Charging anxiety is an important factor that restricts the consumption of new energy vehicles. With the continuous improvement of the number of new energy vehicles, how to really power up and refuel is always a concern of everyone. Compared with the charging mode, the new energy vehicle has the advantages of quick recharge. At the moment when the competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming more and more fierce, it has become an important breakthrough for enterprises to seek new quantity from the continuous increase in favorable policies, to the competition among enterprises, to the warming of the market and the recognition of consumers.
The driver parked the vehicle at the fixed position of the power station, and the staff lifted the buckle on the tray, removed the vehicle battery and replaced it with a fully charged battery. The buckle automatically fell and the vehicle drove out of the power station. The whole process only took about 4 minutes … This is the scene that the reporter saw in a new energy vehicle power station in Beijing. The staff of the power station said: "Excluding the waiting time, it only takes 1 minute to 2 minutes to replace the battery, and the power is as fast as refueling."
The broad development prospect of power exchange mode attracts many car companies and energy companies to enter the market. Recently, Weilai Automobile Beijing’s first fourth generation power station was officially launched, and the power exchange time was reduced to "2 minutes era". Previously, Weilai Automobile announced that it had carried out all-round strategic cooperation on power exchange with seven automobile companies and a number of transportation and energy companies; Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, GAC Ai ‘an and Times Electric Service also signed a cooperation framework agreement for power exchange projects.
Walk into people’s homes
For new energy vehicles, the power exchange mode is not new. As early as 2000, Shanghai Electric Bus began to test bus power exchange, and established the first power exchange station in China in 2015; In 2016, BAIC launched power-changing taxis in cities such as Beijing and Guangzhou, and the power-changing station cooperated with electric bus and parent company Aodong New Energy.
After years of development, taxi drivers in some areas have favored the mode of changing electricity. The reporter observed at the power station that more than 10 taxis came to change electricity in half an hour. The staff of the power station said: "There are 28 batteries stored in our station, and the daily electricity exchange capacity is 70 to 80, which makes the demand for electricity exchange greater on holidays."
A taxi driver told the reporter: "New energy taxis in Beijing can be recharged or changed. I generally choose the mode of changing electricity, mainly because it saves time and there are more power stations in the urban area, so I can run more in one day."
Xu Yanhua, Secretary-General of China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, believes that fast charging of operating vehicles is a rigid demand. At present, fast charging is still in its infancy, network construction needs time, and frequent use of fast charging is not friendly to batteries, so changing batteries is a good choice.
In recent years, the mode of changing electricity for new energy vehicles is gradually moving from the field of operating vehicles to people’s homes. In May 2018, the first power station of Weilai Automobile was completed and put into operation; Nowadays, it has been iterated to the fourth generation power station, supporting multi-brand sharing power exchange, and the power exchange time has been reduced from 8 minutes to more than 2 minutes at the earliest; BaaS (separation of vehicle and electricity) sales model launched during the period laid a solid foundation for the promotion of private car power exchange.
With the increasing number of power exchange stations, the power exchange mode is being accepted by more consumers. As of August this year, the number of power stations in China is about 3,800, of which the number of Weilai automobile power stations is about 2,480, accounting for about 65%. In 2023, Weilai Automobile added 1011 power stations, and the power exchange service exceeded 35 million times.
Tong Zongqi, Deputy Secretary-General of China Automobile Industry Association Charging and Switching Branch and China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, believes that the reason why the switching mode is more and more favored by private car owners is because the price of new energy vehicles can drop sharply after the separation of vehicles and electricity; The life cycle data monitoring of automobile enterprises is friendly to batteries, and the analysis of battery data is convenient for echelon utilization and recycling. In addition, car owners can flexibly choose battery pack capacity according to travel needs, reducing the waste of cruising range.
With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the power exchange mode has a broad growth soil. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, as of the first half of 2024, the number of new energy vehicles in China reached 24.72 million, including 18.134 million pure electric vehicles. China Association of Automobile Manufacturers predicts that the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China will reach 11.5 million in 2024, up 20% year-on-year.
"In the future, with the increase in the number of new energy vehicles, there will be a huge market for the power exchange mode in urban scenes. In fact, the power exchange mode helps to solve the user’s pain points caused by the low proportion of private car parking spaces. " Feng Xingya, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Group, said.
However, some consumers have similar concerns that "the battery is not their own" after the private car is changed. In this regard, Weilai Automobile staff said: "The car battery is actually like a charging treasure. Do we pay attention to the charging treasure or pay more attention to the electricity itself? Many consumers who buy Weilai cars are interested in the power exchange mode. We will strictly test the performance of the battery. Once it is below the standard, the battery will be retired. "
Enterprises are busy entering the market
The rapid development of new energy vehicles’ power exchange mode can not be separated from the support of national policies. In May 2020, the power exchange was first written into the Government Work Report; In October of the same year, the General Office of the State Council issued the Development Plan of New Energy Automobile Industry (2021-2035), which proposed to encourage the application of power exchange mode. In November, 2021, the Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Power Exchange was officially implemented, which became the first basic universal national industry standard for China’s power exchange industry.
This year, the Ministry of Finance and other departments issued the "Notice on Piloting Short-board Charging and Replacing Facilities in Counties", which proposed to strive to achieve "full coverage of villages and towns" in charging and replacing infrastructure; Many policies introduced by relevant departments, such as trade-in and consumption promotion, all refer to "improving the infrastructure construction of charging and replacing electricity".
At the enterprise level, Weilai Automobile has been committed to the development of power exchange technology. Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai Automobile, once said that it is difficult and correct to change electricity. After the power exchange network forms a scale of external service, it will become the "moat" of the brand. In November 2023, Weilai Automobile officially announced the opening of the power exchange business.
Many enterprises have entered the power exchange market. Among them, the "Power Exchange Alliance" formed by Weilai Automobile ushered in a period of rapid expansion, and successively signed cooperation agreements on power exchange business with seven automobile companies, namely Changan Automobile, Geely Holding Group, Jiangqi Group, Chery Automobile, Lotus Automobile, Guangzhou Automobile Group and China FAW.
Tong Zongqi said that with the gradual increase in the number of new energy vehicles, car owners’ choice of energy replenishment modes has become more diversified, and electricity exchange is one of them, and it has also received policy support. Some enterprises have invested heavily in power stations in the early stage, and the land and power resources are scarce. The "latecomers" choose to cooperate with the "pioneers" in the power exchange market to reduce repeated investment and serve consumers better. This is a win-win choice.
"With the popularity of new energy vehicles, consumers’ demand for more convenient and faster energy replenishment has become stronger. Expanding the’ friend circle’ of electricity exchange can meet this market demand and enhance market competitiveness. " The relevant person in charge of Weilai Automobile told the reporter that cooperation with other automobile companies can jointly promote the construction of standardized and large-scale energy infrastructure networks, which will contribute to the progress of the entire new energy automobile industry.
Taking Weilai and Guangzhou Automobile Group as examples, the two parties will jointly promote the establishment of a unified battery standard system, cooperate in the research and development of battery-changing passenger cars and compatible battery-changing service stations that adapt to the power-changing systems of both parties, promote the listing of battery-changing models with unified standardized battery packs jointly determined by both parties, and promote the landing of station-side solutions that can provide battery-changing services for both models.
Xu Yanhua said that several years ago, many enterprises planned to build their own power exchange network, but they faced great challenges because the cost of building the station was too high and they could not make a profit without sufficient demand density. Therefore, it is a win-win situation to establish a "friend circle" for power exchange.
In addition to car companies, many energy companies, including Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, China Southern Power Grid, State Grid, Sinopec and PetroChina, have also laid out the electricity exchange market. Among them, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited EVOGO power exchange service has landed in Xiamen, Chifeng, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other cities, and the cooperative enterprises include FAW, Dongfeng and Guangzhou Automobile. In addition, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and Didi have set up a joint venture company for power exchange, which provides power exchange services for many new energy vehicles from the scene of car sharing on the Internet. In the second half of this year, a new generation of products and more partners will be released.
In the field of commercial vehicles, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited’s self-developed one-stop scheme for replacing heavy truck chassis with electricity has been released, and together with Fujian Expressway, it has built a green logistics line for replacing heavy truck with electricity, with a total length of about 420 kilometers and equipped with four heavy truck replacement power stations.
At present, the "chocolate" battery-changing model jointly developed by GAC Ai ‘an and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited is advancing; Many car companies such as Chang ‘an and Geely are also accelerating the layout of electric vehicles. Orient securities Research Report predicts that by 2025, the proportion of domestic battery-changing vehicles is expected to reach 30%. Open source securities predicts that the market size of China’s power exchange industry chain is expected to reach 133.4 billion yuan in 2025.
Multi-party win-win situation
At present, the power exchange track is heating up. However, just like the two sides of a coin, there are many unsolved problems in the power exchange mode.
The power exchange mode has been developed in an all-round way, but it is limited by the lack of unified standards, including battery pack specifications, vehicle chassis structure and mechanical connection methods. Tongzongqi bluntly said: "battery standardization is difficult to unify. It’s not that there are no standards, but that everyone wants to use their own standards. " Some insiders believe that the most important thing in the power exchange mode is to solve the standardization problem. Once the unified standard is realized, the market will take off. Xu Yanhua called on enterprises to avoid "fighting on their own" because it is not only a waste of resources, but also inconvenient for consumers to use.
Scale is also a constraint that cannot be ignored. The power exchange mode can not form scale effect in a short time, which restricts the profitability of enterprises to a great extent. On the one hand, compared with AC slow-filling piles and DC fast-filling piles, the cost of building a power station is higher, and the investment in spare batteries, storage and equipment maintenance is expensive; On the other hand, the insufficient demand density for power exchange will also lead to the loss of a single station in the power exchange station.
According to the research report released by China Post Securities, the comprehensive cost of Weilai Automobile’s second generation power station is about 3.5 million yuan, including 1.5 million yuan for equipment investment, 1 million yuan for batteries (13 70kWh/75kWh/100kWh batteries), 650,000 yuan for electricity (assuming 30 times of service every day), 200,000 yuan for rent and 150,000 yuan for labor (two shifts). Talking about the demand density, the relevant person in charge of Weilai Automobile said that when the daily average service volume of a single station in the power station exceeds 60, the power station can achieve profitability. In other words, only when the power exchange reaches a sufficient scale will the profit come naturally.
There are still many difficulties to be overcome in the wide application of power exchange stations, but it has become a general consensus in the industry to seek win-win cooperation and development. Weilai actively "hands in hand" with all parties and released a clear signal. Li Bin once said: "As long as you are willing to participate in the power exchange and make some necessary modifications to the chassis of its products to match the standards of our next-generation battery packs, we are welcome. This is actually a win-win situation. " Xu Yanhua admits that she has long been concerned about and supported the construction of power stations, and hopes that everyone can strengthen cooperation.
In the face of "a hundred flowers blossom" in various ways of charging energy, such as fast charging, slow charging, overcharging and changing power stations, it is generally believed in the industry that in the future, charging and changing power modes are complementary, not antagonistic.
Tong Zongqi said that as the usage scenarios of car owners become more and more detailed, the demand for differentiated charging services is not the same. In the future, the combination of fast and slow charging for daily use, long-distance travel and highway overcharging and power exchange complement each other, and charging and power exchange mode is one of the technical directions for new energy vehicles to replenish energy. Xu Yanhua believes that different customers and different scenarios have formed different needs, so the charging and power exchange modes will coexist for a long time. (China Economic Net reporter Jiang Zhiwen Zhang Wei)