China's output of new energy vehicles ranked the world's first sustainable business development model in three years has not yet been formed

In 2017, China produced 794,000 new energy vehicles, sold 777,000 vehicles, and accounted for 2.7 % of the total output of Pida Automobile, ranking first in the world for three consecutive years.

At the same time, the layout of charging facilities is still not reasonable, the use rate of public charging piles is less than 15 %, and a sustainable business development model has not yet been formed. There is a two-way contradiction between operating enterprises 'profitability difficulties and consumers' high charging prices.

The landing of the new project gave Liwei some hope. "15 wall mounted AC charging piles, 3 vertical AC charging piles, this is already considered a relatively large order," the start-up for more than two years, the general manager of the Beijing Lanhaixing technology development company said about the charging pile industry, repeated several times "business is not good."

Liwei's feelings are representative in the industry. In the past two years, China's new energy vehicles ushered in the outbreak of development, a large number of personnel and capital concentrated into the field of charging piles, the market has appeared stage excess capacity. The industry even jokingly said, "The speed of selling cars has not caught up with the speed of piling. "

Nowadays, it seems that the technology is full of electric charging piles are more and more common in people's lives, but in fact its technology content is not high. In this case, its high yield and low threshold characteristics also quickly attracted a large amount of social capital. In particular, after large-scale projects such as highway service areas and urban public charging stations were "contracted out" by several large companies, small and medium-sized enterprises began to fight for market share, which also made profits a universal problem for these companies. Coupled with the unique regional restrictions of the charging pile industry, it is not surprising that enterprises are struggling.

The charging pile industry, once regarded as the "blue sea", is now a "red sea".

Enterprise "too many to count"

In 2014, Li Weiqiang became the first new energy car owner in Beijing. Soon, the problem of charging difficulties came to the door: "At that time, the number of charging piles was small, the damage rate was high, and many cars and piles did not match." After learning that many drivers have encountered similar problems, Liwei, who is from the software research and development department, developed an APP to share information on the use of charged piles. As of the end of 2015, he recalled, the number of fast-charging and slow-charging piles available in Beijing had exceeded 1,000, but supply was still in short supply.

This allowed Liwei to see an attractive entrepreneurial opportunity. At the beginning of 2016, he and his friends co-founded Lanhai Huaxing Technology Development Co., Ltd. and began to independently develop charging piles. However, after entering the industry, he discovered that there were "countless entrepreneurs" who shared their ideas and experiences.

This argument can be proved by the increase in the number of charging piles in the past three years. According to relevant data, by the end of 2014, Beijing's goal is to build 1,000 quick-fill piles; By the end of 2017, according to data released by the China Automobile Industry Association, Beijing had more than 30,000 charging piles, and the National number reached more than 213,000.

Among the electric charging piles built, the share of the four major companies of special calls, national grid companies, star charging and China's Putian reached 86 %. "The rest is divided by many small and medium-sized enterprises," Li Weiqiang said.

The low technical threshold can be said to be another important reason why the charging pile industry is favored by capital. According to industry insiders, there are not many companies that can independently develop charging piles in the market. Many companies directly purchase key circuit boards and even finished products, and assemble them and sell them to the outside world. "It means that anyone with money can enter the game. "

Loss becomes general operating status

Despite receiving a "not too small" business, Liwei's face did not show joy: because having business does not mean making money.

It is understood that in the charging pile industry, the profits of large projects such as highway service areas and urban public charging stations are relatively high, but due to the restrictions on registered funds and qualifications at the time of bidding, these projects are often the focus of competition among the four major enterprises.. "It has also led to the remaining small and medium-sized enterprises pushing down the price of charging piles in order to seize a limited market share. "Liwei said helplessly.

For example, Liwei said that the outgoing price of a hanging AC charging pile is 1,300 yuan, and the current market price is only 1,500 yuan. "Including R&D, production, labor and other costs, the gross profit of 200 yuan is definitely a loss.".

However, losses are not only the general operating status of small and medium-sized enterprises. Even if the current market share is the highest, due to the large-scale adoption of the model of self-built piles and cost recovery by service fees, it is also in the position of "building more piles and losing more". situation. Zhengchunfeng, director of the new energy research institute, admitted that almost all charging pile companies, including the gang, are now unable to make money.

Zhengchunfeng explained that in a mode such as special calls, it is necessary to ensure that the usage rate of charging piles reaches a certain amount in order to be profitable. In Taiyuan, for example, more than 95 % of electric taxis use a gang of charging piles, charging more than 7 00000 degrees a day. "This is the only way companies can make money locally," he said.

In addition to low profits and long recycling cycles, charging piles are similar to the characteristics of urban infrastructure construction and also allow this business to create a regional threshold. It is understood that enterprises to build piles, small to the community property companies, large to the local government, must deal with one by one, which has undoubtedly increased the cost and difficulty of business operations across regions.

In the face of this war of attrition, many start-up companies such as Lan Hai Xinghua can only take the approach of "not earning Qianxian's performance and attracting more business with performance" to try to survive in the shuffle.

There's a chance of winning.

Although it has been "burning money", the pace of enterprises running around and seizing sites has not slowed down at all. "The cloth pile is considered to be occupied in advance, so that there will be the possibility of winning in the future. "Zhengchunfeng said frankly.

For large enterprises represented by special calls, selling pile fees and service fees is only the most basic profit point. According to projections, if the number of new energy vehicles in China can reach 5 million by 2020, the profit space of charging network will reach 55.8 billion yuan, of which the value-added profit space will account for 23.3 billion yuan.

That is to say, charging piles may become terminals for collecting data on new energy vehicles in the future. Derived large-scale data repair vehicles, new energy car rental, platform sales, advertising implants, Internet finance, and O2O business models will all be tightly bonded to charging piles. Become related value-added services.

For Liwei, it is critical to survive the stage of excess capacity with differentiated competition. Blue sea xinghua this year opened a portable 40kW AC fast fill pile. Li Weiqiang introduced that in the past, the owner purchased similar charging equipment from the manufacturer, and the price was as high as 10,000 yuan and it was inconvenient to carry. The company not only improved its appearance through research and development, but also reduced the price to 2,000 yuan. "This charging pile has solved major problems for many long-distance riders." More promising, he said, is that only two companies, including the blue sea, are currently launching the product.

"Most of the company's money is in research and development, and if this year's portable fast selling does not go, this product will be a failure." After a single business ended, Liwei continued to work hard to rush out of the "Red Sea."

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.