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

Picture | Cheng Honghe / the efficient and rational allocation of charging resources is far more important than "one car, one project".

In the eyes of the owners of new energy vehicles, "energy anxiety" has always been a lingering heart.

This heart disease is hidden on the highway of "charging for an hour and waiting in line for four hours", next to the "zombie piles" in the city, and in the repeated prevarication and refusal of the property when the charging piles enter the community. It brings a sense of uncertainty and insecurity, just like portable battery's "low-battery anxiety" about smartphones in time, which makes car owners feel uncomfortable and unable to swallow.

For the new energy automobile industry, "energy supplement anxiety" is replacing "life anxiety" and become the "Achilles heel" of industrial development.

Photo: Cheng Honghe / photo "investigation report on consumption decisions and attitudes of 2021 Chinese users of New Energy vehicles" shows that in some key regional cities, "inconvenient charging" has become the biggest concern for 64% of users when buying new energy vehicles. This figure even exceeds the mileage, safety and value preservation rate, and ranks first among all the influencing factors.

In order to solve the "energy supplement anxiety", the concept of car-to-pile ratio was introduced into public view in 2015.

The so-called car-pile ratio, as the name implies, refers to the proportion of the number of new energy vehicles and charging piles. In 2015, the Guide to the Development of Electric vehicle charging Infrastructure (2015-2020) was released. The Guide requires that by 2020, the pile ratio of new energy vehicles in China should reach the level of nearly 1:1, which means that a new energy vehicle should be equipped with a charging pile.

No matter how beautiful the ideal is, the reality is more bony. By the end of 2021, the vehicle-to-pile ratio of domestic new energy vehicles is 3:1, far from the level of 1:1. At the same time, many owners of new energy vehicles suddenly found that the vehicle-to-pile ratio is not the only measure to solve the "energy supplement anxiety". The application of this "last kilometer" of new energy vehicles is also much more complicated than 1:1.

What we are concerned about is whether the ratio of cars to piles at 1:1 can be achieved. If it cannot be realized, how on earth should the "replenishment anxiety" of new energy vehicles be solved?

Savage growth in 2006, Shenzhen Business Daily published a short message of less than 350 words in the corner: BYD pilot electric car charging stations.

The charging station, located outside BYD's headquarters in Longgang Kwai Chung, Shenzhen, is also the first electric vehicle charging station in the country. In this building, which looks like a gas station, there are four charging cabinets. The charging cabinet adopts digital display and touch screen to control charging intelligently, and has the functions of charging card swiping, charging printing and so on.

Shortly before the establishment of the charging station, BYD had just produced its first F3e electric car with lithium iron phosphate battery, which naturally took on the task of providing food and food for F3e.

At that time, the news did not cause much splash in China's booming fuel car market. In that year, the top 10 models by sales were Jetta, Kaiyue, Elantra, Santana, Xiali, QQ, Accord, Lingling, Qiyun and Corolla. Tesla's first mass production product, Tesla Roadster, was launched two years later.

Therefore, when Wang Chuanfu said in 2007 that "2020 will be the world of electric cars", many people scoffed and cast a vote of no confidence.

Although it was not favored at first, with Wang Chuanfu's almost paranoid insistence, the charging pile, together with the new energy vehicle industry, stumbled on its own development story.

From 2006 to 2014, new energy vehicles were in the popularization stage, and the construction of charging stations was mainly undertaken by the State Grid, which has not yet opened the door to social capital.

In 2014, State Grid changed its previous strategy of power exchange, and proposed that the network planning of charging service should follow the principle of "leading fast charging, giving consideration to slow charging, guiding power change, economical and practical".

This also means that after the route dispute with the power exchange mode, the charging pile has the advantages of "low investment, fast construction, easy unification of standards" and other advantages, and finally "lock up the CP" with new energy vehicles.

Photo: Cheng Honghe / A year later, the well-known Guide to the Development of Electric vehicle charging Infrastructure (2015-2020) was released, and the goal of "vehicle-to-pile ratio close to 1:1" was also regarded by many as the "singularity moment" of the charging pile market.

Under the double blessing of policy and market, the charging pile industry ushered in multiple entrants, and the retention of charging piles skyrocketed all the way.

According to the guidelines, in 2015, the number of new energy vehicles in China will be about 583200, the cumulative number of charging bases will be about 57800, and the vehicle-to-pile ratio will be about 10:1. By the end of 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in China will reach 7.84 million, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure will be 2.617 million, and the vehicle-to-pile ratio will be raised to 3:1.

Although it is still a far cry from the 1:1 goal of a car stake, horizontally, this figure is already the highest in the world, well ahead of 16:1 in the United States and 13:1 in Europe.

However, a detail worth paying attention to is that the satisfaction of new energy vehicle owners with the construction of charging network is not in direct proportion to the improvement of pile ratio.

According to the research data released by the charging Alliance, 45.4% of users are not satisfied with the perfection of the current charging network construction. The reasons for dissatisfaction are mainly concentrated in the proportion of fast and slow charging piles, the environment around the charging station and supporting facilities, followed by the pain point of insufficient number of charging piles.

At the other end of the charging pile, many charging pile operators face difficulties in making profits and fall into a strange circle of larger scale and greater losses.

"China has built the largest charging network in the world, but on the whole, compared with the scale of promotion and application of new energy vehicles, there are still many pain points and blocking points in the construction of charging facilities, and the development still can not meet the needs of consumers." Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the presentation of the "New Energy vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" held at the end of 2020.

It is undeniable that the process and effect of solving the "energy supplement anxiety" of new energy vehicles is much more difficult than expected.

If the pain point is divided according to the charging mode, the charging pile can be divided into DC charging pile (fast charging) and AC charging pile (slow charging); according to the installation site, it can be divided into public pile and private charging pile. The public charging pile is mainly fast charging, and its construction is mainly carried out by various major charging service operators. Private charging piles are mainly slow charging, which are mainly sold or given away by new energy vehicle manufacturers, commonly known as "power distribution with the car".

An industry consensus is that if the pile than the 1:1 target is taken apart, private charging piles will be the first choice of layout.

Specifically, the use of private charging piles is convenient, and the charging price is relatively preferential according to the civil electricity price standard of "meter users"; at the same time, with the advance of intelligent and orderly charging technology, car owners can make use of the valley period of the power grid to charge, avoiding the occupation of transformer load and helping to optimize the operation of the power grid.

However, "power distribution in the car" is easy to say, but difficult to do. According to data released by BCG, according to household standards, less than 15% of Chinese car owners have private fixed parking spaces. Taking into account the capacity limitations of the community, the arrangement and routing of electricity meter rooms, and the requirements of property management, the proportion of charging piles that can be installed in actual households is only 5% and 10%.

The property rights of parking spaces, insufficient electricity capacity in the community, charging piles or potential safety risks. The "fancy refusal" of the property caught some new energy car owners by surprise. There is a huge contradiction between the increasing demand for private charging piles and the limited number of parking spaces. If some old residential areas that do not meet the installation needs of charging piles are renovated, a lot of investment is needed. This has also become the biggest constraint for charging piles to enter the community.

Shen Hui, CEO of Weima Automobile, said publicly that of the more than 40,000 cars delivered in 2021, nearly 20,000 charging piles attached to the vehicles could not be sent out. In his words, "every time I hear the car owner complain to me about the difficulty of installing the charging pile, I have a heavy heart."

For those car owners who are unable to install private charging piles, public charging piles become their only option. But in the use experience, the public charging pile is also not satisfactory.

On the one hand, the battle for pile position broke out in the early stage of the charging pile industry, which derived the play method of barbaric release and extensive operation. However, the tuyere receded, small and medium-sized enterprises began to withdraw one after another, and did not get enough late operation and maintenance, and a large number of "zombie charging piles" appeared.

In the recent fourth global new energy and smart car supply chain innovation conference, car Baixu learned such a set of data.

Wang Lei, chief operating officer of Kamex New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., revealed that since June last year, Kaimes has been in 6 core highways and 33 core new energy vehicle development cities across the country. Nearly 80,000 charging piles and more than 6000 charging stations were tested.

The test results are distressing: about 40% of the charging piles are unusable. Of these 40%, 12.7% are hardware problems, that is, the charging piles are unable to charge normally, or the charging is terminated; about 27% are operational problems, and multiple slots make it impossible for users to charge.

The data in another dimension is equally thought-provoking. According to the 2021 Monitoring report on charging Infrastructure in China's Major cities, there are 22 of the 25 large cities in China, and the average time utilization rate of a single public charging pile is less than 10%.

When growth and scale become weapons in the hands of unicorns and users become bargaining chips for them to cash in on huge valuations, the "user experience" becomes worthless. "difficult to find piles, too many bad piles, slow charging" and other problems erode consumer trust step by step, which in turn restricts the development of related enterprises, and finally forms a vicious circle.

Photo: Cheng Honghe / Photo on the other hand, due to the lack of overall planning, charging pile enterprises give priority to seizing high-quality market resources and strategic commanding heights, but selectively ignore highways, towns and other areas that are difficult to make profits in the short term, resulting in uneven regional distribution of public charging piles.

Take the highway scene as an example, according to the data released by the charging Alliance, as of July 2022, the number of charging piles on expressways in China has been less than 1% of the total number of public charging piles in the country. Relevant data show that this year's National Day holiday, there are 409 charging stations queuing phenomenon, accounting for 18% of all highway stations.

"the charging pile industry has not really achieved unified construction and unified planning, especially without a clear access standard, and there is no quantifiable assessment of quality." At the 4th Global New Energy and Smart vehicle supply chain Innovation Conference, Liang Yan, general manager of Huawei Digital Energy Technology Co., Ltd., made comments that hit the nail on the head.

The installation rate of private charging pile is low, and the use experience of public charging pile is not good. If we want to make the charging piles "fit" and "use well", we need the concerted efforts of the whole industry.

The change has come this year, and a series of policy changes have come first.

At the beginning of the year, 10 departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission, jointly issued the "implementation opinions on further improving the Service guarantee capacity of Electric vehicle charging Infrastructure" to further enhance the service guarantee capacity of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

One detail worth paying attention to is that the opinion did not mention the goal of pile ratio at 1:1, but made it clear that by the end of the 14th five-year Plan, China will form a moderately advanced, balanced layout, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system, which can meet the charging needs of more than 20 million electric vehicles.

On August 25, the Ministry of Transport issued the Action Plan for accelerating the Construction of charging Infrastructure along the Highway, giving financial support to the construction of charging infrastructure along the highway, and exploring the establishment of operational subsidies linked to service quality. we will strengthen subsidies for demonstration facilities such as high-power charging.

Some keen practitioners have smelled the change in the wind: getting rid of the blind pursuit of the goal of 1:1, the national policy has begun to "turn the rudder" from quantitative development to quality improvement, and the competition in the second half of the charging pile industry has begun.

Among them, whether the layout of the charging pile is reasonable and whether the operation efficiency can meet the needs of users are the two key points that affect the experience of using the charging pile.

First, the layout of charging piles often needs to comprehensively consider many factors. Different from some commodities, charging piles not only have commercial interests, but also have the attribute of public service. Therefore, while giving full play to the role of the market in allocating resources, the government should do a good job in overall planning and top-level planning to maintain the public attributes of charging piles.

According to the network, taking Liuzhou City, Guangxi as an example, in the face of the difficulty of charging piles entering the community, Liuzhou has established a "three-level linkage working mechanism between government and enterprises", which is supported by the government and public resources. enterprises provide product and technical support to jointly tackle key problems.

In the third courtyard district of Liuzhou City, the Liuzhou government and Baojun New Energy have joined hands to open up the "corners" where traditional fuel cars cannot be parked into "exclusive parking spaces" for smaller new energy products. In this way, 35 new energy parking spaces have been added to the community, effectively alleviating the problem of "too many cars and less parking".

Second, in the daily operation of the charging pile, strengthening the research and development of new charging technology and improving the digital and intelligent level of charging services have also been proved to be a sharp weapon to enhance the complementary experience of consumers and enhance the profitability of enterprises.

For example, through the application of "data information service platform for public charging facilities", Beijing has realized pile construction planning based on big data technology. Combined with the pile operation willingness of new energy vehicle owners, property and parking management units, the distribution of electric vehicles in the region, vehicle operation data, etc., modeling and speculating the layout of regional rationalization construction. To provide strong planning support and scientific and effective guidance for investment and construction for construction and management units.

In the end, if the new energy vehicle wants to drive comfortably, as a key link of the energy replenishment system, the charging pile industry can not slow down.

At present, the difficulty of charging is not entirely due to the shortage of charging piles. What is more important than car-by-car is that charging resources can be allocated efficiently and reasonably. Therefore, after experiencing the "temptation" of the blue sea and the "test" of the red sea, charging pile players should squeeze out "water" as soon as possible, get rid of the theory of scale and speed, and change to high-quality operational services.

Reference:

[1] "investigation report on the consumption decisions and attitudes of 2021 Chinese users of New Energy vehicles", New Travel

[2] "BYD pilot Electric vehicle charging Station", Shenzhen Business Daily

[3] "with a loss of 1.2 billion in four years, why did the new energy vehicle fail to fly the charging pile? "36 Krypton Finance, Wang Lin

[4] foresight 2022: "panoramic Map of China Electric vehicle charging pile Industry in 2022", forward-looking Economist

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: che Bai think Tank (ID:EV100_Plus), author: Cheng Honghe, Editor: a Feng, typesetting: fat Tiger

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