How to treat the future development prospect of the new energy vehicle’s power exchange mode？

In the past two years, the state and local governments have issued a series of policies to support the power exchange mode, explicitly supporting the construction of power exchange stations and encouraging the separation of vehicles and electricity.

By the end of April 2021, there were 63,000 public charging stations and 870,000 public charging piles in China. The total number of power stations is about 650, of which Beijing accounts for 33%, Guangdong accounts for 16%, and Zhejiang, which ranks third, accounts for 8%, while the number of power stations in other provinces is very low.

It can be seen that the current situation of power exchange station in China is low in quantity and uneven in distribution, and it is only used as a supplementary means of charging mode at present.

Then, can the future power exchange mode develop rapidly and become the ultimate mode of electric vehicle power supply?

Advantages:

1. The separation of vehicle and electricity in power exchange mode can reduce the cost of car purchase. Consumers only buy electric cars, and the batteries are used by leasing.

2. The replaced storage battery can be charged during the low power consumption period, and the power consumption cost is low.

3. Changing the power solves the problems of long charging time and short driving range. The split-box power exchange technology adopted by Bertram Technology can complete the power exchange within 5 minutes; The chassis power exchange technology adopted by Weilai can complete the power exchange in 3 minutes, which greatly relieves the mileage anxiety of car owners.

4. The closed-loop management of battery is realized by changing power, and the battery life is improved. The maintenance, recovery and reuse of batteries are handled by power grid enterprises.

5. Change electric energy to improve the efficiency of operating vehicles.

Disadvantages:

1. The construction cost of power exchange station is high.

2. There are many kinds of batteries, and it is difficult to unify the specifications.

3. The battery performance is quite different.

4. There are security risks: whether the battery box is firmly combined with the car body, and whether the power supply and communication interface are reliable in the state of frequent power exchange are all risks in the power exchange mode.

From the perspective of investment cost, changing power stations > charging piles.

The investment cost of a power station is about 1.5 million to 4 million yuan, including fixed assets investment Q, site rental, personnel operation and maintenance, etc. Looking back at ordinary fast-charging piles, the cost of charging piles ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands according to the charging power. The slow filling pile is cheaper, usually it can be built within 10 thousand yuan, and it is small and convenient.

From the perspective of investment cost, the power exchange station is higher than the charging pile. This is also why the penetration rate of domestic charging piles is much higher than that of changing power stations.

From the point of use efficiency, changing power station > charging pile.

● The power changing time of the power changing station is about 5 minutes;

● The charging time of fast filling pile is 30-60 minutes (charging to 80%); Slow charging can be as long as several hours.

Compared with the refueling of traditional fuel vehicles, changing electricity is closer to refueling and more efficient in terms of use time. However, the actual charging time of the current fast-charging charging pile is related to the battery capacity (size), charging pile power (speed) and rate limit (protection) of the electric vehicle, and can not fully reach the rated power of the charging pile.

From the perspective of use cost, the power station is less than or equal to the charging pile.

In terms of the use cost of power exchange, taking Weilai as an example, the price of power exchange is 180 yuan, the battery capacity is 70Kwh, and the cruising range is about 420 kilometers, equivalent to 0.42 yuan per kilometer; Taking BAIC Q as an example, three electricity exchange packages were launched: package A is 432 yuan/1,200 kilometers; B Package 630 yuan /1800 km; C package 1020 yuan /3000 kilometers. It’s about 0.34 yuan per kilometer.

Generally, the battery capacity of electric vehicles is about 50Kwh, and the first charge (public) is about 1.5 yuan. The cost of fully charging is 75 yuan RMB, and the cruising range is about 300km, which is equivalent to about 0.25 RMB per kilometer. For drivers who make a living by operation and people whose expenses need to be controlled, the lower the price, the better. For people with relatively high incomes, it is almost negligible. However, although the difference between the two kinds of charging costs is nearly double, consumers’ perception is not obvious, and they can’t feel it in the short term, but many a mickle makes a mickle in the long run.

From the point of view of practical promotion and use, changing power station ≤ charging pile

Charging piles can appear in the form of "charging stations" or "single piles". For the site requirements, the DC pile is slightly larger, and less than 1 square meter is enough; AC installation can be divided into wall-mounted type and column type. The former is hung on the wall and does not occupy the floor area, while the latter has thin columns and hardly occupies the area.

The battery pack storage warehouse, mechanical installation arm and distribution system between the warehouse and the power station are needed in the power station. Even if it is streamlined, it needs to "occupy a lot of territory."

In addition, both the power station and the charging pile will face the same kind of "waiting problem", that is, queuing to charge/change electricity. -At a site with a large flow of electric vehicles, the frequency of charging personnel is very high, and there will be phenomena such as queuing for charging piles and queuing for changing electricity. Charging piles take a long time and often wait for a long time; It is faster to change power at a power station, but if the battery in the library is not full, it still needs to wait for a long time.

Therefore, from the perspective of investors’ input, consumers’ experience and cost use, and manufacturers’ production standards, input and use costs have become a set of contradictions. According to market rules, the price should be higher under high input, but investors stand in the perspective of laying and promoting first, and take this high cost to consumers. Therefore, it has created a difficult situation that investors can’t make money in a short time, which further limits the pace for investors to continue to promote and expand. And manufacturing companies, including car companies and battery manufacturers, have different specifications without standard implementation, so there will be a kind of chaos: There are a lot of power stations, but the power stations that support my family can’t be used in your family.

However, taking history as a mirror, some good things are not popular at present, not because they are bad, but because of various reasons, such as current politics, cost, trust and so on, it may be possible to change time, a group of people and a place. From the perspective of user-oriented experience, people are often willing to "pay the price" and pay for it.

Popularization needs comprehensive development in investment cost performance, engineering feasibility, safety and controllability, and also needs policy support and assistance in standard formulation. It also needs users to experience low use cost, convenient use, safety and reliability to form trust.

Therefore, in a broad sense, it is difficult to promote the power exchange mode, but it can really solve the long-term problem of difficult charging; From the narrow sense of a single brand and model, the battery changing mode has indeed solved the problem of difficult/slow charging.