience, can also alleviate the difficulties and pressures of charging and replacing.
It can be seen that in the face of the difficulty of charging new energy vehicles, the government and enterprises go hand in hand, and the development of new energy vehicles and related supporting facilities go hand in hand is a healthy and benign sustainable circular development path. It is not only a good solution to the difficulty of charging, but also a real boost to achieve the long-term goal of carbon neutrality.