Interface News Reporter | Gao Jing
Interface News Editor | Banker key
Just as the chargers of Apple and Android mobile phones cannot be used universally, China's new energy vehicle industry is also facing similar changes due to the adjustment of charging interface standards.
The 2015 charging standard, which is currently being implemented in China, is ushering in a strong challenge to the ChaoJi standard. However, the ChaoJi standard charging pile cannot charge the 2015 standard car, and conversely, the ChaoJi standard interface car cannot be replenished by the 2015 standard charging pile.
A complete set of new energy vehicle charging standards involves both ends of the vehicle and pile, and is composed of three sub-standards responsible for charging interface, charging system control and charging communication protocol.
The 2015+ standard, which was upgraded from the 2015 standard, came into being, shouldering the mission of competing with the ChaoJi standard.
The 2015 standard was jointly formulated by the National Technical Committee for Automotive Standardization (hereinafter referred to as the Automotive Standards Committee) and the China Electricity Council (hereinafter referred to as the China Electricity Council), with the former drafting the charging interface standard and the latter undertaking the revision of the charging system control and charging communication protocol standards.
The Automobile Standards Committee is the centralized management unit of domestic motor vehicle standards, and the China Electricity Council is a social group formed by power-related enterprises and institutions, industry organizations, etc.
However, in the process of upgrading the 2015 standard, the Automotive Standards Committee and the China Electricity Council no longer continued to cooperate, and established their own charging standards for new energy vehicles.
In September 2023, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China announced the approval of five recommended national standards related to the charging interface standards for new energy vehicles. Three of them belong to the ChaoJi standard led by the China Electricity Council, and the other two belong to the 2015+ standard promoted by the Automotive Standards Committee.
CEC's ChaoJi standard thus becomes a complete charging standard system, which will be implemented on April 1, 2024. CEC has also issued an initiative for the application of the standard, and the industrialization has entered the agenda.
The 2015+ standard has only officially released a sub-standard for charging interfaces, and the implementation date is September 7, 2023. It also needs to continue to develop the remaining two sub-standards to form a complete set of standards.
These two sub-standards are in the national standard project approval stage, and if approved, they will form a head-to-head competition between the 2015+ standard and the ChaoJi standard.
CEC defines the ChaoJi standard as an overall technical solution for the next generation of DC charging systems, and its advantages include further improvement of system safety, realization of high-power charging, and wide international recognition.
The 2015 standard was formulated in 2014-2015, when the new energy vehicle market was just starting, and for safety reasons, the 2015 standard limited the charging current to 250 amperes (A), which limited the realization of high-power charging. In 2016, the ChaoJi standard led by the China Electricity Council launched the pre-research work, and proposed to solve the problem of long charging time of new energy vehicles through high-power charging.
However, the domestic automotive industry and the Automotive Standards Committee were not active in this, believing that high-power charging of new energy vehicles was not a priority at that time.
In addition to the leading party China Electricity Council, the camp involved in the formulation of ChaoJi standards also includes charging pile companies such as State Grid and Autoxun, as well as domestic and foreign car companies such as FAW Group, SAIC Group, Daimler, and Volkswagen.
Lang Guihui, who participated in the formulation of 2015+ standards, said to Jian Jian News that the standard system of the power system has long been mature and perfect, and new energy vehicles are the only areas that can further expand the scope of influence of the China Electricity Council.
In the process of revising the ChaoJi standard, CEC proposed to adopt a completely different charging interface structure from the 2015 standard.
Lang Guihui believes that the ChaoJi standard does have many improvements, but changing the structural form of the charging interface will not be able to charge a large number of new energy vehicles on the market.
"The premise of revising the new version of the standard is not to change the structural form of the charging interface, so that the stock of new energy vehicles can find an organization, even if the charging pile using the new standard, can be charged. He told Interface News.
Why change the structure of the charging interface?
CEC believes that the mechanical structure of the 2015 standard does not meet the IPXXB protection standard.
IP ratings are formulated to protect against the ingress of electrical equipment by foreign objects and are drafted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). IPXXB means that when a finger with a diameter of 12 mm touches the electrical device, there will be no dangerous situation. The 2015 standard requires 12 mm for the hole diameter of the charging interface terminal, which cannot meet the above requirements. The ChaoJi standard requires a diameter of 10 mm, which meets the IPXXB protection standard.
At a charging and swapping industry conference held last year, Ni Feng, a participant in the formulation of ChaoJi standards and the chief expert of State Grid charging and swapping, also gave another explanation: the 2015 standard did not consider the upgrade issue in the system design stage, such as the ChaoJi standard to achieve bilateral compatibility, that is, the charging pile of the new and old standards and the models of the new and old standards adapt to each other, which will form four combinations, resulting in excessive technical complexity.
"The charging facilities of the new standard are designed relatively independently at the interface, which can separate the two systems and will not bring the problems of the old system to the new system. Ni Feng said.
However, the above explanation is not widely accepted.
In 2021, a survey commissioned by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance showed that among the 23 surveyed vehicle companies and charging facility operators, 22% of the enterprises supported the ChaoJi standard, 65% of the enterprises hoped to upgrade the 2015 standard to meet the application needs of high-power fast charging, and another 13% of the surveyed enterprises supported the parallel of the two technical solutions.
Huang Liang, who is the head of product standards at a leading domestic new energy vehicle company, realized more than two years ago that the charging standards for new energy vehicles were about to undergo huge changes.
"If there are two charging interfaces for new energy vehicles on the market, what should we do with our product development?" asked Huang Liang, a product engineer at his company.
"If the ChaoJi standard replaces the 2015 standard, or runs parallel to the existing standard, it will have a huge impact on his new energy vehicle company," Huang Liang reported to senior leaders.
At an industry conference on charging interface standards held in 2021, executives of Huang Liang's car company made it clear that there can only be one charging interface standard for new energy vehicles in China, and the ChaoJi standard for replacing the interface should not be adopted. This view has been shared by most domestic automobile companies.
The revision of the 2015+ standard was also officially launched at this time. The standard was proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, led by the Automobile Standards Committee, and participated by BYD, Xiaopeng, Great Wall Motors and other car companies, with the core goal of upgrading the technology of the old standard under the premise of compatibility with the 2015 standard new energy vehicles and charging piles.
The main scheme study was completed in 2021, and the maximum charging current was increased to 800 amperes and the charging power was increased to 800 kilowatts (Kw) after the standard was revised.
Due to the earlier project initiation, the ChaoJi standard is one step ahead of the competition with the 2015+ standard. Today, the ChaoJi standard has been officially released.
However, due to the incompatibility of the ChaoJi standard with the 2015 standard and the possible cost increase from it, its promotion will face many challenges.
Huang Liang told Jiemian News that new models must meet the access requirements of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in order to be sold in the domestic market, and the ChaoJi standard is not currently included in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's standard system for model access, so car companies will not use this new set of standards, but continue to use the 2015 standard that has been previously included in the system.
As far as he knows, there are currently no car companies planning to launch new energy vehicles that use the ChaoJi standard.
Tong Zongqi, deputy secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, told Jiemian News that an important goal of the ChaoJi standard is to promote the Chinese charging standard to the world, but he added that the ChaoJi standard has taken too long from the beginning of the development to the introduction of the cycle, and if it was released a few years ago, the industry situation would not be the same.
"Because at that time, the number of electric vehicles and charging piles was relatively small, but now it is no longer a volume. Tong Zongqi said.
The vast majority of new energy vehicles and DC public charging piles in China have adopted the 2015 standard. According to data from the Ministry of Public Security, as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, the number of new energy vehicles in the country has reached 18.21 million, making it the world's largest new energy vehicle market. As of October 2023, there are 1.09 million DC public charging piles that meet the 2015 standard.
According to the plan of the ChaoJi standard setter, although the structure and shape of the charging interface are different from the 2015 standard, the two piles can still be compatible in two ways.
For new energy vehicles using the ChaoJi standard, they can be compatible with the 2015 standard charging pile through matching adapters, and for charging piles using the ChaoJi standard, they can be equipped with a ChaoJi standard and a 2015 standard charging gun on the charging pile to charge the new and old standard new energy vehicles respectively.
In Huang Liang's view, although the adapter solution is theoretically feasible, it may involve problems such as cost improvement, security, and user experience at the operational level.
He told Jiemian News that if you need to charge a supporting adapter for new energy vehicles, the cost will most likely fall on the car company and eventually pass it on to consumers. At the same time, the charging current of new energy vehicles reaches hundreds of amperes, and once the market demand for adapters is opened, it is inevitable that there will be copycat products, which will cause potential safety hazards to new energy vehicle owners.
Ni Feng also admitted in his speech at the aforementioned industry conference that many industry people have certain doubts about the application of adapters, but he emphasized that the adapter will not exist permanently, it will play a transitional role in the standard conversion process, and when the gradual switch to the ChaoJi standard, the adapter will no longer exist.
In 2020, before the 2015+ standard was born, Ni Feng wrote an article predicting that within 10-15 years of the official promulgation of the ChaoJi standard, it will coexist with the 2015 standard for a long time, and the ChaoJi standard will gradually become popular in mid-to-high-end and operating vehicles.
Ni Feng revealed that low-cost general-purpose adapters have been launched, as well as enhanced adapters with higher cost and performance. Among them, the general-purpose adapter can achieve a manufacturing cost of less than 100 yuan.
For the "one pile, two guns" scheme of charging piles, a ChaoJi standard charging pile installed in a first-tier city in 2022 adopts the above configuration. However, due to the fact that there are few ChaoJi standard new energy vehicles on the market, the ChaoJi standard charging gun equipped with it is used very infrequently.
"Both the ChaoJi standard and the 2015+ standard are recommended standards, which are equivalent to two different technical paths, and enterprises can choose by themselves. Tong Zongqi said that in the future, most charging pile companies will decide their technical routes according to the choice of car companies.
"Charging standards in the United States and Europe are gradually moving towards harmonization, while China is moving in the opposite direction. Lang Guihui told Interface News.
(At the request of the interviewee, Huang Liang and Lang Guihui are pseudonyms)