On the morning of November 30, during the first cold wave of this year, NIO launched another second-generation integrated charging and swapping power station at the China Shipbuilding Pavilion in the Shanghai World Expo. This marked the expansion of NIO’s battery swapping model. Shanghai has formed full area coverage. It is reported that the layout of the third-generation power swap station is already under planning.
A reporter from Shanghai Securities News learned from an interview that after several years of development, the battery swap model has been recognized by more and more car companies and even upstream battery companies, and many companies have also joined it. Some participants expressed the hope to promote the unification of battery replacement standards and the sharing of resources to further promote this energy replenishment model
The penetration rate of electric vehicles continues to increase
Car owners gradually rely on battery swaps Model
“Although the new energy vehicle market is facing the impact of multiple factors this year, the electrification trend will not be reversed.” Kang Kai, general manager of NIO Shanghai Regional Company, said in an interview with a reporter from Shanghai Securities News that the new energy vehicle market in Shanghai will not be reversed. Among the new passenger cars, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has exceeded 40% for a long time, which is a very good trend. Although the national subsidy policy is about to withdraw from the stage, Shanghai still has many policies to encourage the consumption of new energy vehicles to continue to promote the growth of new energy vehicle consumption. Under this situation, the construction of charging and swapping supporting networks for new energy vehicles has become a key task for car companies and third-party service providers to increase their efforts.
A few years ago, new energy vehicle researchers listed the battery swap mode as NIO’s differentiated competitive advantage, and now the prediction is gradually being confirmed.
Kang Kai said that the launch of this power swap station located in the China Shipbuilding Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo means that NIO’s power swap network has completed initial coverage of all 16 administrative districts in Shanghai. So far, 87% of Shanghai NIO owners have access to a battery swap station within 3 kilometers of their home. According to statistics, NIO's battery swap stations have provided services to a total of 41,866 car owners in Shanghai. 52.09% of the electricity used by its vehicles comes from the battery swap stations. The cumulative number of battery swap orders in Shanghai has exceeded 1.6 million.
A NIO car owner who attended the launch of the 100th charging and swapping station in Shanghai told a reporter from the Shanghai Securities News that according to the sales policy when purchasing a car, NIO users can enjoy 4-6 free battery swaps per month. Electricity service, which basically covers his daily charging needs. Each automatic battery swap only takes 3 to 4 minutes, which saves more time than charging to replenish energy. If you want to go to a destination outside the province, you can also choose to temporarily replace the 100-degree battery to increase the cruising range.
According to NIO statistics, as of November 30, NIO has deployed 1,245 power swap stations across the country, including 330 highway power swap stations. The average daily battery replacement is more than 30,000 times.
Battery swap mode layout
Still needs further openness and cooperation
“The vast majority of Weilai car owners have realized the benefits of the battery swap mode, but For the entire electric vehicle market, the battery swap model needs to be further popularized," Shen Fei, senior vice president of NIO Energy, said in an interview with a reporter from Shanghai Securities News.
Previously, the market often compared the two energy replenishment methods of super charging and battery swapping. It was believed that battery swapping stations require large capital investment and are relatively more limited in terms of site issues. Shen Fei told reporters that in fact, when the average daily battery swap business of a charging station reaches a certain amount, a single site operation can achieve profitability, and only a few stations have insufficient battery swap business volume. As the demand for battery swap services continues to increase, NIO plans to launch a third-generation integrated charging and swapping station in the near future. The battery swapping efficiency will be further improved and the number of batteries in the station will be increased accordingly.
As for site selection, Shen Fei said that Weilai has been cooperating with traditional energy companies such as Sinopec since last year to achieve refueling, charging and battery swapping at the same station in many cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Venue is gradually no longer an issue. NIO is also willing to open up the charging and swapping network and welcomes more participants to enter this field. At the same time, we hope to promote the unification of battery and other related standards, which will be more conducive to the realization of maximum sharing of resources.
Power swapping participants continue to enter the market
The market continues to be optimistic about power swapping
In fact, there are already many car companies, third-party service providers and even battery manufacturers Agree with the power swap mode and make the layout.
Since this year, industry giants such as SAIC, CATL, Geely, etc. have officially joined the battery swap field.
In September this year, SAIC Group jointly invested with Sinopec, China National Petroleum Corporation, CATL, and Shanghai International Automobile City to establish Shanghai Jieneng Intelligent Electric New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 4 billion Yuan Yuan. The company's business scope includes battery leasing, sales of new energy vehicle battery swapping facilities and operation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Earlier this year, Geely Automobile and Lifan Technology announced their official entry into the new energy battery swap track through the launch of Ruilan Automobile. According to public information, a few years ago, Geely changed its controlling subsidiary Gechi New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. to Yiyi New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., and registered the brand trademark "Yiyi Battery Exchange", starting in this field. layout.
As a leading company in power batteries, CATL has launched an overall combined battery replacement solution - EVOGO. In the vehicle-battery separation mode, this solution of CATL separates the battery as the most shared asset. , consumers can freely choose the number of battery replacement blocks according to their own usage scenarios and habits.
Aodong New Energy, a domestic leader in battery swapping services, recently revealed that it has deployed more than 700 battery swapping stations in 53 cities across the country, enabling multiple brands of models to enjoy the 20-second top speed of passenger cars. Battery swapping, commercial vehicles can swap batteries in 40 seconds.
The research report of Huabao Securities believes that new energy car companies led by Weilai, BAIC, and Geely, as well as traditional car companies such as SAIC and GAC Aian, are accelerating the deployment of battery swap services and vehicle models, whether it is Whether in the field of passenger cars or commercial vehicles, application scenarios are expected to be implemented faster. The core of the future profitability of the battery swap model will be to complete the transformation from traffic to operation and service integration. For different application scenarios, mature operating systems such as battery swapping for passenger cars and battery swapping for heavy trucks have been formed. Since the battery swap industry chain involves multiple links such as batteries and components, battery swap stations, operations and services, and downstream application scenarios, industry chain integration and integrated services will be the solutions that stand out.