Billions of charging pile business: the average utilization rate of about 5% profit is difficult to exceed 10% or profit

"It took one hour to charge, four hours to queue, and 16 hours to drive for eight hours." The topic of new energy car holiday charging is difficult to rush into hot search, breaking the cognition of new energy car owners "charging pile freedom". The difficulty of charging new energy vehicles has once again become a hot topic.

Data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance shows that by the end of 2020, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in China is 1.681,000, and the number of new energy vehicles in China is 492 during the same period, with a ratio of about 2.9:1.

According to the analysis of Guoyuan Securities, under the constraint of the target of 1:1 car-pile ratio in 2030, the total investment of the charging pile market in the next ten years is nearly one trillion yuan, and the cumulative market space is expected to exceed one hundred billion yuan from 2020 to 2025.

Looking at the overall new-energy vehicle market, Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said the penetration rate of the new-energy vehicle market has increased to 17.3 percent in September, and that of new-energy passenger vehicles is close to 20 percent. New energy vehicles and the industry chain have entered a stage of rapid development at the same time, but there are hidden worries under the prosperity.

Under the background of the prosperous new energy vehicle market, charging pile is undoubtedly just needed, but our charging pile is enough? Why is this business still struggling to make a profit? In addition, in the charging pile market, there are problems to be solved, such as incompatible charging interfaces caused by inconsistent production standards and "zombie piles" caused by inadequate management and maintenance.

Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, told the Beijing News Shell Finance reporter, "Currently, the 1:1 target has not been achieved. At present, the ratio is basically 3:1. With the improvement of the driving range of new energy vehicles, the number of charging piles is basically enough. The eastern and Pearl River Delta regions are rich in charging piles."

[More cars and less piles]

The utilization rate of public charging piles is low, and the ratio of piles is 3.05:1

From the perspective of application scenarios, charging piles can be divided into public charging piles and private charging piles. Public charging piles are open to owners of pure electric vehicles, while private charging piles are installed in private areas by owners themselves and are not open to the public.

With the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the development of infrastructure such as charging piles has also attracted the attention of the industry. However, on the whole, there is still an imbalance between the number of new energy vehicles and the number of charging piles, with more vehicles and fewer piles. Data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance shows that by the end of 2020, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in China is 1.681,000, and the number of new energy vehicles in China is 492 during the same period, with a ratio of about 2.9:1.

However, with the explosive growth of sales of new energy vehicles, the growth of charging piles is not as fast as the sales of new energy vehicles. According to the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of September 30, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in China was 2.223 million units, up 56.8% year on year. In the same period, the number of new energy vehicles was 6.78 million, and the ratio of piles dropped to 3.05:1.

As of the end of September, 1,044,000 of the 2.223 million units of charging infrastructure were public charging posts and 1.179 million were private charging posts. Taking public charging piles as an example, the ratio of car piles was 6.49 to 1, compared with 6.1:1 at the end of last year; That is to say, each public charging pile corresponds to six or seven pure electric vehicles.

In the Development Guide for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (2015-2020) released in 2015, it was mentioned that the ratio of piles in domestic planning in 2020 would basically reach 1:1. However, Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, said, "Currently, the 1:1 goal has not been achieved. At present, the ratio is basically 3:1. With the improvement of the mileage of new energy vehicles, the number of charging piles is basically enough. The eastern and Pearl River Delta regions are rich in charging piles." He added that the layout of charging piles is limited by many practical factors, including location and power capacity.

Wang Yao, assistant secretary general and Minister of Technology Department of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said, "Currently, due to the uneven distribution of new energy vehicles, the charging market is faced with a contradictory situation of charging queue and low utilization rate of charging piles; The overall utilization rate of charging piles is low, with the industry average utilization rate at 3%-5%."

Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Association, has the same view. He believes that "the ratio of car piles is not very significant, and most private car owners mainly use private charging piles. In this case, the use frequency of public charging piles is relatively low and the demand is small. However, there are still many old communities that cannot install private charging piles. Take the community where this reporter lives as an example. The community was built in 2012, and electric vehicle charging facilities have not been installed in the community.

In fact, in addition to the uneven distribution of charging piles, there are still some difficult problems in the charging pile market, such as incompatible charging interfaces caused by inconsistent production standards and "zombie piles" caused by inadequate management and maintenance. Zhang Xiang said, on the one hand, in order to reduce costs, operators reduce the number of special operation and maintenance management personnel of charging piles, resulting in accelerated aging of charging piles, and there is no special maintenance personnel; On the other hand, the technology of charging piles is upgraded quickly. After the new standard was launched by the state at the end of 2018, the previous charging piles did not meet the new standard, resulting in no users to charge, which accelerated the abandonment of such charging piles.

In addition, from the view of the public charging pile utilization rate, due to the existence of zombie charging piles, slow charging and parking fees, the rate of charging pile in our country is only about 4% on average.

【 Profit problem 】

Capital favor but use frequency is not high, single profit model

Industry: Utilization rate over 10% or can be profitable

The uncoordinated ratio of piles and uneven layout of charging piles are not intractable problems in the industry. Cui Dongshu and other insiders believe that with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, charging piles as supporting infrastructure will also show rapid development. The primary problem restricting its development is the basic problems such as difficult business, single profit model and difficult profit.

According to the plan in the Development Guide for Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (2015-2020), nearly 5 million charging piles will be built in China by 2020, which attracts a lot of capital and players; however, in reality, a large number of charging pile enterprises have to be eliminated. Public data shows that 50% of charging pile enterprises in the domestic charging pile market have closed down or withdrawn from the market since 2019, and 30% are struggling to break even.

However, with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, as a supporting facility charging pile has once again become the tuyere, much favored by the capital market. In May, Xingxing Charging announced that it won the B round of financing from Hillhouse leading capital, IDG and other follow-investors. After the financing, Xingxing Charging was valued at 15.5 billion yuan. In June, YunKuaichong completed the B1 round financing of Ningde Times and other investments; At the same time in June, the subsidiary company called through the way of capital expansion, including the State power investment, Three Gorges Group and other 10 enterprises to introduce strategic investment; In September, Cloud Kuaichong once again announced the completion of the B2 round of investment by Nio Capital and other investments.

However, although standing in the just-needed tuyere, favored by the capital market, the charging pile industry is still facing the problem of profit. "Currently, the overall utilization rate of charging piles is too low to make a profit, but part of the charging infrastructure has already made a profit by establishing strategic partnerships with auto companies," Wang said.

Take the special call of the subsidiary company of Treed as an example, the financial report of Treed shows that from 2016 to 2020, Treed lost 29,423 million yuan, 19.489 million yuan, 136 million yuan, 111 million yuan, 77.696 million yuan, five years of total loss of 374 million yuan.

Yu Dexiang, chairman of Special Call, also said in an interview with a shell financial reporter, "Behind the achievements of Special Call is the huge investment of capital and huge research and development expenses. Special Call was terrified in the four years before its establishment, and did not know when the turning point of the industry would appear. The accumulated loss of 1.2 billion yuan in the previous years. Now Cui Dongshu, "charging pile profit is difficult mainly because of the relatively unbalanced development of new energy vehicles, many cars are not privately owned, and the frequency of use is not high, the demand for public charging is not strong, resulting in the utilization rate of the whole public charging pile is poor; In addition, the charging infrastructure cannot meet the needs of consumers, and the delay time is long and the overall cost is high."

"The price system of a public charging pile is unreasonable, which is much different from the price of household charging. At the same time, parking fees need to be paid. Second, the driving range of new energy vehicles increases and the dependence on charging piles decreases." In terms of charging fees, in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the average per-hour charge for public charging piles is 2 yuan, while that for household charging is a few cents.

Mr. Zhang of a charging station in Huanjing area said, "The construction cost of a gun is about 100,000 yuan, including charging service fees, charging fees and other income, it will take more than three and a half years to realize the cost of the equipment; But this does not include rent, operation and maintenance costs, labor costs and other expenses. If you add it all up, it will take more than four years for the equipment to pay for itself." But he also said there would be some subsidies to reduce the time it takes to pay back the money.

For charging pile enterprises, insiders say that the average power utilization rate needs to reach 10%-15% in order to achieve profitability, but at the present stage, the utilization rate is only about 4%. Cui Dongshu thinks that high investment and slow return are the characteristics of the charging pile industry, but in fact, enterprises have already received subsidies for building charging piles. At the present stage, charging pile enterprises are in the stage of making money from building piles. Later, they will gradually enter a gentle waiting period and gradually form the start of the market.

In addition, charging pile enterprises still have a single profit model, which mainly relies on electricity price difference and service fee. In Beijing, for example, the service charge for a special call ranges from 20 to 30 cents per KWH during the day and about 10 cents per KWH at night. In addition, in order to capture market share, charging pile enterprises are also engaged in a price war and promote their increment through subsidies and preferential activities. However, while attracting customers, they are also faced with the operation mode of high cost and low income.

【 Market prospect 】

Diversification of participants and multi-channel income sources is the direction

Analysis: The market size may increase 30 times by 2030

Data from China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance shows that the concentration of charging pile facilities in China is still high. In September, five companies, including Special Telephone, Xingxing Charging, State Grid, Yunkuai Charging and China Southern Power Grid, occupied 74.5% of the market share of public charging pile. The basic business model of the industry is also evolving towards the direction of "diversified participants", "more segmented market areas" and "multi-channel revenue sources".

Shengang Securities analyzed that charging piles have entered a stage of high-quality development dominated by new infrastructure in the period of rapid surplus caused by policy stimulus. With the policy support and rapid development, the scale effect of charging piles will further appear, and the industrial development is expected to increase.

But at the same time, the charging pile industry profit difficulties still need to be solved, Cui Dongshu said, charging pile enterprises how to achieve profit? One is to seize the group users, do a good job in the scene application, so that the charging and these consumption to achieve an effective combination; The second is to reduce the cost of public charging piles relatively, improve the charging speed, so that consumers can save money and time, improve the competitiveness of public charging piles.

Zhang added that charging pile companies should first improve the utilization rate of charging piles, such as more flexible management and a floating price system, if they want to make profits. Secondly, increase the proportion of DC charging pile to save charging time.

With the rapid development of new energy vehicles and the improvement of market penetration rate, Zhang Xiang and other industry insiders generally believe that the market stiffness of charging piles is strong and the market prospect is also great, but it is still difficult to make profits at the present stage, which will take at least three to five years.

According to the analysis of Guoyuan Securities, under the constraint of the target of 1:1 ratio of car pile in 2030, the total investment of charging pile market in the next ten years is nearly one trillion yuan, and the cumulative market space is expected to exceed one hundred billion yuan from 2020 to 2025. According to the forecast of State Grid Electric Vehicle Research Institute and other institutions, the scale of China's charging pile market will reach 30 times by 2030. Yingda Securities believes that the concentration of charging piles will be further improved, and the market has shown the characteristics of an upward cycle, and has entered the critical period of the development of the charging pile industry.