Spring Festival charging is expensive, big queues, many new energy vehicle owners regret it, behind the reality to be recognized
Recently, a video taken by a man questioning the high charge of charging piles has attracted attention and has been on the hot search. The video shows that the man spent a total of 99.65 yuan charging at the No. 2 charging station (in the direction of Khorgos) in the Kaifeng service area of Lianhuo Expressway, including 58.25 yuan for electricity and 41.4 yuan for service.
It costs 99 yuan to charge for 1 hour, which is complained by many consumers that it is too expensive, after all, it has always been a consensus that the price of electricity is cheap and the cost of using the car is low. But the official also responded, this is the case itself, don't charge it if it's too expensive. This has triggered a large-scale complaint from consumers - "let you save fuel, not let you save money." "This is just the beginning, and it will get more and more expensive in the future".
Judging from the current situation of this year's Spring Festival, according to China Youth Network, from January 26 to March 5, the cross-regional flow of people across the country is expected to reach 9 billion, and the commercial passenger traffic of railways, highways, waterways, and civil aviation will rebound in an all-round way.
With such a large flow of people and vehicles, high-speed traffic jams have become the norm, and at this point in time, a large number of new energy vehicle owners have been on the highway. Every holiday, high-speed queuing for charging has almost become a hurdle that new energy vehicle owners can't bypass. Last year's May 1st and 11th, high-speed queuing charging was once a hot topic.
At the current Spring Festival time node, the situation of high-speed queuing for charging has been reappearing, and a new round of complaints is coming. Some new energy vehicle owners drove new energy vehicles from Guangdong to Henan for the New Year, "queuing for 1 hour and charging for 1 hour". There is no blockage on the highway for the New Year, the charging station is blocked, the oil truck can arrive in 12 hours, and it takes 24 hours to drive the tram.
However, judging from the situation exposed by many new energy vehicle owners, it is the norm to queue for charging for 4 hours at high speed.
Another car owner drove a new energy vehicle from Shenzhen back to Jiangxi, 8 hours of driving took 15 hours, almost every service area had to queue up for charging, on the way home charged 3 times, each time to wait for 2 hours, charging 1 hour.
Therefore, at the moment, there are many new energy vehicle owners who regret going on the highway. Some car owners said that the tram went home for the New Year, the whole journey was 1600 kilometers, and it took more than 20 hours to run 1100 kilometers, and the one-year battery life has been discounted, and the driving process was charged 6 times.
There are also car owners in Anhui high-speed traffic jams, found that many electric vehicles on the road are out of power, 300 kilometers for 15 hours, but also regretted.
What are the basic realities that new energy vehicle owners need to recognize?
Every time the highway arrives, there are always voices of new energy vehicle owners regretting running at high speeds, and there are always voices complaining about the charging queue in the high-speed service area and the sharp rise in electricity prices. But today, new energy vehicle owners need to recognize some realities.
First of all, the purchase of new energy vehicles is to accept that most of the current pure electric battery life is not enough to support holiday traffic jams, long-distance high-speed demand, popular Spring Festival period, don't drive pure electric cars, charging queue is too long. If you must run on high speeds during holidays, it is best to plan your charging route and avoid popular arterial highways.
Secondly, the biggest pain point of the tram is the short board of charging endurance, the construction of infrastructure is immature, the battery technology is not mature, the battery bottleneck has not been solved, the charging time is too long, due to the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, under the influence of supply and demand, the charging pile infrastructure can not keep up with the growth rate is also the current reality, under the contradiction between supply and demand, the charging cost will continue to rise.
After all, according to the theory of economics, the price is determined by the value of the commodity itself, and the relationship between supply and demand is the fluctuation that affects the price.
In the case of peak congestion of the Spring Festival, the current high-speed charging pile is far from meeting the demand, which is a serious oversupply state, especially in the Spring Festival, the time node of the large traffic jam and peak flow of people, if the charging fee is too cheap, a large number of new energy vehicles are crowded in the service area to charge, and do not go for a long time, a charge is 1~2 hours, then for a large number of queuing new energy vehicle owners, it is a disaster.
Therefore, from an economic point of view, excessive demand and resource scarcity will inevitably affect price fluctuations. When a product is in short supply, the effect of price increases is to suppress demand and balance the supply of resources.
There is also a "price ceiling" in the principles of economics, also known as the "price limit" theory, which is the maximum price set by the government in order to limit the increase in the price of certain commodities and factors, and the main purpose is to protect the interests of consumers.
In terms of charging prices, if the charging price rises by 3~5 times, it may be unreasonable, because it breaks the price ceiling theory and does not meet the provisions of the price ceiling.
However, according to the response of the charging station of 99 yuan for charging for 1 hour, the electricity fee is divided into three periods, the price of each period is different, the service fee is 0.8 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity, and the charging unit price of the three time periods is 1.9022 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity in the peak period, 1.5153 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity in the peak period, and 1.1586 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity in the trough period.
In terms of these three pricings, the peak increase did not exceed 100%, nor did it reach the 2x and 3x increases, so it is generally in line with the theory of economic reasons and price caps.
In fact, the price increase of charging piles during peak hours is not a bad thing for those car owners who are in a hurry, and this dynamic price adjustment mechanism during peak hours will force hybrid car owners to give up charging to refuel, leaving the demand to pure electric car owners, adjusting supply and demand, and reducing queuing time
In fact, a long time ago, many charging piles banned the charging of gasoline-electric hybrid models and extended-range vehicles, which brought a lot of controversy, but in fact, it is reasonable to put it in the scene of high-speed service areas on holidays.
If the price of electricity is basically the same as the price of oil during the peak period, it will cause a large number of hybrid car owners to directly refuel and run. If the price is expensive, the car owner may charge based on the mileage demand, if the charge can reach the destination by 70%, then there is no need to charge to 100%, which will cause many consumers to reduce the charging time and evacuate the charging queue faster.
And many car owners will also consciously plan the next charging point, and even find a charging pile to charge at the next high-speed, so as to realize the diversion of the queuing flow.
Charging operators are losing money, trams don't have to pay tolls, price increases are logical, and car owners face and accept reality
Judging from the current situation of gasoline and electric car owners, tram consumers have a lot of benefits, including green cards without restrictions, preferential purchase tax, no need to pay road tolls, etc., and have a series of privileges, and the competition with oil vehicles is not the same as the same rights.
When the owner of a petrol truck refuels, the price of oil includes the cost of road construction and maintenance, but at present, the rapid development of trams is eating up the share of fuel tax, but trams do not have to pay road tolls. To put it simply, it is now the oil car that is keeping the tram.
From the perspective of the entire industry, the charging pile brand with a gross profit margin of only 20% is in the midst of consecutive losses. The leading charging operator has lost 560 million yuan in three years. In fact, from the perspective of sustainable development of the industry, charging operators need to make a profit, if the price does not increase during the peak period, and the price is usually low, then the manufacturer has no incentive to lay charging piles along the highway, and the problem of charging difficulty is not so fast to solve.
Therefore, to sum up, tram owners are complaining about the increasing cost of charging as soon as they reach the peak of electricity consumption or holidays, and they are about to catch up with the price of oil. The essence is that it does not recognize the reality of the rapid development of the current new energy vehicle market and the supply of charging pile market cannot meet the demand.
The biggest pain point of today's electric cars is that the current charging convenience is not enough, and compared with the convenience experience of refueling at gas stations, it is far from the convenience experience. Specifically, the number of charging piles is not large enough and the distribution is not dense enough, especially the charging piles along the highway seem to have been unable to meet consumer demand.
The reason is that high-speed charging piles are almost oversupplied, and only on holidays will there be oversupply, if large-scale charging piles are laid along the highway, then the result is that the charging piles are usually idle on a larger scale, which will undoubtedly lead to larger-scale losses for charging operators.
Charging operators need to make a profit, the country needs to pay taxes, the current stock and increment of trams are very large, oil and electricity with the same right or the general trend, electricity prices rise, especially during the peak period pricing increase must be the norm, and even if the future one day for new energy vehicles to levy road maintenance fees, then the price of electricity and the road maintenance fees included in its service fees or is also a high probability event.
At present, trams have surpassed gasoline vehicles in many aspects such as car experience, car cost, and intelligent experience. But the car as a means of transportation, efficient from point A to point B is the core, the most important, the most basic demand, if you want to pursue intelligence and control experience, then don't expect to achieve the endurance experience of oil vehicles at high speeds, choose oil cars or trams, you need to see where your real needs are, however, for car companies, if the biggest pain point of battery charging has not been solved, the pain points of holidays are amplified, there will always be a large number of consumers to oil cars.
How to solve the shortcomings of battery life charging for new energy vehicles is a key part of consumer experience and choice, and it is also a key pain point for new energy vehicle companies to solve as soon as possible.
Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission