Just ＂change＂ the battery？ How can changing electricity be so simple？
In the use of pure electric vehicles, battery problems have been bothering many consumers. The difficulty in installing charging piles, long charging time and battery decay all affect consumers’ daily experience. In order to solve these problems, the power exchange mode came into being. Especially under the impetus of the policy, this year’s electricity exchange market is more lively. Since the first power exchange station of Chang ‘an New Energy was completed in Chongqing in September this year, power exchange stations from Geely and Dongfeng have successively landed or appeared in Chongqing, Jinan, Wuhan and other cities, breaking the situation that Weilai and BAIC were "equally divided" in the previous power exchange market. However, it is worth noting that it is nothing new that the battery replacement mode has already appeared. Behind the current lively situation, the constraints of profitability and battery specifications faced by the battery replacement mode remain unresolved.
▼ Policy spring breeze wakes up the rivers and lakes.
As the name implies, changing electricity means centralized storage, centralized charging and unified distribution of a large number of batteries through centralized charging stations, and battery replacement service for electric vehicles in battery distribution stations. Compared with the ordinary charging mode, the battery replacement mode can solve a series of problems caused by the difficulty of charging new energy vehicles, battery attenuation and easy spontaneous combustion, and the vehicle-electric separation mode adopted in the battery replacement can also effectively reduce the first purchase cost. This obvious advantage attracted many people to try layout more than ten years ago.
Image source Better Place Weibo
In 2007, Israeli Xia Jiaxi founded the first operating company, Better Place, which aims at changing electricity for passenger cars. However, the mode of changing electricity needs to lay a large number of power stations as the foundation, which is undoubtedly a "bottomless pit" for burning money in the early stage of operation. In 2013, Better Place declared bankruptcy and liquidation because it was difficult to balance the investment and income of the business model. At the same time in China, Dongfeng, Zotye, Kangdi, Nanjing Automobile and other companies also put a number of operating vehicles in the mode of changing electricity into the market, but they also did not stir up a splash.
Now, many years later, with the continuous expansion of the scale of new energy vehicles in China, the problems of charging difficulty and battery attenuation of pure electric products are becoming more and more serious. In order to solve the battery-related problems, the spring breeze of national policy has blown to the power exchange mode. In April this year, the "Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles" jointly issued by the four ministries and commissions of the country clearly encouraged the development of the power exchange model; In May, after discussion and deliberation by delegates and members, the power exchange station was written into the government work report for the first time as an important part of the new infrastructure. Driven by the policy spring breeze, the domestic power exchange rivers and lakes are becoming more and more lively.
▼40 days, 3 car companies entered the game.
On September 10th, the first power exchange station of Chang ‘an New Energy was officially completed in Chongqing Olympic Sports Center. As a new heavyweight contestant after Weilai and BAIC, Chang ‘an New Energy Power Exchange Station has attracted great attention from the outside world. Generally speaking, the process of changing electricity mainly covers five steps: generating an order-entering the station-changing electricity-testing-leaving the station. Prior to this, the power exchange time announced by Weilai and BAIC remained at about 3 minutes, but the appearance of Chang ‘an New Energy Power Exchange Station refreshed this data. According to public information, Changan New Energy has reduced the time from battery taking to battery loading to 30 seconds, and the whole process from vehicle entering the station to battery replacement takes only 1 minute.
Geely Automobile also set a new record. A week after the completion of Chang ‘an New Energy Power Station, Geely Automobile’s first power station was officially unveiled at the 2020 Zhibo Fair and landed in Liangjiang New District, Chongqing. A month later, on October 18th, the second power station of Geely Automobile was put into operation in Jinan, Shandong. The data shows that Geely Power Station adopts a double-bin design, which can accommodate 39 battery packs, and can provide nearly 1000 power exchange services every day, and the power exchange time is about 90 s.
On October 19th, Dongfeng Motor’s intelligent power exchange station was also unveiled. At the 5th Science and Technology Innovation Week, after a Fengshen E70 (parameter | inquiry) drove into Dongfeng’s intelligent power exchange station, the vehicle was transported to the operation room by the conveyor and lifted, and the battery exchange robot automatically unloaded the old battery and installed the new battery. The whole process only took about 1 minute.
In just 40 days, the power exchange stations of the three major car companies have successively landed or appeared. Coupled with the paving of Weilai and BAIC, the prototype of the power exchange market has begun to appear. However, it is worth noting that even with the blessing of policies, the fundamental problem of the power exchange model-the contradiction between cost and profit-has not been solved.
▼ The contradiction between cost and profit is difficult to solve.
In the mode of power exchange, the separation of vehicle and electricity is an important link. Compared with ordinary pure electric vehicles, the battery cost of pure electric vehicles is no longer borne by consumers, and a series of risks such as battery attenuation are also transferred to the vehicle enterprises. These benefits enjoyed by consumers mean that car companies need to invest a lot of money in building power stations and buying batteries.
For example, Zhu Jiang, then vice president of Weilai Automobile, previously revealed that the daily operating cost of Weilai’s free power exchange was about 50,000 RMB. It has also been estimated by insiders that the average operating cost of each power station in Weilai is 400,000 yuan. From 2018 to now, Weilai Power Station has invested more than 500 million yuan. BAIC, which explored the power exchange market earlier, invested more. Wang Chunfeng, deputy general manager of BAIC Blue Valley Marketing Service Co., Ltd., said that in terms of power exchange station operation, the investment of a single power exchange station of BAIC New Energy is about 3 million yuan, but this figure is slowly declining.
Corresponding to the high cost is the uncertainty of profit prospects. At present, the power exchange in the market is mainly aimed at two groups, one is the private vehicles of ordinary consumers, and the other is the operating vehicles represented by taxis. Weilai, Beiqi New Energy, Chang ‘an, Geely and other enterprises have changed power stations, only Weilai’s power station is aimed at private users, while the latter three are mainly for taxis and network cars. In addition, in 2018, BAIC New Energy also released a battery-changing model called EU Quick Change Edition for ordinary consumers, but few people bought it.
In these two modes of operation, from 2018 to now, the number of power exchange orders for Weilai Power Station for private consumers has accumulated more than 1 million times. However, Weilai launched a lifetime free service for car owners, which means that the previous investment of 500 million yuan was a pure loss. Recently, however, Weilai has adjusted the policy of free power exchange: from October 12, 2020, users who pay big orders will be changed from unlimited power exchange to free power exchange for the first 6 times a month; Car owners who pay before October 12, 2020 still enjoy life-long unlimited free nationwide power exchange service. As for whether this adjustment can improve the profitability of the power station for Weilai, it still takes time to test.
As of June this year, 187 Beiqi new energy power stations for operating vehicles such as taxis have been built and put into operation in 19 cities across the country, with a total of 4.8 million power exchanges. However, in terms of profitability, BAIC New Energy and its partner Aodong in the field of power exchange have never been publicly disclosed. Aika Automobile found out from the announcement issued by BAIC Blue Valley (6.490, 0.04, 0.62%) when BAIC New Energy increased its capital for Aodong last year that the operating income of Aodong from January to April 2019 was 3,610,800 yuan and the net profit loss was 19,122,200 yuan. This means that among all the distribution power stations of AUTO, only a few power stations operating at full capacity have achieved profitability.
The picture shows the Aodong electric bar changing power station.
In addition to the difficulty in making profits, consumers have also encountered many difficulties in the process of using the power exchange service. "The pure electric taxi we drive can change electricity, but there are only thirty or forty power stations in Beijing. When we are running a sports car in the city, we often encounter the situation that the car has no electricity but the battery of the power station is not enough." Master Yang, a Beijing taxi driver, told Aika Automobile. It is understood that Master Yang’s "dissatisfaction with electricity" refers to the situation that the battery in the power station is not fully charged. Generally speaking, each power station will be equipped with thirty or forty batteries, but when the power exchange vehicle exceeds the upper limit of the power exchange station, the batteries of the power exchange station will be replaced by the power exchange vehicle before they are fully charged. When Aika Automobile met Master Yang at a power station in Haidian, there were already eight taxis waiting in line to change power.
▼ Scale is the key to breaking the game
"In order to optimize the power exchange experience and achieve profitability, it is not enough for enterprises to fight alone." Regarding the contradiction between high cost and profit prospect, and the "power shortage" encountered by Master Yang, an industry expert told Aika Automobile that the "power shortage" was mainly caused by the imperfect network layout of power exchange stations, and the imperfect layout of power exchange stations was caused by the excessive investment of a single power exchange station, which was difficult for enterprises to bear. Only by changing the number of power stations can the consumer experience be optimized and improved; Only when the number of electric vehicles increases, can we bring enough passengers to each power station, and the power station can achieve profitability. The two are complementary and interlocking. "
The losses of Weilai and Beiqi New Energy Power Station prove that enterprises only serve their own products to change electricity, and it is difficult to achieve profitability. At the same time, if every enterprise invests a lot of cost to lay the power station network, it will not only be difficult for enterprises, but also waste resources for the whole society. In the expert’s view, only when the car companies combine Lian Heng in power exchange and the overall market forms a scale effect can the problem be fundamentally solved.
Chang’ an’s mode of changing power stations is based on this idea. Aika Automobile understands that by joining hands with partners such as Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, Aodong, State Grid and Iron Tower, Chang ‘an New Energy Power Exchange Station can support the power exchange services of seven major automobile companies such as BAIC, GAC, SAIC, FAW Hongqi, Pentium, Dongfeng Qichen, Chang ‘an and Jianghuai, which means that the power exchange station will have higher turnover rate and profitability.
But for the whole market, this model also means a new round of competition for the right to speak. "If you want to realize the universal interchangeability of batteries in many enterprises, you must formulate a unified battery specification. Whoever formulates this specification will occupy a dominant position in the new round of power exchange market. " The expert said, "If you want to continue to develop the power exchange mode, more and more car companies will cooperate, and the standard dispute of pure electric batteries will soon appear. At the same time, this debate is not limited to car companies, and charging operators are also important players in the power exchange market. Whether this standard is customized by car companies or formulated by charging operators also determines the right to speak in the battery field. "
In fact, despite the warmth of policy spring breeze, there are still a lot of problems for car companies to promote the development of power exchange mode. In addition to a large amount of capital investment, the cooperation between enterprises at the same level, the unification of battery specifications, the acceptance of consumers and the future dispute over the right to speak are all issues that need to be considered.