Change The Power, The Air Outlet Has Arrived?

Since the beginning of this year, in addition to the new energy policy of weidian, weidian has been driving other players to change their energy policies. The news of the completion and landing of the vehicle enterprise's power station has been frequent, and the declared power change speed has been shortened again and again.

Restricted by the constraints of high cost, heavy asset operation and inconsistent battery standards, the power exchange mode which has been developed for more than ten years is not as expected. Under the favorable background of new infrastructure construction, can the long silent power exchange mode stand on the "wind outlet" and usher in a new turning point?

Good policy

With the rapid development of new energy vehicle industry, the pain points around new energy vehicle such as mileage anxiety, high purchase cost and low residual value rate are highlighted, and the energy supply mode dominated by charging is challenged. High efficiency, fast, can realize the separation of vehicle and electricity mode, frequency welcome policy is good, new energy vehicle power exchange mode has come.

In April this year, the national subsidy policy for new energy vehicles was clear. Electric vehicles with a price of more than 300000 yuan must have the ability to change electricity before they can enjoy the subsidy. In May, in the government work report of the two sessions in 2020, the power station was included in the scope of "new infrastructure" for the first time. In July, Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of industry and information technology, revealed that he would continue to vigorously promote the construction of new energy vehicle charging and swapping infrastructure and improve the quality of new energy vehicles With regard to technical standards and management policies, enterprises are encouraged to develop models of power exchange mode according to applicable scenarios, and support Beijing, Hainan and other places to carry out pilot promotion; the "new energy vehicle industry development plan (2021-2035)" officially released on November 2 clearly pointed out that the construction of charging and swapping infrastructure should be strengthened and the application of power exchange mode should be encouraged.

At the same time, Chang'an new energy, Geely Automobile and other car companies have increased the code for electricity mode. After the first power exchange station was set up in Chongqing on September 16, Geely Technology Group set up the second power exchange demonstration station in Jinan on October 18. The whole process of power change is about 90 seconds, and the driver does not need to get off the bus. Up to now, Geely Technology Group has signed more than 1000 power stations nationwide. But Geely is not the fastest. On September 10, Chang'an new energy's first power exchange station was set up in Chongqing. It declared that "the power exchange is extremely fast in 30 seconds, and it is also a leader in the industry". Not long ago, Weilai launched battery rental service and adopted baas mode. The purchase price will be reduced by 70000 yuan, and the separation mode of vehicle and electricity will be officially opened.

It is worth noting that the field of power exchange is not only a new battlefield for automobile enterprises, but also the operators specialized in power exchange. After Aodong new energy realized commercial operation in 2016, it has invested and built nearly 300 power stations nationwide, covering 15 cities, and more than 10000 electric vehicles enjoy the power exchange service on the platform. It is understood that the new generation power station promoted by Olympic Games this year can complete the whole process of power exchange in one minute, while the process for power exchange is only 20 seconds.

According to the calculation, under the slow charging mode, the electric vehicle generally takes 6 to 8 hours to fully charge, which takes a long time. It is difficult for the owner without private charging pile to ensure the slow charging frequency; however, frequent and fast charging is not conducive to extending the service life of the battery. Compared with simple charging, the power change mode can improve the safety, reduce the users' worries about mileage and improve the user experience of electric vehicles. In addition, the vehicle electric separation mode can reduce the vehicle purchase cost and solve the user's worries about the residual value and battery life of the second-hand electric vehicle.

"In fact, there is no contradiction between power change and charging. Power change is only a way to supplement energy. Charging can be divided into two charging modes: replacing and charging on the vehicle. Changing power means charging after changing, which can improve the speed of power compensation, control the environment and reduce safety accidents." On October 29, Wang Zidong, former director of the National 863 electric vehicle major special project power battery test center, said, but it can not be ignored that the power exchange mode may increase the user's power battery cost.

The principle of the power change mode is to put the charging process in the power exchange station. In fact, it separates the vehicle charging and battery charging. LAN Zhibo, technical vice president of Aodong New Energy Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., believes that "power change is not only" fast ", but also the logic behind it is to make up for the shortage of charging, so as to create a full scene energy supply service solution for users."

In LAN Zhibo's view, the use of electric vehicles involves battery safety, battery life, vehicle cost, power grid energy, land resources and other issues, and the power exchange can solve the contradictions between the above parties, such as the contradiction between fast charging and battery safety, the contradiction between fast charging and battery life, the contradiction between vehicle mileage and increasing batteries and the overall cost, and charging The contradiction between high power and power grid, between charging parking space and land resources, etc.

Problems to be solved

At present, the domestic car companies providing electricity exchange services include Weilai automobile, BAIC new energy, Chang'an new energy and Geely Automobile. Among them, Weilai directly faces private customers, while the last three mainly focus on taxis and online car hailing, and do not spread to social vehicles in a large scale. It is worth noting that the high construction and operation costs, profit model, and the inconsistency of battery technical standards have become the difficulties in the large-scale popularization of power exchange mode.

As early as 2007, Israel's better place company hoped to become the power exchange service provider of various brands of electric vehicles in the world through the power exchange mode. However, due to the high investment and low return, the large-scale operation investment and the small income are unsustainable, it finally applied for bankruptcy liquidation in 2013. Later, Tesla also tried the mode of water and electricity exchange, and finally gave up because of the high price and inconvenient operation.

Li Yujun, vice president of Beijing Electric Power Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the executive director of Beijing Yujun Electric Power Co., Ltd. on October 30, when interviewing the executive director of Beijing Yuben Electric Power Co., Ltd. and the executive director of the electric power plant Co., Ltd., on the operation cost of replacing the electric power plant in the 21st century, Li Yujun, the executive director of the electric power plant, said in an interview with the executive director of Beijing Yujun Electric Power Co., Ltd. on the operation cost of replacing the electric power plant in the 21st century, he said that the.

"The cost or expense that affects the power exchange operation is relatively high. A power station needs four people, at least 500000 a year and 3 million in six years. However, if we want to improve the efficiency of unattended technology by 10%, we can improve the efficiency by 10% Li Yujun said.

Last year, Zhu Jiang, then vice president of user development of Weilai, once said that the free power exchange of Weilai would increase the operation cost of about 50000 yuan per day. According to media estimates, the average operating cost of each power station in Weilai is 400000 yuan, and the investment in construction, approval and power supply of each power station is 400000 yuan. On average, there are 1.5 employees in each power station. The annual cost per capita is 150000 yuan, and the monthly site rent of each power station is 100000 yuan. According to rough calculation, since the first power station was put into operation in May 2018, Weilai has invested more than 500 million yuan in the business of replacing power stations.

According to official data, as of October 5, 2020, Weilai's customers have changed electricity more than 1 million times, saving users more than 100 million yuan, which means that Weilai has paid at least 100 million yuan for this. In October, Weilai automobile announced that it would adjust the electricity exchange policy. Users who pay a large deposit from 0:00 on October 12 will no longer enjoy the rights and interests of old owners of Weilai automobile for free. This is also seen as Weilai, after coming out of the most difficult crisis, began to focus on improving profitability and operational efficiency.

It is worth mentioning that the economic and commercial nature of the replacement power station exists. Under the premise of vehicle matching, only when the load rate of a single power station reaches 60% to 80%, can the profit and loss balance be achieved. That is to say, for a power exchange station designed to be able to change power more than 400 times a day, it must complete at least 240-320 times a day for no loss.

LAN Zhibo revealed that so far, the power stations of Aodong in Guangzhou and Xiamen have been profitable. They have been operating since 2016, and have turned from deficit to profit in March 2018. He said that the load rate is the biggest economic indicator of the charging and swapping industry. At present, the load rate of the charging pile is low, and the power exchange and use scenarios are effectively combined. The taxi scenario and the demand for electricity exchange are more consistent, so the load rate is higher and the business is better.

Li Yujun also affirmed the profit possibility of power station replacement. He said, for example, that the economy of power station replacement in Beijing is not good, and there are factors such as high land price and high electricity price. However, in Guangzhou and Xiamen, the electricity price is cheap, especially in Xiamen, where the area is small and the operation effect is good. "At present, the economy of electricity exchange exists in the industry, but there are many key factors for profit, which is a systematic project."

In addition, the standardization of power battery also restricts the development of power exchange industry. On the one hand, the electric vehicle technical standards of various enterprises are changing with each passing day, and the battery standards are extremely different; on the other hand, the vehicle enterprises are not willing to share the technical standards, and the power exchange mode cannot be actually operated beyond the scope of a single vehicle enterprise.

Wang Zidong told reporters: "it is difficult to establish a unified battery standard. The battery of mobile phones has not been standardized for 20 years. The same is true for electric vehicle swapping. In order to develop rapidly in the field of power exchange, vehicle enterprises, power battery enterprises, including charging enterprises and users, should work together. I think the most difficult one is the vehicle companies, because they are emphasizing that their own way is right and others are not, but it is not the case. "

With the change of the concept of vehicle enterprises and the appearance of many benefits brought about by power exchange, Wang Zidong believes that more tramcar models will come out in the second half of next year.

Nie Liang, chairman of Hangzhou bertan Technology Engineering Co., Ltd., also said that standardization must be the direction of future development. "The biggest difficulty in power exchange is standardization, which can not be solved by only one automobile enterprise. There are about 300 million cars in China, and the battery value of one car is 50000, which involves 15 trillion industries. It is necessary to consider not only how the asset managers can solve the (follow-up problems) after the separation of vehicles and electricity, but also how to protect the interests of consumers and reduce the whole cost. "

When it comes to standardization, Li Yujun said frankly that battery pack standardization is difficult to achieve in the short term. Battery standardization means that battery management technology should also be standardized. Battery management technology is the core of the enterprise, and each major automobile enterprise has its own set. It is difficult to have a unified standard in terms of technology and user experience.

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