On November 20th, Li Bin, Chairman and CEO of NIO, launched an internal speech and Q&A for all employees, focusing on topics such as recent organizational optimization, sales pressure, and development direction for the next two years. In response to the doubts raised by employees about the sustainability of the electricity exchange business, Li Bin responded that electricity exchange is a huge first mover advantage for NIO. It has now reached the moment of opening up to the entire industry, and the first cooperation will be announced tomorrow, with 4-5 more to discuss.
In August of this year, there was online news that NIO and Mercedes Benz had reached a cooperation, and NIO would open up a battery exchange platform to Mercedes Benz, opening up a new profit model. But at that time, NIO did not respond to the authenticity of this news.
During this year's Shanghai Auto Show, the Chairman and CEO of Mercedes Benz Group Co., Ltd., Kang Linsong, and the Chairman and CEO of NIO, Li Bin, appeared in the same box and were photographed meeting at NIO House in NIO. Subsequently, news spread that NIO would collaborate with Mercedes Benz to exchange batteries. But at that time, both NIO and Mercedes Benz denied this news.
Although he denied the news of cooperation with Mercedes Benz at the time, Li Bin had previously stated that there were already car companies and NIO discussing sharing a power exchange station and using NIO's power exchange mode to develop new cars. In late July, Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO Energy, also stated in an interview with a reporter from First Financial that he was in talks with some peers to share the power plant.
On November 20th, NIO announced that the 2100th NIO replacement power station was officially launched in the Hukou service area of G22 Qinglan Expressway, and the cumulative number of replacement power stations in China has reached 2103. The number of NIO charging stations has exceeded 20000, covering 306 cities nationwide. The NIO charging station is open to all new energy users and has accumulated over 110 brands, providing nearly 30 million services.
In addition to NIO, Geely, SAIC, and Ningde Times also have layout in the field of power exchange, but there is a significant gap in the number of power exchange stations compared to NIO.
However, it is worth noting that there is currently no clear profit model for the electricity exchange model. The entire power exchange industry is now facing challenges such as high station construction costs, uncertain business models, and inconsistent standards. According to the announcement of GCL Energy Technology, the construction cost of a single station for passenger car swapping stations is about 2.6 million yuan, while the construction cost for heavy truck swapping stations is 4.2 million yuan. In addition to the construction cost for swapping stations, operators also need to bear costs such as battery investment and line investment. Therefore, the investment required for passenger car swapping stations and heavy truck swapping stations can reach 5 million yuan and 10 million yuan respectively.
A replacement power station operator told reporters that the construction cost of a flagship replacement power station of a certain brand is approximately 4 million yuan per seat, with 60 batteries (excluding the cost). The expected increase in 2000KVA power capacity is 2 million yuan. In addition to venue leasing, operating costs, and electricity expenses, a single station needs to serve 1000 vehicles per day, and it is expected to achieve a breakeven period of about 3-4 years.
Car companies such as Xiaopeng, Ideal, Chery, etc. prefer to layout high-voltage fast charging, aiming to reduce users' energy replenishment difficulties and anxiety with shorter charging time.
However, high-voltage fast charging still faces grid capacity issues in large-scale applications. In the practical application of high-voltage fast charging, the current peak power promoted by various car companies does not represent the actual power in user usage scenarios. In the case of limited power capacity in charging stations, multi vehicle and multi gun charging can only share power capacity, and the charging speed is difficult to reach the peak value in theory or demonstration.
At present, many places have limited power capacity and great difficulty in transformation. If several electric vehicles are charged at the same time, it will be even more difficult to support power distribution, "said Qin Lihong, President of NIO.
In addition, high-voltage fast charging systems may cause voltage fluctuations and current harmonics in the power grid, posing a challenge to the stability of the power grid. In order to address these issues, the power grid needs to implement monitoring and adjustment measures to ensure that the voltage and frequency are within an acceptable range.
In contrast, the exchange station itself has energy storage properties, making it easier to interact with the power grid. This summer, under the unified dispatch and control of Hefei Power Supply Company, 15 NIO exchange power stations participated in the peak shaving of the "virtual power plant" in Hefei. Without affecting the normal use of electricity by users, the power station has adjusted the cumulative power load of 8 megawatt hours within five days, which is equivalent to saving real-time electricity consumption for over 3000 ordinary residential households.