On March 27th, employees were charging vehicles at the new energy vehicle charging station in Yueliangwan New District, Huichang County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province. Huichang County introduced a new energy automobile service company and installed 12 DC fast charging charging piles and 97 AC charging piles to facilitate citizens’ travel. Photo by Zhu Haipeng (Zhongjing Vision)
In recent years, the number of new energy vehicles in China has been increasing, and the charging pile industry has ushered in rapid development. Building more charging piles and improving the convenience of charging can greatly alleviate the "mileage anxiety" of customers, and also accelerate the improvement of the cost performance of new energy vehicles for home use, which is conducive to better popularizing new energy vehicles.
Charging pile is an important infrastructure to support the development of new energy vehicles. Efficient and convenient charging piles can not only greatly alleviate users’ "mileage anxiety", but also give operators more opportunities to interact with users through data exchange, enhance user experience and promote the high-quality development of new energy automobile industry.
According to industry insiders, in the next 10 years, there will be more than 63 million charging piles in China. Incorporating charging piles into new infrastructure is expected to drive a new round of rapid growth of new energy vehicles, promote the optimization and upgrading of the national energy network, and activate the trillion-dollar market.
The new force of "changing lanes and overtaking"
Thanks to the country’s emphasis on the strategy of new energy vehicles and the increasing number of new energy vehicles in China, the charging pile industry has also ushered in rapid development in recent years. By the end of 2019, China’s charging infrastructure reached 1.219 million, an increase of 500,000 compared with the end of last year, and the overall scale far exceeded that of other countries.
"Building more charging piles and improving the convenience of charging can greatly alleviate customers ‘ Mileage anxiety ’ . Conversely, if the user is interested in ‘ Mileage anxiety ’ Reducing it can also accelerate the improvement of the cost performance of home new energy vehicles, which is conducive to better popularizing new energy vehicles. " Ou Yangming Gao, an academician of China Academy of Sciences and a professor of Tsinghua University, said.
However, the ratio of pile to vehicle in China is not high at present. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2019, the number of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.81 million, and the current pile-vehicle ratio is about 1: 3, which is still far from the goal of 1: 1 planned in the National Guide for the Development of Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles (2015-2020).
"In the process of developing new energy vehicles, there has always been a misunderstanding that the longer the cruising range, the better, so that some enterprises not only ‘ Play hard ’ Improve the energy density of the battery, and add more and more batteries. As a result, the car price is higher, which is not only a waste of resources, but also environmentally friendly, and it also increases the battery safety hazard. " Xu Heyi, chairman of BAIC Group, believes that if the ratio of piles to vehicles is further improved, the convenience of new energy vehicles in use is greatly improved, and charging is more convenient than refueling, it will greatly promote the development of the new energy vehicle market.
Although affected by the global COVID-19 epidemic, falling oil prices and declining subsidies, China’s new energy automobile market may be in a downturn for some time to come, but this will not change the trend of electrification transformation of the global automobile industry. Chen Qingtai, chairman of China Electric Vehicle committee of 100, predicted that by 2030, the sales of electric vehicles in China is expected to exceed 15 million, and the ownership is expected to exceed 80 million. By then, the number of pure electric vehicles may reach 64.8 million. If the ratio of piles to vehicles is strictly 1: 1, more than 63 million new piles will be built in the 10 years from 2021 to 2030, forming a trillion-dollar charging pile infrastructure construction market.
New space for industrial extension
With the continuous improvement of technology, the performance of charging piles is also improving. Taking the charging power as an example, at present, the power of public DC charging piles in China has increased from 69 kilowatts at the end of 2016 to 115 kilowatts, and many new public charging piles have reached more than 120 kilowatts, which can greatly shorten the fast charging time.
Sun Huifeng, a special expert of the Operation Monitoring Coordination Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the president of CCID Consulting Co., Ltd., said that the application market of charging pile technology has a huge development space. With the extension and transfer of industrial value to the operation link, if the leading enterprises in the operation field can effectively link customer needs, the scale effect of their leading enterprises will be highlighted.
Sun Huifeng believes that the operating income of traditional charging piles is mainly based on charging service fees, with a single source of income and limited room for growth. In fact, the charging pile can obtain a large amount of data while charging. For example, the battery information of new energy vehicles, users’ car habits, vehicle distribution and other data will provide value-added data services such as second-hand car evaluation, user portrait and business circle planning by tapping the data value, which is expected to create a larger service market.
According to Ding Rui, founder and CEO of Beijing Zhichong Technology Company, charging is only 2% of the function of a charging pile, and the remaining 98% is interaction. He believes that the future smart charging pile is not only the interaction between equipment manufacturers, operators and car owners, but also runs through everyone’s life. "When you own a charging pile, or you own a parking space, the resources you have can provide services to others and get corresponding benefits."
The construction and operation value of charging piles should be considered from the dual perspectives of new energy and traffic electrification. "In the past, the charging pile was one-way, and it was a physical plug that charged electricity into the car. If it is intelligently transformed, it will be formed into a system network with energy and data collection, interaction, analysis and management, and the interaction between the car and the car and the power grid will not only promote the optimization and upgrading of the national energy network, but also generate new value." Yu Dexiang, chairman of TELECOM New Energy Co., Ltd. said.
Series of problems to be solved
Although the prospect is considerable, the construction and operation of charging piles are not easy. As early as 2015, the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles" issued by the General Office of the State Council proposed that we should strive to basically build a moderately advanced, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system by 2020 to meet the charging needs of more than 5 million electric vehicles.
Subsequently, various capitals poured into the industry one after another, setting off a wave of pile-building frenzy. Among them, there are both state-owned giants, vehicle manufacturers and a large number of private enterprises. At present, the industry still faces problems such as weak foundation, uneven development and insufficiency.
The main problems are as follows: the average utilization rate of charging facilities is relatively low, the profitability of the industry is low, and the business model is not yet mature; Charging facility operators are still in a relatively weak position in the overall industrial chain, and the participation of car companies is relatively low, so it is difficult to coordinate the upgrading of power battery charging technology … …
"Operating companies should accelerate the exploration of innovative charging business models." Li Ye, director of supervision of the National Energy Administration, said that drawing on the advanced experience of Europe and other countries, the National Energy Administration will intensify coordination with relevant departments to promote car companies to deeply participate in charging operation services, support vehicle companies to purchase supporting services from charging service operators, and give play to the leading role of car companies.
Many experts said that even after high-power charging is realized in the future, there may still be some low-power charging vehicles for electric vehicles. Accelerating the popularization and application of flexible intelligent charging technology will not only help improve the compatibility of the whole equipment, but also improve the intelligent level of charging.
Promoting the integrated development of charging service platform is the future trend of charging pile construction. Li Ye believes that the role of industry associations such as the Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance should be actively played, and the leverage of central financial funds should be used to accelerate the integrated development of national service platforms and provide smarter and more convenient charging services for new energy vehicle users, so that the charging pile industry can truly achieve high-quality development.