1、Charging pile construction target
The country’s strategic demands for the new energy vehicle industry are very clear, and the policy of charging piles supporting new energy vehicles is also very resolute, and the guideline for the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure puts forward clear construction targets by site: more than 3,850 new bus charging stations, 2,500 cab charging stations, 2,450 charging stations for sanitation and logistics and other special vehicles; in residential areas, more than In residential areas, more than 2.8 million user-specific charging piles will be built, and the facilities in conditions will be encouraged to open to the public; in public institutions, enterprises and institutions, office buildings and industrial parks and other internal parking lots, more than 1.5 million user-specific charging piles will be built.
2, charging pile basics 11 questions
Before we delve into this industry, let’s do some simple popularization:
1、What is a charging pile?
Charging piles, whose function is similar to the gas pumps inside gas stations, can be fixed on the ground or walls, installed in public buildings (public buildings, shopping malls, public parking lots, etc.) and residential community parking lots or charging stations, and can be used to charge various types of electric vehicles according to different voltage levels. Charging piles can be classified in different ways as follows:
1.1 What are the charging piles according to the installation method?
According to the installation method, they can be divided into floor-mounted charging piles and wall-mounted charging piles. Floor-mounted charging piles are suitable for installation in parking spaces not close to the wall; wall-mounted charging piles are suitable for installation in parking spaces close to the wall.
1.2 How many types of charging post installation locations are there?
According to the installation location, it can be divided into public charging piles and special charging piles. The public charging pile is built in the public parking lot (library) combined with parking spaces to provide public charging service for social vehicles; the special charging pile is built in the unit (enterprise) own parking lot (library) for the internal personnel of the unit (enterprise), and the charging pile built in the individual own parking space (library) to provide charging for private users. Charging piles are usually built in combination with parking spaces in parking lots (garages).
1.3 What are the interfaces of charging piles?
According to the number of charging interfaces, it can be divided into one charging pile and one multi-charging pile.
1.4 What are the charging modes of charging piles?
According to the charging mode, the charging pile can be divided into DC charging pile, AC charging pile and AC/DC integrated charging pile.
1.5 What are the charging speeds of charging piles?
According to the charging speed, there are two charging methods: regular charging (slow charging) and fast charging (fast charging). Charging time varies according to different vehicle batteries, ambient temperature, etc. Slow charging is usually full in 5-10 hours, fast charging can be full in 20-30 minutes 80%, 1 hour completely full.
2、What does the industry chain of charging pile include?
It is mainly divided into equipment manufacturers and charging operators.
2.1 What are the characteristics of charging pile equipment?
The charging pile equipment itself does not have high technical content, unified standards, good compatibility, stable quality, and proper construction can be. The competitive differences are mainly reflected in the stability of the equipment produced, cost control, brand reputation and bidding ability.
2.2 What are the profit models of charging operation?
The basic profit models of charging operation are: service fee, electricity price difference, value-added services, and the upcoming national subsidy. As a new industry and involved in the state-controlled electricity industry, service charge and electricity price are guided by the state and cannot be freely priced, and the geometry of subsidy is not yet seen.
2.3 What are the charging construction modes?
There are four modes of construction and operation: government-led, enterprise-led, hybrid mode, and crowdfunding mode.
（1) Government-led is invested and operated by the government. The advantage is the strong promotion, the disadvantage is the financial pressure, operational inefficiency, not necessarily adapt to the market.
（2) Enterprise-led is invested and operated by enterprises, with electric vehicle sales and charging pile production. The advantage is the high efficiency of operation and management, the disadvantage is the lack of unified management, may produce disorderly competition.
（3) Hybrid model is supported by the government and enterprises are responsible for construction. The advantage is that the government and enterprises can complement each other and promote industrial development faster, but the disadvantage is that it is influenced by policies.
（4) Crowdfunding model is to integrate the government, enterprises, society and other parties to participate. The advantage is that it can improve the utilization of social resources, adapt to the market and focus on user needs, the disadvantage is that it is difficult to integrate the interests of all parties, and ultimately depends on the guidance of policy.
3. What is the cost of a charging pile?
The average cost of an ordinary pile is 5,000-20,000 RMB, and the cost of a fast-charging pile is generally over 100,000 RMB.
3.1 How big is the market for charging piles?
Of the 5 million charging piles, 4.5 million slow charging piles, with an average cost of more than 10,000 per pile, a 50 billion dollar market, and 500,000 fast charging piles, with an average cost of more than 100,000 per pile, a 50 billion dollar market.
In other words, in the 5 years from now to 2020, only the charging pile equipment has a market demand of more than 100 billion, plus the operation and derivative value, the theoretical market capacity of several hundred billion.
4、Charging pile industry opportunities and challenges
The production and sales of new energy vehicles are “hot”, and the performance of charging facilities is also very active. Charging pile field is another important battlefield of new energy vehicle industry chain. The keen capital flocked to the offline “land grab” to build charging piles, and the online is a variety of charging APP, and the current downstream charging pile operation is hot in advance, directly pulling the upstream equipment manufacturing, which has reached white heat in a short time.
However, there is a saying that one step ahead is a warrior, two steps ahead is a strong man, three steps ahead may become a martyr. Behind the seeming prosperity of charging piles, there are very many problems:
1. Car and pile development are not coordinated.
Many car owners find it inconvenient to charge and cannot find a near charging pile. However, at the same time, many built charging piles but no car to charge, a large number of idle, this situation is particularly obvious in the high-speed service area charging station. This is largely due to the disorderly construction of charging piles, the market correction needs time and cost, at this time the government’s guidance is very important.
2. Compatibility problem.
Charging pile itself does not have a high technical content, and because of this, powerful enterprises launched a round of games, are attempting to use their influence to become the dominant, the government as one of the participants in the interests of the government did not step in time, until the end of 2015, the new national standard for charging facilities was introduced. And at this time, many charging piles have been built, more charging pile products have been on the production line, the old piles and cars, compatibility is problematic, these have caused a great waste of resources and potential conflicts.
3、Grid load
For the entire power grid, the current proportion of electricity consumption of charging piles is very small, however, with the rapid development of the industry, the power grid will also face pressure. Especially from the local point of view, many old properties and electricity-using areas, transformer spare capacity is not so much, in the construction of charging piles will need additional investment to increase the spare capacity of the transformer, which will increase the difficulty of management and the reconciliation of interests.
4. The charging pile operation loses money all over the line.
Most of the current charging pile operators are definitely losing money, which comes from the uncertainty of the profit model. As mentioned before, the operation of charging stations, the current source of profit is mainly four: the difference in price of electricity, service fees, subsidies, value-added services. The power industry is a sensitive area involving monopoly, how much the power differential, which is entirely in the hands of the power grid, can be there or not, and even if there is, it is so small as to be negligible. The service charge is generally at 1-2 yuan a power, but this is also regulated, and the name is more rejected by users. Local subsidies have become the main factor affecting the profitability of a charging station, and the specific subsidy policy has not yet emerged. Another important factor is the high price of land, which varies greatly from place to place. The operation of the charging pile can not be calculated for the time being accurate data, but it is certain that most of them are currently losing money.
5、Long charging time
DC fast charging 80% of the power needs about 20-30 minutes, the specific time varies according to different car battery capacity and matching degree and other specific circumstances, which is more than ten times of the refueling time. If the waiting time is too long and there is no technical breakthrough, it will make a considerable part of consumers unable to accept electric cars and become a bottleneck that restricts the whole electric car industry chain. But in turn, this can also be transformed into a business opportunity for charging pile operation. There are already some examples of foreign countries that combine the construction of piles in commercial areas with win-win business, which is worthy of reference and study by domestic operators.
6、Barrier in the industry
Operators are fighting on their own, to establish their own settlement system, there is nothing wrong for the businessmen to encircle the land, but for the owners so very inconvenient, because the operators are too many, the number of their respective charging piles is limited, only find an operator can not meet the daily charging needs, for this may have to handle more than one payment card. At the same time, I found that there are more than 100 smart phone APPs related to charging piles. APPs are very convenient to find positioning, but different software experience varies, the biggest problem is still the industry barriers, almost all large businesses are only to provide their own charging pile related search and positioning services, in fact, it is difficult to rely on the same operator to meet the comprehensive needs of consumers. According to the law of business operation, the industry reshuffle will be inevitable, the future will certainly eliminate most of them, leaving strong financial strength, large scale, quality service business. At present, the only ones who can really afford to burn money are the state grid and listed companies with the determination to invest resources, small and medium-sized enterprises are likely to not survive the day of spring.
The future of the charging pile is bright, but also needs a certain amount of time to integrate, the big wave. 2016 new energy vehicles is to continue the rapid growth of the situation, the stock of electric vehicles grew significantly is a clear positive trend, the market demand becomes larger, the return on investment has improved, the enthusiasm of enterprises will also improve. And how to invest more efficiently, need the government’s guidance, industry norms, and other industry upstream and downstream of the common development together to promote, together to explore newer and more effective business model. The potential imagination lies in:
1、Value-added services
Including advertising of pile body, cooperation with shopping mall parking lot, and consumer attraction as supporting facilities.
2、Charging pile internet+
The charging pile is not connected to a new energy vehicle, it can be a channel for energy realization, an import port for energy data flow, and then an entrance to a data portal. With the support of the Internet, the charging pile is no longer just a pile, but an interface full of infinite possibilities, which can be used in conjunction with the time-sharing of electric vehicles, the value-added services of electric vehicle 4S stores, electronic payment, big data, etc. It can also become an important part of the vehicle network or even the network community. Of course, the premise is to have sufficient scale. What TGOOD is currently doing is to continuously expand its scale and build a business empire based on the charging pile network.
3、Energy service provider
Electricity reform is full of bumps in the road, but the general trend is always to gradually liberalize. The real liberalization of the electricity sales end will give the electric energy producers more profit space, and the civilian charging pile has a great possibility to become the logical first export to really cash in profits.
From the strength of the policy and the hotness of the industry upstream and downstream, the momentum of commercial operation has taken off and nothing can stop the accelerated development of electric vehicles and the charging pile industry in the short term. If anything, it will only be the day when hydrogen fuel cells, graphene and other new technologies are proven to completely replace electric cars in every way. The probability of an industry-wide black swan like this one exists, but not in a very abrupt way. After all, social investment in deposition is unlikely to be easily abandoned, so it is only necessary to keep some focus on it.
