Thanks to the "first come, first served" effect, Tesla Super Charging Station is now a household name-whether in its hometown of North America or in China and Europe, the other two major electric vehicle markets in the world, people can always find Tesla? The signboard of "supercharger" has "covered more than 95% of the user's use area". In addition, in China, the unit price of the Tesla super charging station that has resumed charging at present is 1.95 yuan/kwh, which is about equivalent to the upper limit of the national grid 1.8 ~ 2 yuan/kwh, but it is still valuable to use DC fast charging.
The amount of light is naturally not enough, and Tesla is not idle. After several major upgrades, the third-generation super charging pile has the maximum charging power of more than 350kW, which is only a major upgrade at the beginning of last year. Wait until Tesla perfects the model? Y, CyberTruck and Roadster? 2 mass production work, the potential of super charging piles should be further explored.
Volkswagen: Carry out the "Special Price" to the end.
Compared with Tesla, which is actively expanding, Volkswagen seems to have less ambition, but has chosen a relatively conservative strategy of adapting to local conditions. In China, it will cooperate with Du Pu to launch a mobile fast charging device with built-in battery (as shown in the above picture).
At the executive level, the two sides will set up a new joint venture company with half of their shares to complete this task. By the second half of this year, the Sino-German joint venture charging pile will be officially put into production, and the maximum charging power is expected to be 150kW. Obviously, these charging facilities are prepared for SAIC- Volkswagen to introduce domestic ID.3 (charging power limit 125kW), and ID.3 has become the golf and old beetle in the electric age. Can this combo have the effect the public wants?
Wei Lai: Change your mind and change batteries together.
Weilai, once determined to be "China Tesla", has some brain holes that are not smaller than its imitators, and the power exchange station that it took the lead in commercialization is an example. Its idea cleverly bypasses the problem of long charging time. After the vehicle is replaced with a new battery, it can drive away directly, while the old battery can be charged slowly. Compared with the refueling of fuel vehicles, in theory, the battery replacement time of more than 3 minutes is basically in the same order of magnitude, so Weilai owners can feel at ease when they are in a hurry.
However, the defects of this model are also obvious: first, the size of the power station itself limits the battery model and capacity of Weilai's future products. The former itself cannot be considered as a large inventory, and of course it cannot store all kinds of spare batteries. In the future, if Weilai wants to update the battery, it will spend more money to upgrade the power station; Secondly, judging from the feedback of existing car owners, Weilai Power Station still has strict requirements on the position and state of the car. In the recent epidemic and other natural and man-made disasters, if the Commissioner who looks at the venue is unable to be on duty for some reason, I am afraid that the time for changing electricity will not be much longer than that for fast charging.
Ford: Sit down and wait and see.
Ford's "takenism" in electric vehicle manufacturing once triggered a wave of complaints: How can Detroit Big Three find the public to enjoy the MEB platform? Ford is not ignorant of the stakes of timely transformation. The overall decline of the Great Lakes Industrial Zone and the delay of some official duties have made Ford's layout somewhat difficult. Can you think of Mach? E, it is not easy to force the promotion of emotional products.
What about official procrastination? Look at the recent exposure of the Ford charging network trademark registration storm: in "Fastor? After the name "charge" was posted by the US Patent and Trademark Office for two years, finally some netizens who knew about it could not sit still and posted it. From the initial registration and use, this trademark does not include DC fast charging business, but it is not too difficult for Ford to add it. In short, Ford has long had the idea of electrification transformation, but it has not been able to explode enough energy.
Europe: standardization trend is coming.
Having said that, you may be aware of a problem: if each manufacturer engages in its own charging network, it will cause a lot of repeated costs, and suppliers alone are not allowed to do this. Therefore, the unified operation of charging stations will be a historical necessity, just like the unified specifications of mobile phone charging ports.
Remember the advantages of outdoor charging advertised by Audi e-tron when it was first released? This is actually a microcosm of the unified high-performance charging station of European and American manufacturers. Volkswagen Group (including its subsidiaries), Daimler, BMW, Ford, Hyundai Kia and other large companies cooperated with Ionity to gradually build a charging network system. According to the construction situation last year, it has 400 stations in Europe, and the average road length between them will not exceed 120km, and the upper limit of charging power of some stations has reached 350kW. As long as it is not an old electric car, this charging station network will not have too much mileage anxiety.
In addition, unified management can also avoid the cost war brought by vicious competition to a certain extent, which is beneficial to both manufacturers and car owners in the long run. It can be predicted that after Europeans have tasted enough sweetness, the standardized charging station system between manufacturers will be popularized in more areas.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.