China's charging service tends to develop in the direction of specialization, charging platform agreements and business systems will be further differentiated, and hardware production is more standardized and independent.
In the past two years, China’s attention to the development of new energy vehicles has been continuously deepened. One of the focuses of attention is how to solve the charging problem. “For example, in the proposal of the two conferences this year, the issue concerning the charging of new energy vehicles involved policy support, venue approval, financial support, construction regulations, technical standards, operation management, etc. Such “grounding gas” and suggestions for strengthening details It will play a good guiding role in the future development of the charging industry.” Zheng Wanyi, Senior Vice President of Star Charging of Wanbang New Energy Investment Group Co., Ltd. stated that in recent years, while achieving rapid development, China’s charging industry still faces many The problem is urgently needed to achieve breakthrough and innovative development.
Industry has a large scale Market space
"As the new energy automobile industry develops rapidly, China's charging infrastructure construction has accelerated, the charging industry has formed a certain scale, and there have been a number of companies with industry leading capabilities." Zheng Xiaoyi believes that as of now, our charging industry has entered The third stage of development.
Among them, 2011-2014 was the first stage of development—the number of charging piles increased from 9352 to 31,000. The State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, and China Putian were the main building strengths of this stage.
2015~2017 is the second stage of development - According to statistics, as of the end of February 2018, only the members of the China Electric Vehicle Rechargeable Infrastructure Promotion Alliance reported 244,023 public class charging piles. During this period, a number of professional service companies such as special calls, Wanma, and spruce wisdom emerged in China, and many of them were new energy projects added by listed companies. In addition, urban platform companies such as Xi'an City Investment and Guangzhou City Investment also entered the charging service field. However, due to lack of operating experience, these companies tend to cooperate with professional service companies such as star charging and special calls.
2018 to 2020 is the third stage of development. "During the period, the charging platform agreement and business system will be further differentiated, hardware production will become more standardized and independent, and charging operation platforms with poor iteration ability will be eliminated in the market." Wanbang New Energy Investment Group Co., Ltd. Investment Division According to Wang Lei, general manager, at present, under the promotion of policies, the replacement process for traditional fuel vehicles by new energy vehicles is accelerating and shortening. For users, this will promote the development of charging services that match the market segments. The need for charging service companies to further dismantle customer needs in order to better understand the market segments. The development of these market segments is huge.
"In response, Star Charging has proposed five new innovations in business models, high-efficiency new technologies, smart new manufacturing, new industry ecosystems, and new capital platforms in a targeted manner, with innovations in technology, platforms, models, and other aspects to meet the requirements of refinement. The charging demand of the market has driven the nation's charging infrastructure to continue to improve.
Unordered competition development Business model to be explored
In recent years, although China's charging industry has achieved relatively rapid development, it still faces problems such as weak foundation, low technical level, and low profitability.
“Uncertainties in the electric vehicle industry and its charging technologies, such as one-and-a-half increase in charging power, have caused past investments to face outdated risks; the development of wireless charging technology or the replacement of charging piles have increased the risk of investment in charging service investment and have affected social capital. The enthusiasm for participation.” Wang Lei believes that, at present, charging service companies in the overall industry chain is in a weak position, car companies relatively low participation, power battery charging technology upgrade is difficult to coordinate. At the same time, it is difficult to build charging infrastructure. For example, there are many stakeholders in public parking lots, and it is difficult to coordinate; residential property companies with installation conditions do not cooperate. In addition, its construction also involves distribution networks, roads, greening, etc., and even involves the protection of cultural relics, which increases the difficulty of construction.
Although the total installed charging facilities are relatively large, the average utilization rate is relatively low, and the technical level is relatively low—only one-way charging is possible, and it is difficult to interact with the grid; private charging cannot achieve smart sharing services—charging companies, There are numerous mobile phone programs, and the level of “interconnection and interconnection” of operator platform data needs to be improved. What's more, the profitability of China's charging industry is low, and the business model is not yet mature. It still needs further exploration. This is a difficult problem to be solved.
"At present, there is still a certain degree of disorderly competition and development in China's charging service market." Zheng Zhengyi explained that charging infrastructure itself has a large investment, low profits, long payback period, and the operator's investment enthusiasm is not high. In particular, in the public charging of private cars, the operating companies are generally in a state of deficit. Even if charging fees are charged according to the highest standards in all places, the payback period is too long. A group of enterprises with poor technology, experience and capital strength entered the charging field in a blind and disorderly manner, resulting in over-dispersed charging service resources and poor scale economy. It also led to vicious competition and excessive exaggeration of publicity, which increased the difficulty of profitability for industry enterprises.
Zheng Yiyi and Wang Lei agreed that the charging business model in China should adopt the overall thinking of two-wheel drive, car network cooperation, professional operation, and overall solutions. The charging service companies, government departments, and upstream and downstream companies in the industrial chain should make joint efforts. To expand the scale of the market, reduce operating costs and increase operating income, and promote the formation of sustainable business models. At the same time, further attempts will be made to apply access technologies such as the Internet, smart grid, and photovoltaic wind power to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and expand value-added services so as to increase the value of charging networks and promote sustainable development.
Promote multi-network integration to create green smart travel
Faced with a series of problems, how can charging service companies achieve breakthrough and innovative development? In this regard, the stars have been charged or have provided useful solutions.
“The successful experience of foreign peers shows that charging services should focus on providing personalized service content, more diversified service channels and charging mechanisms,” said Zheng Yiyi. At present, Star Charging is already working to create personalized services, such as In the field of electric buses, high-power technology has led the development. In August last year, a high-power charging bus sample station was launched in Nanjing. The 360-kilowatt high-power charging pile enables the bus to be charged within 10 minutes. It was designated by the National Standards Committee. One of the two leading companies for domestic high-power charging. In the field of private cars, a new model of “mobile energy storage vehicles” is built for old communities, and users can use the peak load charging to save costs for users; create a “private stake sharing” model for private owners and share revenue between owners and platforms. No pile owners solve the problem of difficult charging, making service channels more diversified. Next, Star Charging will try to create a diversified charging mechanism.
“The future charging network will be an era of multi-network convergence, that is, the integration of charging pile operation networks with more networks such as energy storage networks, energy networks, smart grids, and the Internet. In this way, we can truly provide customers with products and services. + Charging + Operation 'Integrated Urban Green Intelligent Travel Solution." Zheng Xiaoyi stated that Star Charging is creating a modular service - not only producing charging piles but also providing site surveys, site design, App customization, data analysis , after-sales maintenance and other services, to promote its platform to achieve more and better integration. At the same time, Star Charging also insists on building a comprehensive information technology to enhance the quality of converged services—transmitting charging device information, fault conditions, and battery conditions to monitoring platforms to provide intelligent analysis solutions.
At present, in the face of multiple development challenges in the industry, Star Charging has built nearly 40,000 charging piles in 146 cities across the country. There are more than 600,000 electric car owners in the country who are users of the Stars Charging App, and have outstanding market performance.