It’s better to retreat to the net than the squid.

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Brain pole body” (ID: unity007), author Tibetan fox. Authorized to reprint.

In today’s cities, large vehicles such as buses, logistics trucks, and sanitation vehicles, as well as privately-driven electric vehicles, have become commonplace.

However, with the growth of electric vehicles, the deployment and experience of charging piles is still bald. It took a few hours to charge a large battery after a long queue, which is not very pleasant. The installation of charging piles in their own garages will be smashed by the property from time to time without any politeness.

This has also triggered our curiosity. Under the dual urging of residents’ consumption and government guidance, the car is not badly charged. Why has it not been commercialized on a large scale?

How about the car charging?

A famous saying “Is it right first, then ask right?” Before answering the question before, let us first talk about how the Chinese charging pile was built.

Thanks to the “pile power first” and various welfare policies at the national strategic level, the pace of construction of charging piles in China is not slow. In fact, according to the data of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, by 2018, the vehicle-pile ratio of three cars has been almost reached, and it is expected to reach the 1:1 level by 2020.

Three ups and downs: car charging infrastructure, can you successfully counterattack in the future?

It sounds like the outlook is good, right? However, the days of charging pile companies are not good.

In fact, as early as 2010, the state supported the new energy automobile industry. Many provinces and cities across the country have built charging stations. The Southern Power Grid Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau also planned to build 89 charging stations and 29,500 stations for Shenzhen in 2012. Charging piles, but by 2013, this project had only completed 7 of them, less than 10% of the equipment completion rate, but it brought a loss of 13 million per year, and it is still a high proportion of electric taxis in Shenzhen. Who is better than who? The market will return to silence.

But in a short time, in 2014, the State Grid opened up the electric vehicle charging pile market to private capital. Capital and private enterprises still paid very much, and soon flooded into a large number of players. Plus October 2015The state issued the “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure”, and the market is even more straightforward. At one time, there are hundreds of charging pile equipment manufacturers and operators, and the charging pile concept stock sector index is even more 1000 points rushed to 4200 points.

Three ups and downs: car charging infrastructure, can you successfully counterattack in the future?

Do you think that the charging pile has been spent? I think it’s too “young brother”. In 2017, the energy sector released its benefits again: it plans to build 900,000 electric vehicle charging piles. This time, the market response was very calm. In 2018, many small and medium-sized enterprises began to withdraw.

Yanyi electric bankruptcy, charging pile “first stock” rich green can be delisted, special calls for two years loss of 500 million, the national grid, star charging and other charging pile giants are not relying on charging services to achieve profitability… …

Don’t rush to sigh the impermanence, the story reappeared in 2019.

In 2019, the local subsidies for new energy began to shift from vehicles to infrastructure, and the market began to move around again. The giants began to organize a group to fight monsters: first, the national grid, China Southern Power Grid, special calls, Lanye Weiye, Wanbang charging, etc. The company jointly initiated the establishment of a joint venture company, Hebei Xiong’an United Bank.

There is a cooperation between the four Chinese charging operators (Shenzhen Auto Grid, Cloud Express, Charging Man, Ka Cool Card), which is jointly established by seven German companies such as Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen. Then, State Grid and Evergrande established a joint venture company focusing on community parking space charging, and reached service agreements with Country Garden, Vanke, Sunac and other real estate developers.

In such a lively scene, the Internet travel giant must also have a name. On August 1st, Didi Travel and British oil giant BP announced the establishment of a joint venture to provide charging services for drip owners and social owners.

At this point, the big fans of the automobile industry, housing enterprises, travel and other industrial chain radiation scenes have all sat on the table.

The profitability of charging piles is difficult to break?

After three ups and downs, in the face of this wave of capital boom, charging piles are possibleGet rid of the “profit trap”?

According to the life cycle of the technology industry, after the policy sprouting – barbaric growth – overheating decline – after the entire consolidation cycle of the cold winter recovery, the charging pile industry seems to be ushered in a mature period of steady growth. However, as a mature charging pile, does it really learn to make money yourself? It doesn’t seem to be a simple answer.

It can be seen that the potential factors that have led to the industry crisis have not disappeared with the new wave of shuffling and policy:

1. The business model behind the huge potential remains unclear.

The charging scenarios of residential and office, which are focused on by social capital, cannot be linked to service fee income and construction and maintenance costs. The construction cost of building an ordinary AC charging pile is about 20,000 yuan, and the DC fast charging pile is about 100,000 yuan. The charging and charging service charges are mostly not high.

For example, the maximum price in Shenzhen is 0.80 yuan / kWh. The price of Beijing charging is freely regulated by the market, but the peak period is generally about 1.8 yuan / kWh. That is to say, in the case of no loss, a charging pile should be Working continuously for 1,000 days and nights to return to the present… Until now, the largest three charging station operators have called, the national grid and the stars to charge, and no one company can make a profit through the charging service fee.

Three ups and downs: car charging infrastructure, can you successfully attack in the future?

In addition to government subsidies, many companies can only rely on other income to cover this part of the cost. For example, Wanbang New Energy has also laid out new energy vehicle sales and equipment manufacturing businesses in addition to charging piles. At present, the “charge subsidy” model is still the mainstream.

2. The experience of being locked by the service + technology.

Affected by the cost, many charging pile operators are “incapable of fighting”. After the completion of the paving, the operational services are often out of line with the needs of new energy owners. For example, some charging piles do not provide charging lines, and the owners need to The old card swipe system has swallowed the card; the UI design of the app is not user-friendly, and after finding the location, there is no usable pile…

At the same time, the cost difference between AC and DC charging piles is huge. Although local governments have provided higher subsidies for DC electric piles in terms of policies, they are still in short supply, and owners often need to stay in public charging piles for several hours. The high parking fees and time costs that come are not to be underestimated.

Three ups and downs: car chargerElectrical infrastructure, can it be successfully countered in the future?

(Beijing’s charging pile “cemetery”)

3. The service standard fault under the group.

The combination of the giants has further promoted the increase in the concentration of the charging pile market. But there is still a long way to go before you can truly share the market and take advantage of the share. In addition, each group will further compete for the right to speak the industry’s technology and service standards, making the indicators of the unified monitoring, payment, equipment and other industries more difficult. The deer is still unknown. The only certainty is that at least in the short term. New energy owners also need to repeatedly jump across N charging apps.

Of course, every wave of ups and downs needs to tell a new story. From another perspective, this round of enthusiasm is also brewing new possibilities.

Groups of Brushes: The Opportunities and Worries of the Giants

The dark clouds on the head of the charging pile industry could not be completely dispelled for a while, so finding the place where the sun shines in the shadows has become the goal pursued by this round of participants. At present, several camps are trying to find their own differentiation advantages to try to break through.

For example, the alliance between the State Grid and the four major real estate developers cut through the parking spaces into the community, and then distributed decentralized charging piles, impacting the personal-specific market of 1:1 car-to-pillar ratio.

The advantage of real estate developers lies in the high concentration of vehicles, the rapid occupation of residential scenes, natural barriers to competition, and avoiding the competition of centralized charging stations with white heat. The feeling of commercial operation is stable and cheap. Convenience. However, the overall proportion of new energy vehicles is still relatively low, and the initial investment is relatively large. I am afraid that it will take a long time for deep cooperation and patience to truly open up the competition gap.

Three ups and downs: car charging infrastructure, can you successfully attack in the future?

Automotive manufacturers also have their own ideas. Hubject, the charging infrastructure platform established by the seven German car companies mentioned above, is anchored to the industry standard.

The current DC fast charging facility has mainly differentiated into three charging standards, and Asian automakers favor the CHAdeMO charging standard, all US