A big storm led by new energy vehicles to revolutionize the entire era is
sweeping across, and the charging facility industry, as the "eye of the
typhoon", especially the recently highly exposed high-power DC fast charging
technology, has attracted even more attention. But how is the development of
high-power DC fast charging technology in the current domestic market? Regarding
DC fast charging, what support does national policy provide? What are the new
trends in the market for cars and piles that apply fast charging technology?
Focusing on related topics, let’s find out.
Quickly understand the core arguments in 60 seconds:
●Background: Although the electric vehicle market is very popular, car
owners have many complaints about mileage and charging anxiety during use, and
consumers have high demand for fast charging.
●In the technical route to solve the pain points of EV owners, compared
with battery swapping, high-power DC fast charging has more advantages in terms
of investment profitability, industrial promotion and giant trends, and has more
development prospects.
●In terms of policy, the state continues to increase subsidies for the
construction of charging piles. The new national standard for high-power DC fast
charging piles of 350kW unified between China and Japan is about to be
implemented, and charging pile operators have also begun to demonstrate the
operation of a new generation of fast charging piles.
●With the trend of electric vehicles having a cruising range of over 500km,
consumers do not buy into the current fast charging technology due to its low
actual charging efficiency. In the future, models equipped with high-power fast
charging technology above 700V will become a new direction.
1. Main technical routes to solve the pain points of using EV models
In order to make the convenience of using EV vehicles reach the level of
ordinary fuel vehicles and relieve consumers' anxiety about mileage and
charging, on the one hand, car companies improve the battery's own performance
(energy density, etc.) to increase the vehicle's cruising range; on the other
hand, it meets the needs of Consumers' demand for fast charging has begun to
settle in the vehicle power replenishment process. Therefore, the two major
technical routes of battery swapping and high-power DC charging have
emerged.
New energy vehicle DC charging pile
★Battery swap vs. high-power DC charging technical route summary
Battery swapping technology is a bit like replacing the standard batteries
of remote control toy cars in form. It provides battery replacement services for
electric vehicles through fixed or movable power swapping stations, and at the
same time, the batteries are centralized and intelligently stored at the power
swapping station. , power supply and distribution management. Taking the battery
swap stations currently operating in China as an example, it can achieve a
recharge range of 300-500km in 3-10 minutes.
High-power DC fast charging technology refers to the use of high-power
chargers of 250kW and above to DC charge the battery, achieving the ideal state
of full charging in 10 to 15 minutes. The high-power charging technology
currently used in Europe, Japan and other regions has the charging voltage of
the charging pile reaching 1000V and the charging current increased to 350A,
achieving a maximum system power of 350kW charging supply. Consumers can charge
electric vehicles in just 12 minutes. Increase the cruising range by 300km.
Japan high power charging station
★Analysis of advantages and disadvantages of battery swapping vs.
high-power DC fast charging
Both technical routes can quickly replenish energy and solve mileage and
charging anxiety. However, battery swapping and high-power DC fast charging have
their own advantages and disadvantages, and each faces a series of problems.
However, from the five dimensions of technical characteristics, profitability of
investment, industrial promotion, consumer preferences and failure cases of
industry giants, the comprehensive evaluation of the battery swap model is
relatively weak, but in specific application scenarios, such as taxis and online
hailing There is still room for further development and exploration in the field
of special operating vehicles such as electric vehicles, and they have become an
important part of the energy supplement of this type of electric vehicles.
Let’s look at the high-power charging technology, the protagonist of this
article. Judging from the five-dimensional analysis in the above table, although
the overall comprehensive evaluation is more advantageous, the technical
characteristics are slightly inferior due to consumers’ concerns about use. In
fact, the root cause is that consumers are generally worried that fast charging
will damage battery performance.
However, how serious is the impact of fast charging on battery attenuation,
and can consumer confidence be restored after the application of high-power DC
fast charging technology in the future? Let’s explain it from two perspectives.
First, from the perspective of usage scenarios, fast charging is generally used
to meet the emergency recharge needs of most household EV owners to prevent the
“chain drop” due to insufficient cruising range at critical moments. At the same
time, it is too late to use slow charging. The embarrassment of recharging
power. In terms of simulation, if consumers use it 2-3 times a week for
emergency use as an example, it will be used about 100-150 times in a year.
According to the current mainstream models, the battery attenuation is less than
20% when fast charging more than 1,000 times, and it can be used efficiently 7
-10 years, which is comparable to the service life of fuel vehicles, and
considering that EV models do not need to be charged every week, the actual
efficient service life may be longer.
From the perspective of battery performance, the main culprit of battery
degradation is overcharging and over-discharging of the battery. Similar to a
smartphone battery, if it does not lose power for a long time, it will affect
the standby time. If it is charged for a long time and it will become hot, it
will also shorten its life. And thousands of people have different car usage
habits, which largely affect the attenuation of the battery. At the same time,
in addition to human factors, the density, material, temperature, etc. of the
battery also affect charging and battery decay rate, especially the battery
management system (BMS), which is the core component for controlling fast
charging and can intelligently adjust the charging current according to the
battery condition. , to prevent damage to the battery due to overcharging or
over-discharging. In the future, with the application of high-power DC charging
technology and the upgrade of the voltage platform of new generation EV models,
the advancement of BMS will become even more critical.
However, judging from the competitive investment situation of European and
American brand car companies, and considering the further development of
technology in the future, the difficulties faced by high-power fast charging
will definitely be solved one by one. Therefore, the application direction of
high-power fast charging technology is still very clear. of. Since high-power DC
fast charging is more promising, what are the current domestic policy
trends?
2. The spring of “pile”
★The government's "real money" subsidy targets have shifted from mainly new
energy vehicles to the construction of charging piles
With the end of the transition period, the 2018 version of the subsidy
policy has officially withdrawn from the stage of history, and local subsidies
will also be completely cancelled, and will be used to support the construction
of "short board" charging infrastructure and supporting operation services.
Moreover, if local governments continue to provide subsidies for the purchase of
new energy vehicles, punitive measures will be set up, and the central
government will deduct relevant financial subsidies. It can be seen that after
the end of June, the government's subsidy direction will officially change from
mainly focusing on new energy vehicles to charging facilities.
State Grid charging pile
★Supporting standards are upgraded, and new standards for DC fast charging
piles unified between China and Japan will be released soon.
Our current DC fast charging standard is the national standard GB/T which
was promulgated and implemented in 2015. From a time perspective, the first two
versions were implemented in 2006 and 2011 respectively. The current standard
has been implemented for more than 4 years and has reached the stage of standard
upgrade. time node. Moreover, from the perspective of the entire industrial
chain, China's electric vehicle and charging industry is developing very fast,
and has to a large extent been ahead of the current standards. The
transformation and upgrading needs of the industry have even forced the launch
of new versions of fast charging standards.
The three versions of the national standard GB/T that have come out have
completed the compatibility of vehicles and charging piles and the safety of
use, laying a solid foundation for future development. The fourth version of the
national standard GB/T that will be implemented will definitely have a positive
impact on the future. The charging performance of vehicles and charging piles is
subject to higher requirements.
In fact, as early as October 2018, during Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s
visit to China, the China Electricity Council (CEC) and the Japanese Electric
Vehicle Fast Charger Association (CHAdeMO) had reached an agreement on the
unification of DC fast charging standards. It means that the new standards for
high-power DC fast charging in China and Japan will be unified, and it is
planned to cooperate to complete the commercialization of the product by
2020.
Japanese CHAdeMO charging pile
Based on this, using a joint design approach, my country finally determined
a new DC fast charging solution with a charging power of 350kW. And at the
opening ceremony of the 2019 Xumishan Conference, Liu Yongdong, director of the
Standardization Management Center of the China Electricity Council, also said
that as our country basically has the conditions to develop high-power charging
technology, the formulation of high-power charging standards has also started,
and plans to Officially announced in 2020.
As the government strengthens its support for charging pile subsidy
policies and the new national standard for high-standard high-power DC fast
charging is about to be implemented, fast charging will also start a
breakthrough in rapid development. Regarding DC fast charging piles, what are
the trends among enterprise operators?
Operators are actively deploying and upgrading DC pile facilities, and
high-power fast charging piles have been put into demonstration operation.
According to data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure
Promotion Alliance (referred to as the "Charging Alliance"), as of May 2019,
members of the alliance have reported a total of 401,000 public charging piles,
an increase of 51% from last year's total. Among them, there are 171,000 DC fast
charging piles, an increase of 104% compared with the total number of similar
charging piles last year, the fastest growing among all types of charging piles,
and the market share has increased significantly, rising to 43% this year.
Judging from the current operation of public charging infrastructure
equipment, the degree of concentration is quite high. The number of charging
piles of the Top 7 operators has reached 91% of the total market. In particular,
the market share of three companies, namely Telecall, State Grid and Xingxing
Charging, has reached With a share of 75%, it can be said to be the top three in
the public charging pile industry. Taking Teilai Dian, which has the highest
market share of public charging piles, as an example. In the Beijing market, the
charging power of DC charging piles is generally below 120kW. In particular, the
number of charging piles with a charging power of around 30kW is the largest,
while the charging piles with a charging power of 150kW and above are relatively
small. less.
But the reality is changing. China’s traditional charging pile operators,
represented by the top three in the charging pile industry, and emerging forces
represented by Xpeng Motors, are increasing investment in the development and
construction of high-power DC fast charging piles. , and the results have been
remarkable recently.
4. “Cars” on the road: DC fast charging application trends of domestic car
companies
★Current application status of DC fast charging technology
In China's domestic passenger car EV market, Chinese brands currently
occupy the market leadership position by virtue of their first-mover advantage,
while joint venture brands have a small market share and are not very popular.
Referring to the data from the Passenger Car Association in May 2019, the top
ten in terms of cumulative sales in the first four months are all Chinese brand
models, and they are mainly small cars with a range of less than 400km.
However, judging from this year’s Shanghai Auto Show and the recently
launched EV models, long-range models will become the mainstream in the Chinese
market in the future. Among the top 10 recently launched domestic EV models with
cruising range, the pure electric cruising range under NEDC operating conditions
generally reaches about 500km, and the battery capacity is close to 100kW·h.
Even under ideal conditions, when charging with the so-called fast charging pile
currently on the market - the 2015 version of the 60kW DC pile, it takes nearly
2 hours to fully charge, which is simply unable to meet consumers' demand for
quick recharge.
In order to emphasize the level of fast charging of models, manufacturers
generally promote it as "80% recharge in 30 minutes". In fact, the "charging
efficiency" in the advertisement is calibrated under ideal working conditions.
value, completely ignoring the limitations on charging performance caused by
temperature, charging pile power and other factors in real scenarios. Therefore,
what consumers experience is that the charging efficiency under actual working
conditions is very different from the propaganda.
Take the GAC Trumpchi Aion S630, which was recently launched in April 2019,
as an example. According to manufacturer data, the pure electric driving range
under NEDC operating conditions is 510km, and the battery pack capacity is
58.8kW·h. During DC fast charging, the battery capacity of the model is charged
from 30% to At 80%, it only takes 34 minutes, but to achieve ideal charging
efficiency, the charging power of the DC charging pile needs to reach 100kW.
This means that if the 2015 version of the 60kW DC fast charging pile is used
for recharging, the actual charging time will exceed the theoretical value by
nearly 2 times, and the charging time will be greatly increased. At the same
time, when taking into account the fact that operators such as Te Lai Dian do
not have many DC piles with 100kW and above, the actual charging experience at
the user end is even worse. Hot models in the market, such as Weilai ES6, Eado
460, etc., all have similar problems and require higher-power DC charging piles
for support.
How much water a bucket can hold depends on the shortest piece of wood.
This is the bucket effect. Similarly, the actual charging efficiency of the
entire vehicle depends on the minimum charging performance of the electric
vehicle and the charging pile. It is for this reason that due to the low DC
charging efficiency of current car models and the unfavorable cooperation
between car models and DC charging piles, consumers do not buy into the DC fast
charging offered by car companies.
★The trend of EV models equipped with high-power DC fast charging
technology
DC fast charging technology is like a coin. The positive side of the coin
is the market's high expectations for fast charging, but the negative side is
that current consumers are not interested in so-called fast charging technology.
Under this contradiction, on the eve of the "spring" of high-power fast charging
piles, in addition to operators accelerating the promotion of supporting piles,
domestic car companies have also begun to accelerate the deployment of
high-power DC fast charging system applications on the vehicle side.
Take BAIC New Energy as an example. In January 2019, it released its first
EX3 model equipped with 280kW high-power DC fast charging technology. The
voltage system of the new car reaches 700V, and the maximum DC charging current
reaches 400A, which means that it can charge in 10 minutes at normal
temperature. It can increase the battery life by 300km. The voltage platform has
reached 1000V, and models applying higher-level high-power DC fast charging
technology have also completed technical reserves.
With the official promulgation of high-power DC fast charging standards in
the future, fast charging technology that solves the pain points of EV owners is
accelerating iterative upgrades and applications. China's first batch of
electric models equipped with high-power DC fast charging technology are also
about to arrive.
3. High-power DC fast charging is the general trend and a starting point to
think about.
On the one hand, consumers’ high demand for fast charging cannot be met. On
the other hand, the domestic high-power DC fast charging national standard GB/T
is about to be released, the corresponding charging piles have completed
demonstration operations, and car companies have completed the early layout of
vehicle models. Comprehensive information Look, the development trend of
high-power DC fast charging is clear.
Porsche Taycan has a range of 500km
The trend is reflected in reality. For consumers, user satisfaction has
naturally increased significantly, and at the same time, recognition and
purchase intention of EV models have been strengthened.
In order to cope with the arrival of the trend, the most important thing
for the majority of automobile manufacturers is to have both beginning and end,
that is, developing and operating models at the front end, and improving user
awareness and experience at the end.
From the perspective of brand operation, as a new generation of efficient
fast charging technology, the best strategy is undoubtedly to operate from
high-end brands and gradually move down to mid-range brands, and through the
systematic application of new technologies, it will definitely increase brand
endorsement.
From the perspective of investment model level and specific commercial
development, considering that 350kW power charging is about tohas become a
reality and the first batch of car models to adopt a high-voltage platform of
nearly 1000V, it is recommended that our country’s passenger car companies must
launch a new generation in the next 2 to 3 years before the market is formed and
consumers have not established a clear understanding. The mid-to-high-end
flagship EV product takes 10 minutes of fast charging to increase battery life
by 400 kilometers as a breakthrough, drawing a clear "era boundary" from the
existing generation of products.
In the storm of new energy vehicles leading the change of the entire era,
we will wait and see who can seize the opportunity and take up the leading
banner in the domestic high-power DC fast charging field, thereby fully seizing
the market dividends and emerging as a new force!
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