The charging pile market is hot, why is it difficult to profit behind it?

Guided by the policy, the charging pile market has become a new foothold in the capital of the new energy automobile industry after the power battery and electric vehicle, but the investment field with such high popularity is still losing money. stage. While the charging pile industry is developing rapidly and the number of charging pile enterprises has increased significantly, how to make the charging facilities profit is the biggest difficulty.

In the past few years, China's charging infrastructure construction has lagged behind the development of new energy automobile industry. The construction speed of public charging piles in China is far from expected. The main problem is that in addition to the top-down power of the government, charging piles are a difficult bone for many enterprises or capital, with high input costs and investment. It takes a long time and it is difficult to achieve a return in the short term. Coupled with problems such as land resources and local protection, it is not easy to enter the field of new energy charging facilities. As a result, the hot-selling cities of new energy vehicles such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have a serious imbalance between the number of charging piles and the number of new energy vehicles.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2015, the number of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded 500,000. By the end of 2015, only 3,600 charging and replacing stations and 49,000 public charging piles have been built nationwide, far less than 500,000 new ones. The charging needs of energy vehicles.

Since 2015, China's charging facilities have begun to make rapid breakthroughs. The rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles, especially the increase in the proportion of private car purchases and the introduction of local promotion policies, has greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of all sectors of society to participate in the development of the charging facilities industry. Some enterprises with Internet genes, technology companies, startups, and society The involvement of capital has greatly enhanced the vitality of the industry and formed an industrial pattern of state-owned, private, and mixed ownership.

According to data provided by the National Energy Administration, as of the end of April this year, 171,000 public charging piles have been built nationwide. Among them, the inter-city high-speed fast charging station has accelerated construction, and has formed a pattern of “six vertical, six horizontal and two rings”. During the Spring Festival this year, the expressway area completed charging of 14,500 vehicles, and the charging capacity reached 123,100 kWh, an increase of 315% year-on-year, which facilitated the intercity travel of new energy vehicles. In the field of private charging piles, with the promotion and application of electric passenger vehicles and the detailed implementation of the policy of residential charging facilities, the contradiction of the construction of residential special charging piles has been alleviated, and the installation proportion of special piles for vehicle sales enterprises has reached 87.7%. , an increase of about 10 percentage points from the middle of last year.

The authoritative data also shows that as of the end of June 2017, China's new energy vehicle ownership exceeded 1.2 million units, and the current “car-to-pile ratio” is close to 4:1; according to the “Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Development Guideline Level; meanwhile, National Energy In the "Notice on Guidance for Energy Work in 2017", the bureau made it clear that in 2017, 900,000 charging piles will be built (100,000 public charging piles and 800,000 private charging piles). The construction of the charging pile market will be significantly accelerated in the future. Practice the strategic plan of “pile station first”.

On July 31, State Grid Corporation announced the fourth batch of material bidding procurement projects for the 2017 power supply project, including the second batch of charging equipment tenders this year. A total of 27 packages were issued in this bidding, and 9789 charging piles were purchased. The cumulative power is 477.17MW: 6948 DC piles, total power 457.17MW, 2841 AC piles, total power 20MW. Estimated by the bid price of 1.3 yuan / W, the total amount of this tender is expected to exceed 600 million yuan, involving Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other seven provinces and cities.

In October 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the “Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure”, which blew the charge number of Dajian Electric Vehicle Charging Pile. For a time, state-owned capital and private enterprises swarmed and set off a wave of charging pile construction. Dozens of well-known companies with surnames have sprung up to seize the opportunity of this sunrise industry. Similarly, the capital of each channel will naturally not wait for such a large cake to be divided by others, and they all want to take the lead in the battle for the charging pile market.

Starting from the national encouragement of social capital investment charging facilities in 2014, a large wave of enterprises flocked in. In 2015, social capital was insanely entered. Everyone felt that charging piles was a business, a new user portal, high frequency, just needed, and a large user base. Both think that this is an excellent user scenario; in 2016, charging pile companies have released their development strategies, even the development goals of 2020, to accelerate the pace of the enclosure.

National 2020 charging pile macro planning target:

The powers of all parties including charging operators, equipment manufacturers and total solution providers have been actively involved in the construction of charging infrastructure, including State Grid, China Southern Power Grid, Sinopec, Putian New Energy and other central enterprises, Xu Ji Electric and Huashang III. Excellent state-owned enterprises, as well as private enterprises such as Fudian Technology, Te Ruide, Judian, and Autoxun.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology does not fully count the statistics. At present, there are more than 600 enterprises involved in the construction and operation of charging piles in China. However, many people in the industry said that the current policy orientation is "re-construction, light operation", and the strength of market investors is very different. What is even more embarrassing is that many investors came in and found that the subsidy payment of charging piles is difficult to implement, resulting in difficult operation, ranging from six to seven hundred thousand yuan, and many millions of yuan of investment. There is no government subsidy, within three to five years. It is difficult to recover the cost. The subsidy for charging piles is difficult to achieve, and the first to be affected is the layout of the electric vehicle industry. At present, all major charging companies are busy staking their horses. This fast-growing new industry is showing hidden difficulties in profitability and competition.

Shenzhen is the largest new energy vehicle market in South China. At present, 23 operators have entered the record list. Among them, there are local enterprises such as Zhongxing and BYD; there are also “predators” in areas such as Kelu Electronics, Pengdian Yueneng and Putian New Energy; there are also some water-powered Pengmar Even the public transport enterprises invested by the local government of Shenzhen have a wide range of backgrounds.

At present, the charging pile market is in a state of disorderly competition. In the face of huge profit attraction, a large amount of capital has poured into the charging pile industry, which has been transformed from the traditional power equipment enterprises, but also from the Internet side, but some enterprises do not have experience, resulting in uneven product quality; Some companies are short-term investment behaviors. Individual operators do not pay enough attention to quality, pay too much attention to subsidies, and reduce the price of charging equipment to reduce investment costs, which is not conducive to the long-term development of the charging market.

In the case of immature technology, the consequences of many companies' enthusiasm are that the industry is chaotic. The quality of charging pile products is mixed, and bad money drives out good money. Many regional operators have only considered the number of products and neglected the quality of products in order to sprint the price.

If the charging pile products enter the vicious competition and fight the price war, safety problems may occur, especially when the usage rate of the charging piles continues to increase. Some small local passenger transport companies will use anyone who is cheaper, which is dangerous.

The cost of building a charging pile (including cable and land use) is more than 10,000 yuan, which is only a one-time investment in the previous period. The main cost of the operator lies in the management and maintenance after the construction of the pile. In view of the low utilization rate of the existing charging pile, the charging service fee is a drop in the salary for the operator, so the loss becomes the normal state of the whole industry.

It is important to note that, like new energy vehicles, subsidies for charging infrastructure will gradually withdraw. It is difficult to achieve profitability only by electricity and service fees. It is necessary to establish a large user base. In the future, it is possible to make money by operating parking spaces, advertising investment, charging stations supporting catering and entertainment facilities, and building a charging Internet ecosystem.

So no matter how the industry is moving, the market is always cruel, the sustainable business model is the king, and the innovation of the business model is a sustainable prerequisite. At the same time, many companies in charge piles are building a pile of madness. In addition to market share, how to convert charging piles into realizable portals in the Internet era is also a subject that must be considered.

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