When Aion? LX with a cruising range of more than 650km and Xpeng P7 with a cruising range of more than 700km appear in front of people one after another, range anxiety should no longer be a major problem for users to purchase electric vehicles.
However, the reality is not optimistic and anxiety still exists.
The battery life of the car has increased, but the problem that comes with it is that the price of the car has also increased and the charging time has also become longer.
Take the Aion? LX with a battery life of 650km as an example. Its price is as high as 279,600 yuan, which is fully twice as expensive as the entry-level version of the Aion?S with a battery life of 410km. The charging time of home slow charging is 18.7 hours, which is a full 10 hours longer than the 8-hour slow charging time of Aion?S.
The pre-sale price of the Xpeng P7 is between 270,000 and 370,000 yuan. Based on the lowest price of 270,000 yuan, the P7 is 110,000 yuan more expensive than the Xpeng G3 with a 520km battery life, which is almost the same. It is twice the price of the Xpeng G3 with a battery life of 400km.
Obviously, simply improving the battery life of vehicles cannot solve all problems. No matter how long the battery life is, there will be times when it is necessary to recharge. In addition to the battery life of the electric vehicle itself, people are anxious about whether it is convenient enough to recharge.
As a result, "making power more convenient than refueling" has become a homework that some electric vehicle manufacturers must do in addition to building cars.
Experience innovation: fancy power-up
In order to let more people dispel their worries about power-up before buying electric vehicles, NIO established NIO Energy in 2017 Technology Co., Ltd., also known as NIO Power.
NIO’s official definition of NIO Power is as follows:
NIO Power is a power solution based on the mobile Internet and has an extensive network of charging and swapping facilities. , relying on NIO cloud technology to provide users with an exclusive power-up and one-click power-up experience that exceeds expectations, making power-up more convenient than refueling.
At NIO Day in 2017, when Li Bin demonstrated the three-minute power swap function on the stage with great fear. NIO Power has been officially unveiled.
In addition to battery swapping, NIO Power can also provide NIO’s exclusive pile installation, public fast charging pile interconnection, mobile charging vehicle guarantee, super charging pile and power-on specialist on-site valet. Power-up service. Through the NIO cloud scheduling platform, a "one-click power-on" service experience is formed.
NIO Power provides NIO users with an intelligent energy replenishment service system that is “rechargeable, replaceable and upgradeable” to solve users’ pain points. At present, this is almost the most comprehensive energy service system on the market.
Compared to most electric vehicle companies, NIO Power covers all powering methods on the market.
Battery swapping shortens the charging time and is closer to refueling time; home charging piles allow users to charge at home; third-party public charging pile interoperability allows users to easily find charging piles to charge; valet charging Electricity can save users time and trouble; mobile charging vehicles can be used as emergency power-up protection when traveling far away.
The power-up methods are all-encompassing, but the core of NIO must be battery replacement.
Battery swapping forms the basis of NIO’s entire business model. With battery swap technology, differentiated commercial operation solutions such as battery leasing plans, free battery swaps, highway grid swaps, and battery upgrades are available. (There are so many benefits of battery swapping. You can search them on your own. I won’t go into details in this article.)
A great player at this stage is similar to a jungler who grows rapidly and accumulates experience.
Niu Paoer: Moving towards openness
After the first two years of practice and achieving the goal of allowing NIO users to enjoy a high-quality power-up experience. In 2019, NIO Power began to truly mature and grow.
April 2019 became the starting point for NIO Power to open to the outside world.
At the Shanghai Auto Show, the NIO Power Charger supercharging pile was released, which made up for the last shortcoming in the entire power-up system of NIO Energy. At the same time, the one-click power-on service also started in April last year and is open to non-Nio brand customers. This means that NIO Power has embarked on a path to empower the industry.
The launch of super charging piles not only gives NIO users an additional way to replenish energy, it also creates more imagination for NIO’s energy system to open up to the outside world. Only with the supercharging piles can we have the later power-up partner project; with the supercharging piles can we have the subsequent cooperation between NIO and Xiaopeng to open up the supercharging system.
As of March this year, the Power Plus Partner Project has implemented 25 supercharging stations and 188 supercharging piles. More importantly, the construction of these supercharging piles does not require any money from NIO.
The opening of the one-click power-on service can bring direct benefits to NIO Power. Not only is the price per order 100 yuan more expensive than NIO car owners’ orders, but the scale effect generated after its opening has allowed NIO Power to see the possibility of profitability.
I remember that Dr. Shen Fei, vice president of NIO Energy, said at the time: "If our existing retained users triple, NIO Power will basically be able to achieve profitability."
According to the latest data released by NIO Power, one-click power-up has completed more than 300,000 single services and provided services for more than 20 other brands of vehicles. Among them, in addition to NIO’s own users, the most used ones are Tesla owners.
Free battery replacement: an unexpected trump card
Another major event of NIO Power in 2019 is the launch of a free battery replacement policy. All first-time NIO car owners can enjoy free battery swaps for the rest of their lives.
Although the launch of free battery swaps also caused a lot of controversy, this policy has almost become a trump card for NIO’s marketing promotions.
In early August 2019, NIO encountered financial difficulties. NIO has opened a trial operation for users to scan QR codes for self-driving battery swaps, which are free for a limited time, and said that after official operation, the price will be 180 yuan each time.
After a week of trying, on August 24, Weilai unexpectedly announced that the first car owner would receive free battery replacement for life. This almost shocked everyone.
Within Weilai, there was also great controversy over free battery swaps, but in the end Li Bin made the decision.
Since the announcement of this policy, Weilai’s battery swap stations have been full instantly, and car owners’ enthusiasm for battery swaps has greatly increased. Some battery swapping stations have even reached a record of up to 76 battery swaps per day. Normally, the designed power swapping capacity of each power swap station is a maximum of 72 times per day.
On average, the frequency of use of battery swapping stations after becoming free has doubled compared to before. From an average of more than a dozen times a day, it has increased to an average of more than 30 times a day.
Many people are worried about NIO’s free battery swap. But Li Bin disagrees, "Actually, it just costs more for electricity, because the battery replacement stations are all ready-made."
It can also be seen from the sales data after September last year that this policy is indeed beneficial to Wei. It has made an important contribution to the increase in sales.
Shen Fei said that so far, a total of 292,810 free battery replacement services have been provided, charging about 13.67 million kilowatt hours of electricity. If calculated based on the electricity fee of 0.5 yuan per kilowatt hour, it would cost almost 7 million yuan. cost. If calculated based on the price of an ES8 worth 500,000 yuan, that is 14 ES8s. Looking at it this way, it’s quite a bargain.
The battery swap station built in the public parking lot has also become a touchpoint for Weilai to attract offline traffic.
Currently, Weilai has built 123 power swap stations in more than 50 cities across the country, with a power swap penetration rate of 48.7.
According to NIO’s plan, there will be 50 more battery swap stations in 2020, and they will be upgraded to version 2.0 battery swap stations. For example, there is no need to lift the vehicle, which allows users to swap batteries without getting out of the car. Some battery swap stations have also added rest rooms. Improved efficiency and experience.
At this time, Niu Pao'er has become a competent assistant.
New business: battery upgrade and recycling
In addition to the upgrade of battery swap stations, battery technology is also constantly upgraded every year.
In 2019, Weilai’s 84kwh capacity battery was launched. It achieves the upgrade of energy density and cruising range while keeping the size and size of the battery pack unchanged.
Moreover, NIO Power has also launched a flexible daily rental plan for 84kwh battery packs. For 66 yuan per day, users can freely rent large-capacity batteries to increase battery life when they need to travel long distances.
However, the reality may not be so optimistic. Perhaps due to cost control reasons, the 84kwh backup batteries in the battery swap station have not been available for a long time, resulting in many car owners who purchased 84kwh batteries being unable to enjoy the convenience of battery swapping.
In Q4 2020, Weilai will also launch a 100kwh battery pack.
For NIO Power, how to truly realize the interchange and flexible upgrade plan between three different capacity batteries of 70, 84 and 100kwh in 2020 will be a new topic they need to face.
This not only tests the decision-making and scheduling capabilities of the cloud, but also tests NIO’s negotiation and financial capabilities for the battery supply chain.
On NIO’s financial report conference call a few days ago, Li Bin said that another 100 million yuan will be invested this year to add batteries to the battery replacement system.
In addition to adding new large-capacity batteries, the step-by-step utilization of obsolete batteries also tests NIO Power.
At present, the channel for cascade utilization of power batteries in my country is mainly used as backup power supply in places such as China Tower Signal Base Station.
But for this large state-owned enterprise with the prefix "中", car companies have no advantage in negotiations, and many of the eliminated batteries are almost given away for free. So NIO took a different approach.
NIO Power is exploring cooperation with some motorcycle companies. Divide the eliminated batteries into smaller modules and use them on two-wheeled motorcycles.
“After these batteries are circulated through power exchange, they will have greater residual value.” At the same time, these batteries have also been included in NIO Power’s battery safety monitoring platform.
Empowerment: Will more companies join in battery swapping?
In 2020, another important task of NIO Power is to actively participate in the formulation of national power replacement standards.
As the saying goes, first-class companies set the standards. As the first new car manufacturer to practice battery swapping in the field of private passenger cars, as of the end of February 2020, NIO has more than 1,200 patented technologies related to battery swapping.
Since last year, Weilai has participated in the formulation/revision of battery swap industry standards: 17 items. Among them, it mainly focuses on the general guidelines and safety requirements of the battery swap system, covering the design of the battery swap system, the construction facilities of the battery swap station, replaceable battery packs, battery swap equipment, unlocking and unlocking mechanisms, connectors, and battery swap station operations. and maintenance requirements.
It is understood that some OEMs are already in contact with Weilai regarding plans for battery replacement.
“If other OEMs follow suit and do battery replacement, we are willing to open up and share our experience with other OEMs. At least the pitfalls we have gone through will be avoided by others behind us.” Shen Fei said.
Not only Weilai, but also Aodong New Energy, another pioneer in the battery swap model, also revealed to Cheyun that BAIC, GAC, SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng and Changan are already fully cooperating with Aodong New Energy. Explore the feasibility of battery swap mode and vehicle battery separation.
This means that more car companies will join the battery swap army.
However, Shen Fei believes that battery replacement involves the re-development of the vehicle chassis and battery architecture, and it will take at least two years to see results. Therefore, other car companies cannot join the battery swap bandwagon overnight.
But this does not prevent NIO Power from empowering and opening up the entire electric vehicle industry.
According to Shen Fei’s plan, the opening of NIO Power will focus on three aspects: the opening of supercharging stations, the opening of battery monitoring platforms, and the opening of one-click power-up systems.
Currently, NIO Power has reached cooperation with two OEMs to connect their batteries and products to NIO Power’s battery monitoring platform. This is a project that delivers immediate results for partner vendors.
Including the batteries of motorcycles used in series, this monitoring platform has reached a monitoring scale of 100,000 batteries to ensure the safety status of these batteries.
“Experience, innovation, openness, persistence” is the guiding ideology of NIO Power.
Weilai clearly knows that if we want to achieve a complete victory in electric vehicles, we must engage in team battles.
"Nowadays, when electric vehicles compete with gasoline vehicles, comprehensive means are needed to make the experience surpass that of gasoline vehicles. Experience is always the first priority." Shen Fei said, "Relying solely on subsidies and price , will not be the final solution. We must continue to innovate and iterate. We must be open and allow all OEMs and charging and swapping operators to join forces to openly discuss and define standards so that electric vehicle users can go anywhere. It can be powered on without any problem."
This article is from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.