Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Global charging piles hot search for new energy subsidies in the top five countries, is it easy to get?

In order to reduce the dependence on oil resources, improve the global energy structure, and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, automobile electrification has become a major trend. At present, in addition to China, European and American countries are also actively introducing new energy vehicle guidance bills to promote the development of the industry.

The global new energy vehicle market is still in the stage of rapid growth. According to statistics platform Statista, the global market for new energy vehicles is expected to reach 384 billion US dollars in 2022. In the face of the global market, China, as the largest producer of new energy vehicles, independent brands of new energy vehicles are also accelerating "going out to sea".

With independent new energy vehicles "out to sea", there are charging facilities enterprises. With the increase of the number of new energy vehicles around the world, the demand for public charging piles and household charging piles is also increasing. Many domestic charging facilities manufacturers also aim at this opportunity and actively layout the overseas new energy charging market.

According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, in the past two years, many domestic new energy charging facilities enterprises have applied for European "going out" certification, and the number of certified enterprises has increased by nearly 200%. At the same time, non-related industry manufacturers who smell business opportunities also quickly enter the overseas charging equipment market, trying to seize a certain share.

A charging pile enterprise's "going out to sea" competition officially kicked off.

01. Is there much room for increment in the open sea market? Under the news that some new energy charging pile enterprises are "going out to sea", many netizens commented that at present, the number of new energy vehicles in China is growing rapidly, and the problem of "difficult charging" for car owners is still very prominent. and these enterprises do not give priority to solve the problems in the domestic market, but focus on the overseas market, is it a bit of putting the cart before the horse?

In fact, the key issues questioned by netizens are well known to the charging pile enterprises.

According to the relevant data of the National Development and Reform Commission, in the first eight months of this year, domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles will reach 3.97 million and 3.86 million respectively, and the number of new energy vehicles will be 10.99 million, accounting for about half of the global total.

"whether it is the vitality of the new energy vehicle market or the demand for charging, China is undoubtedly the first in the world." Yang Tuo (pseudonym), marketing manager of a charging pile enterprise in Shenzhen, said that in the eyes of charging facilities enterprises, the domestic market has unlimited business opportunities.

But at the same time, the charging pile enterprises are also facing the bottleneck of expanding their business in China. On the one hand, with the surge in sales of new energy vehicles, the charging demand of car owners remains high; on the other hand, the construction and regional layout of charging piles appear to be very unbalanced.

Yang Tuo revealed that, including public charging piles and private charging piles, the current vehicle-to-pile ratio in China is about 3:1, and it seems reasonable that every three new energy vehicles have one charging pile. However, in the central areas of first-tier cities where the population is relatively dense and new energy vehicles are concentrated, the car-to-pile ratio is obviously not so ideal.

"in the central area of the front line, the pile ratio will be higher, the charging demand will be large, and the charging problem will be more prominent." In theory, where there is demand, there will naturally be a market, but Yang Tuo admitted that it is much more difficult for companies to develop new charging facilities in the central areas of first-tier cities.

First of all, there is an inch of land in the central area. It is not an easy task for enterprises to find suitable sites with low rents to build fast charging piles, not to mention that in densely populated communities, the conditions for building charging stations are even more stringent. "Power supply and fire safety are all issues that enterprises need to consider."

As for slow filling piles, although there are no strict site restrictions and can be built in residential and complex parking lots, many residential owners and complex properties also restrict enterprises from entering and building piles for the sake of electricity safety risks. "many of the charging piles that come with the car can not be sent out, and the reason is the same."

Yang Tuo stressed that in the densely populated central area, parking spaces are relatively tight. Even with the consent of the property, the construction of slow filling piles in communities and complex parking lots is often occupied by oil trucks, affecting the operating income of the operators. "as for the first-tier suburbs, third-and fourth-tier small cities, many charging piles are idle. There's not that much demand at all."

In addition, at present, the "head effect" of the domestic charging pile industry is obvious, many second and third line charging pile brands can only find another way out and open up new incremental markets. The overseas market, where the sales of new energy vehicles are showing a trend of rapid growth, has naturally become a blue ocean for enterprises to compete for layout.

02, to the more "primary" market to look for gold, then, compared with the domestic charging pile market, there are no more problems overseas?

When asked this question, Chen Haiyang (a pseudonym), a senior industry practitioner and BD manager of a charging pile company in Guangzhou, shook his head and said: there are even more problems in the overseas market than in the domestic market, and the development is more elementary.

"especially in some European countries, the development of the charging pile industry is more like China three or four years ago." In April this year, Chen Haiyang and his colleagues visited Europe and the United States. He found that in addition to Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and other European countries that had laid out their charging infrastructure earlier, many European countries faced charging problems.

Under the premise of the surge in sales of new energy vehicles in the European and American markets, in some countries in Central and Eastern Europe and North America, the pile ratio of new energy vehicles continues to expand, and the difficulty of charging is becoming more and more obvious. An overseas statistics show that as of April this year, the car-to-pile ratio in the US market was as high as 21 vehicles, that is, one charging pile for every 21 vehicles.

In the European market, countries with a stake ratio greater than 10:1 can be found everywhere. Although there is a large gap in facilities, like at home, many European and American countries are also faced with the problem of outdated urban infrastructure. The tedious examination and approval process and uneven population distribution undoubtedly increase the difficulty for enterprises to "go to sea".

"the good thing is that the new energy infrastructure in Europe and the United States is still in its infancy and is not very involved." Therefore, Chen stressed: the sooner the charging pile companies "go to sea", the more likely they are to seize overseas dividends. "moreover, compared with DC fast charging, the demand of European and American users for slow charging piles is also much greater than ours."

After all, compared with the domestic market, most European and American countries are not very densely populated. Although there are also big cities, many users live in the suburbs with quieter and larger living space, only when they usually go to work and go shopping on weekends. to commute to and from the city center.

Therefore, in communities with low population density and no high-rise buildings, the demand of users for household charging piles is naturally greater. According to the October cross-border index released by Alibaba International Station, the top five countries in the world are the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, the United States and New Zealand.

The hot search index has shown a rapid growth trend since 2020, and the number of charging pile enterprises that "go out to sea" through cross-border e-commerce is also increasing.

Ernst & Young estimates that by 2035, Europe will need to install 65 million charging piles to meet the charging needs of 130 million new energy vehicles, 85 per cent of which are household charging piles.

Precisely because of the large demand for household charging piles in the European and American markets, Chen Haiyang said that some domestic charging pile operators have begun to transform their charging pile design, manufacturing and sales business. As for his company, it is targeting the field of overseas public charging pile infrastructure.

Since the end of last year, Britain has issued a new plan, requiring new residential buildings to be equipped with charging stations (piles) for new energy vehicles; EU countries have also introduced corresponding plans and incentives. The scale of the infrastructure market of new energy public facilities promoted by these plans should not be underestimated, and the prospect of demand is reverie.

In the view of many enterprises, the charging pile business "going to sea", in addition to the prospect of more "money", but where is the opportunity?

03, charging pile enterprises overseas "gold rush" many countries in Europe and the United States have also begun to introduce plans to encourage the construction and investment of charging infrastructure. "

In Chen Hai-yang's view, the current development trend in the construction of new energy charging infrastructure abroad is similar to that in China a few years ago, and the measures and means to encourage and subsidize all kinds of charging infrastructure are more like our "leftover".

With the development of new energy vehicle industry, some European and American countries have begun to understand that charging piles, as a "small profit" industry, only rely on private capital and market mechanism, and it is difficult for charging infrastructure to be arranged rapidly in a short period of time. Also unable to meet the growing market demand.

Germany recently approved a plan to invest 6.3 billion euros over the next three years to rapidly expand the number of charging stations for new energy vehicles nationwide as part of its drive to net zero emissions.

In the middle of this year, Austria also issued the latest incentives for the construction of charging infrastructure: the measures will provide subsidies of up to 15000 euros to public charging piles built by ordinary enterprises, depending on the charging capacity.

As early as the beginning of this year, the US Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation announced that they would allocate nearly $5 billion in the next five years to help states strengthen the deployment of new energy vehicle charging services. And by 2030, it will achieve the goal of having 500000 charging posts for public electric vehicles in the United States.

Chen Haiyang said that with the "hindsight" of Europe and the United States, one after another issued strong incentive measures, domestic charging pile enterprises, operators also smell the business opportunities, have plans to "go out to sea" to seize the market, set off an overseas charging facilities "gold rush" craze.

However, when asked whether companies would worry that overseas subsidy regulations would impose certain restrictions on non-local capital and enterprises, Chen Haiyang said frankly that as long as the market size and demand in Europe and the United States were large enough, he wanted to "bypass" the rules. It's not a problem.

"for the time being, there are no restrictions, and there are no restrictions. If you can't, you can always go to sea if you don't have a license or a joint venture." Talking about his pile company's plan to "panning for gold" in Europe and the United States, Chen Haiyang, the manager of BD, is full of confidence. "how did the company operate at home before, it was just a matter of drawing a picture overseas."

Some data show that: at present, the sales penetration of new energy vehicles in Europe has been hovering around 20%, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the United States is even less than 10%, which is 30% lower than that of the domestic market. With the "stop burning" schedule approaching, the new energy vehicle market in Europe and the United States may have a strong growth momentum.

[concluding remarks]

The huge overseas demand for new energy charging has also created new business opportunities for relevant domestic enterprises. Compared with the "lively" tide of independent new energy vehicles "going out to sea", the "going out" of domestic new energy charging enterprises seems to be more low-key, so will their "money scene" be clearer?

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: know Notes (ID:dongdong_note), author: Shenle, Editor: Qin Yan

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