Recently, the trillion-dollar market value of NINGDE Times launched the power exchange brand EVOGO and the overall solution of combined power exchange, adapting to 80% of the models. Coincidentally, on January 24, Ruilan Automobile, a joint venture between Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology, also completed the industrial and commercial registration procedures and officially settled in Liangjiang New District, Chongqing.
A stone stirred up a thousand layers of waves, and the power exchange mode once again triggered a wide discussion in the car circle. Some people believe that with the status of the "King of Ning", the power exchange will be from the niche to the popularity; some people believe that tesla has launched the power exchange without a problem, and this wave of electric heat will also be broken. But more people take a wait-and-see approach, believing that the reasons for favor or disapproval are insufficient, or let the "bullets fly for a while".
Regardless of the views of all parties, there is no doubt that the end of such a powerful Ningde era, Geely also followed up, and the development of the power exchange model is indeed accelerating. So will the future power exchange be a trend? Let's not rush to conclusions.
The strengths and weaknesses of power exchange
Photography: Zhang Yu
Electric vehicles have many pain points. In the early days, everyone's anxiety about the driving range was more prominent, and as the driving range of electric vehicles continued to increase, people's anxiety in this regard decreased, and complaints about the convenience of charging gradually increased.
Mo Ke, CEO of True Lithium Research, believes that the phenomenon of queuing for 4 hours on highways and charging for 1 hour on national day in 2021 fully reflects the user's demand for the convenience of supplementary energy.
Electric vehicles replenish energy in a short period of time, and the main way to achieve it is fast charging and power replacement. A number of industry experts in the new energy automobile industry told reporters that the current fast charging technology has a greater harm to the battery, and it is not recommended that consumers use it regularly. In addition, if a large number of electric vehicles are used at the same time, the pressure on the local power grid will be very large.
The swap mode overcomes the drawbacks of the fast charge mode. Chen Quanshi, a professor at Tsinghua University who was the deputy director of the National Automobile Standardization Electric Vehicle Professional Committee, told reporters that the power exchange can use slow charging, the damage to the battery is small, and the peak and valley electricity can also be used to supplement energy, which has a promoting effect on improving energy utilization.
Of course, the power exchange mode also has its own shortcomings. For example, power exchange belongs to the heavy asset industry, the burden on investors is relatively heavy, the investment payback period is longer, and there will be certain safety hazards when the battery is often plugged in.
Before the emergence of EVOGO in the Ningde era, there were several power exchange operation enterprises in China, the larger three were Weilai, Aodong New Energy, and Botan Technology, and the three substations occupied most of the market share of the current power exchange.
Some industry experts and business people have also mentioned that the ratio of power-changing vehicles to reserve batteries can reach 1:1.3 to meet people's daily power replacement needs. Lin Daoyong, an investor in the new energy industry, told reporters a set of figures that the ratio of Weilai Automobile's replacement power station is about 1:1.04.
A friend of the reporter, Dr. Tang, is the owner of the Weilai car, and he told the reporter that with the increase in the number of Weilai car owners, it is now necessary to queue up to change the electricity. In the face of the phenomenon that car owners need to queue up to change electricity, Weilai's car companies that attach importance to user experience must also want to solve. However, to increase the number of batteries in the substation, it is necessary to buy a large number of batteries, which is not a small expense. Weilai has been in a state of loss by using power exchange as a means of promoting the sale of new cars, and it is not an easy task to increase large sums of money to buy batteries.
Compared with the maturity of the charging business, the power exchange business is obviously still in the early stage of development, and it is more concentrated in the field of commercial vehicles. Taking the catalogue of recommended models for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles (the 12th batch in 2021) as an example, among the 511 models, there are 41 electric models, accounting for 8%. Among them, there are 4 passenger cars, and the remaining 37 models are all exchange-type commercial vehicles.
Is it a good time to promote power exchange?
Tesla, which has a strong influence, has launched a power exchange, and it will not take long to stop the flag; the first generation of battery kings and new energy giants BYD oppose the power exchange model; what is more, the forerunner of the power exchange model, Better Place, has long been bankrupt. These few things are not unfamiliar to people in the automotive circle, which may be an important reason why many people dare not draw conclusions about whether EVOGO in the Ningde era can succeed.
In 2013, Tesla introduced a battery swap mode, which takes only 90 seconds to remove the 454-kilogram lithium battery and replace it with a new fully charged battery. However, it didn't take long for Tesla to stop mentioning this power-changing technology, so why did its attitude change so quickly? Chen Quanshi told reporters that the most fundamental reason is that the needs of American consumers are very different from those of China.
Americans buy electric vehicles, most of them are the second car of the family, this electric car is generally used for daily commuting, if you go far, most still choose to drive a fuel car, in addition, Americans in their own garage charging, can be very convenient to replenish energy. If you use the power exchange mode, you can not do without manual services, you need to pay an additional $60 to 80 a month, so that the advantage of cheap electric vehicle usage fees will be weakened.
Later, at the shareholders' meeting, Tesla CEO Musk said: "The reason why we launched the power exchange technology is to see if people will choose this way." The implication of this statement is more that Tesla is also using trial and error to seek answers.
After all, Tesla was mainly launched in the US market to replace the power, and BYD, as an independent car company, also resolutely opposed the power exchange model. WANG Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, once opened his mouth: Power exchange and hydrogen energy are nonsense.
Chen Quanshi told reporters that in order to increase the mileage of the vehicle, BYD had tried the power exchange technology, but encountered some problems that could not be solved. Between the power exchange and the installation of batteries, BYD finally chose the idea of adding batteries.
In May 2010, BYD funded the establishment of Shenzhen Pengcheng Electric Vehicle Rental Company with Shenzhen Bus Group. In 2011, BYD E6 pioneer listed, the comprehensive working conditions of the mileage of 300 kilometers, Pengcheng Taxi Company used E6.
Pengcheng taxis operate well, and Aodong New Energy, which adopts the power exchange mode, has also been praised. Most of BYD's batteries are digested on its own new energy vehicles, that is, the battery customer group is relatively single, and it is difficult for other brands of electric vehicles to replace BYD's batteries. The customer group is single, and it is difficult to recover the cost, which may be the main reason why BYD is not optimistic about the power exchange model.
An industry expert told reporters that the fundamental logic of power exchange lies in the separation of vehicle electricity, standard batteries, and energy independent closed-loop. No matter which one does the power change, it can achieve the separation of vehicle electricity, but the standard battery is a very troublesome thing.
Chen Jing, a senior analyst at Outpost Consulting, told reporters that there are more than 80 kinds of power battery models now, and almost every time the main engine factory develops a new model, there will be a new model of battery to match it. The more battery companies support the manufacturers, the heavier the burden in this regard. The Ningde era promotes the power exchange mode, which is expected to reduce the battery model to 20.
Chen Weifeng, general manager of Times Electric Service, introduced that the chocolate exchange block can be adapted to the models developed by 80% of the pure electric platforms that have been listed in the world and will be listed in the next 3 years. Geely has launched its proprietary power exchange architecture, GBRC (Global Battery Rapid Change), which can cover the product demand of the 2700-3100mm wheelbase segment.
Obviously, CATL and Geely have the same ambition in the power exchange business - to be a platform company, which is also one of the solutions to solve the problems in the operation of the power exchange model.
The ultimate test: the ability to make a profit
There are martyrs in the power exchange industry, and Better Place is one of them. Chen Quanshi told reporters that before Better Place, the United States also experimented with power exchanges on a small scale, and then it ended hastily. Better Place is only a model innovation, do not grasp the dominance of the battery, if the vehicle company does not cooperate, Better Place bankruptcy is inevitable.
Chen Quanshi believes that there is a problem that it is difficult to distinguish between rights and responsibilities in the power exchange of Better Place, and the main engine factory has too many uncontrollable factors, and is naturally unwilling to cooperate with the power exchange mode of Better Place. If the relationship between rights and responsibilities can be sorted out, the power exchange model has a certain attraction for consumers. For the enterprises in the bureau now, the final test must be their ability to make profits.
Renault electric vehicles occupy the top spot in European sales, and they have a certain relationship with their power exchange model. Renault launched the new Zoe car, supporting the battery rental + power exchange model, which separates the battery ownership and bare car ownership, directly reducing the car purchase threshold. Renault's business model solves two difficulties of electric vehicles, one is to spread the high price to a number of years to pay, the price is down, so that consumers have the ability to buy; the other is that the power exchange model solves the pain point of the user's charging waiting time is too long.
The power exchange mode can cut the peak and fill the valley, and make full use of the idle electricity price to supplement energy cheaply, which is an economic advantage that fast charging cannot match. Taking Shenzhen as an example, the electricity price is divided into a peak period of 107.94 cents / kWh, a flat period of 65.42 cents / kWh, a valley period of 32.71 cents / kWh, the peak-valley difference is about 3 times, if the accumulation of a long time will be a considerable wealth.
Take the Ningde era, the charge of a chocolate battery is 26.5 degrees, assuming that a battery cycle life is 2500 times, the whole life cycle is calculated, the cost of peak and valley electricity prices are 71510.25 yuan, 21670.375 yuan, the difference between the two is nearly 50,000 yuan. EVOGO's substation can be placed with 48 batteries, so that the total amount of peak-to-valley electricity price difference that can be saved throughout the life cycle is about 2.4 million yuan.
CATL did not elaborate on the return on investment when it released EVOGO, and from a business point of view, CATL definitely evaluated the issue of return on investment.
According to GCL Energy,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 units are invested in a single passenger car replacement station, of which batteries account for 28 percent. With an average of 100 vehicles served per day and a daily operating mileage of 350km per vehicle, the return on investment per station is 10.2%, corresponding to a payback period of 5.22 years.
Calculation is more like paper talk, whether EVOGO in the Ningde era can be profitable, the test is the operation and management ability of the entire team of times electronic services. The reporter noted that the registered capital of Times Electric Service is only 200 million yuan, which is not enough to promote the large-scale rollout of EVOGO. The reporter asked the marketing department of CATL Times to learn that EVOGO of CATL implements a partnership mechanism and welcomes interested and powerful enterprises or individuals to join in.
From the perspective of product planning of Ruilan Automobile, it will involve cars, SUVs, MPVs, and even logistics vehicles and light trucks, covering a wheelbase of 2700-3100mm, which can meet the needs of different markets such as online car-hailing, private car, taxi, and logistics vehicle.
In the B-end, the main "low operating costs" and "the most energy-saving", improve operational efficiency, in the C-end with more efficient power exchange services, to solve the core pain points of new energy vehicle consumers, bringing a higher level of travel experience, B, C-end joint efforts, but also Ruilan Automobile to promote new energy sales and thus achieve the final profit of an important means.
The track has been rolled out, the industry is accelerating, the giants have entered the game, the time to test the profitability of the power exchange model is coming, and we look forward to the companies in the bureau to come up with beautiful answers.