Charging piles bid farewell to "win by quantity" value-added services into competition focus

Charging piles bid farewell to "win by quantity"

“As of the end of April, Beijing has built about 127,000 charging piles. Among them, there are about 2,000 and 20,000 social public areas.” The staff of the Beijing Municipal Administration Committee’s fueling and steaming department introduced that at present, Beijing has formed a public charging network with a service radius of 2 kilometers within the third ring road, 2 kilometers within the fourth ring road, 3 kilometers within the fifth ring road and 5 kilometers within the sixth ring road with an average service radius. And the comparison between the social public charging pile and the personal electric vehicle is 1:6.

Specific to the market structure, the above staff revealed that at present, at least 70% of public charging piles in Beijing are in the hands of the State Grid Beijing Electric Power Company, Putian New Energy, Beiqi Special Call, and Star Charging. "As of the end of last year, State Grid Beijing Electric Power has a total of 7,200 public charging piles in Beijing, accounting for 35% of the city's market share." The relevant person in charge of the State Grid Beijing Electric Power Company revealed.

At present, Putian New Energy has about 2,000 public charging piles in Beijing, with an annual charge of about 10 million degrees. Star charging has already put into operation 3,300 public charging piles in Beijing, distributed in 180 sites, covering Beijing all districts. In addition, Yang Minghua, deputy director of the operation department of Beiqi Special (Beijing) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. introduced that at this stage, Beiqi special calls have built more than 5,000 charging piles in Beijing.

It is worth noting that according to the above four companies, the public charging piles they have invested in Beijing are quite similar, and the person in charge of the company told the Beijing Business Daily that due to Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, Dongcheng and Xicheng Districts. Most of the urban areas are in the Fifth Ring Road, and the flow of people and traffic in these areas is concentrated. Public facilities such as office buildings and commercial complexes are densely covered. The demand for public charging piles is strong, so it has become the focus of various enterprises. . However, more than one of the four companies has placed the focus of construction at this stage and in the future on areas where potential demand such as Tongzhou and Shunyi is “significant”. According to informed sources, at present, Beijing's public charging piles do have a large difference in the density of distribution between urban centers and suburbs, and the average service radius is relatively small. In the core area, such as Wangfujing Oriental Plaza, there is even a public charging station where 4-5 companies have charged charging piles.

However, in the view of many business leaders, at present, the construction speed of public charging piles in Beijing has changed greatly from the previous years. All enterprises no longer blindly pursue quantity and occupy the space, but begin to shrink consciously. Increase the scale and strengthen the market targeting of new piles. The staff of the Gas Pipeline Department of the Municipal Urban Management Committee introduced that most of the major charging pile operators in the Beijing market are currently entering the company from 2014 to 2015. Therefore, in the first half of 2014-2016, these enterprises generally built a large number of charging piles in Beijing. The number of new piles in the city can reach 7,000-8,000 per year. Last year, this number was almost halved. The number of new public charging piles in Beijing was 3,037.

“In the early days, some charging piles did not have planning during construction, resulting in a relatively low usage rate after construction.” Tang Xiaomeng, director of charge charging operations, said, “In the early days of entering the Beijing market, the stars set private new energy vehicles as the main Clients, however, in the later research, we found that when people drive private new energy vehicles, they generally do not choose a route with a distance of more than 100 kilometers. However, we initially built some locations more than 100 kilometers from the city center. Public charging piles result in relatively low pile vacancy rates in these areas."

The dilemma behind the low usage rate

In the interview, various charging pile companies have clearly stated that in Beijing, the use rate of public charging piles is still relatively high. For this reason, many companies must face the situation that it is difficult to make a profit in the near future.

Some insiders revealed to the Beijing Business Daily that it is now thousands of dollars for an enterprise to purchase an AC charging pile. The installation cost is several thousand, and several tens of thousands of Yuan. If it is a DC charging pile, the cost is 60,000 Yuan. Some people familiar with the matter said that at present, some charging pile enterprises that have already achieved profitability in Beijing are basically not providing charging pile operation services. Some of them have formed a complete industrial chain within the enterprise, relying on other links to make up for this part of the loss, such as Some charging pile companies also cover the production of charging piles, and some will provide value-added services for 4S stores."

Some experts said that in 2016, some domestic mainstream operators charge about 200 million kWh, charging service fees are 0.8 Yuan / kWh, and the annual charging service fee income is only 100 million Yuan, but these operators The investment has exceeded several billion Yuan. "For example, the total investment of the State Grid in 2016 is as high as more than 6 billion Yuan. It is obvious that they are unlikely to be profitable." According to Lei Xie, assistant general manager of Putian New Energy, at present, the use of charging poles in Putian in Beijing is relatively high. It can reach 30%-40%, and the lower ones have only single digits, and the average is about 16%. According to industry insiders, it is estimated that each charging pile can be fully filled for at least 8 hours a day to achieve breakeven. In other words, if the average usage rate of each charging pile can reach 30%-40%, the enterprise can recover the input cost in about 3-4 years.

"As far as Putian is concerned, the construction cost of each pile varies greatly according to the power, basically in the range of 20,000-100,000 Yuan/pile. The service life varies according to indoor and outdoor, whether there is occlusion, and the average is about 5-8 years. The maintenance cost includes the labor cost of the regular inspection team, fault repair, etc., which is about several thousand Yuan per pile per year." Lei Xie introduced.

The reporter of Beijing business daily found that, taking a 45kw charging pile as an example, the charging amount of a car is between 24 and 25 degrees per hour, and the service fee that the charging pile enterprise can obtain is 0.8 Yuan/degree. Therefore, according to the enterprise, each pile can only earn about 160 Yuan per day for the operator's service fee, so that the enterprise can recover the cost smoothly. "Beijing simply do service enterprise almost without charging pile 'immune' losses, generally need to rely on subsidies to survive, even if each enterprise charging pile to 0.8 Yuan/degree fee income, but the charging pile enterprises also need to undertake electrical loss, including sometimes do some promotional activities, after conversion, enterprise can obtain real only 0.5 0.6 Yuan/degree", said an official with the enterprise.

Xiaomeng Tang said that at present, the revenue of charging pile enterprises is mainly to collect service fees, obtain government subsidies, and obtain certain subsidies by participating in government projects. According to public information, as of now, Beijing has accumulatively awarded relevant subsidies of nearly 100 million Yuan to charging pile enterprises. There is a charging pile operator bluntly. Today, the charging pile market in Beijing is relatively fierce. The fixed customers such as taxis are relatively limited. Most enterprises still have to use private cars as the main service targets. Therefore, there is no current charging pile operation enterprise gained profit. In this case, subsidies account for a larger portion of the company's income, sometimes reaching about half of the annual income.

Value-added services become the focus of competition

In response to air pollution in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and surrounding areas, in March last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and relevant departments formulated and issued the “Work Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control in 2017 in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and Surrounding Areas”, which clearly stated that “Beijing added Taxi should be replaced by electric vehicles, and other cities actively promote the replacement of taxis into electric vehicles or new energy vehicles." This is undoubtedly good news for the charging pile enterprises that are still in a loss state. Xiaomeng Tang also said that with the continuous increase in the number of electric vehicles in Beijing and the conversion of operating vehicles to electric vehicles, it is expected that the utilization rate of public charging piles in the future is expected to exceed 30%.

As the operating vehicles join the electric vehicle army, the “recharge” attribute of the public charging pile will be further strengthened, and the demand for fast charging piles will be greatly enhanced. Some experts bluntly said that this is undoubtedly a cost investment that cannot be ignored for the charging pile enterprises that have not yet returned. "High-power DC fast charging is definitely the future development trend, but enterprises will also reserve a certain number of slow-filled piles according to the needs of the scene. Shopping malls and highways are suitable for fast charging, and the community is undoubtedly more suitable for slow charging." Xiaomeng Tang analysis, the future focus will be on retrofitting slow-filled piles with better transformation conditions. For slow-filled piles that need to be re-layed and difficult to retrofit, it will be cautious to decide whether or not to retrofit. In the current situation, the reconstruction cost is still a big expense for charging pile enterprises.

For any industry, “subsidy dependence” is an unsustainable way to survive. In this regard, Xiaomeng Tang said that in the future, charging pile enterprises will launch more intense market competition and attract more customers by continuously improving service levels. "According to the current situation, the first thing that charging pile enterprises do is to meet the basic needs of users to be able to charge smoothly. Because of the factors such as fuel car occupancy and damage to the charging pile, this basic demand is not yet fully completed. In the future, all kinds of value-added services or charging pile companies will attract users. For example, the charging piles are clean and hygienic, and there are lounges and drinks nearby, which will inevitably attract more users to charge.” In addition, the stars are charged. It may also rely on charging big data to develop and expand some value-added services.

Some insiders also said that the industry is now more concerned about the development of new business models, everyone is inclined to provide users with better services and more product features, introducing a variety of services, such as charging stations can provide free parking promotional activities, the charging app used by users can provide more services such as shopping, medical care and so on.

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