Charging pile industry chain ushered in tuyere

As the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to rise, the charging pile industry has ushered in further development and expansion. At the same time, the shortcomings of new energy vehicles also began to appear, "mileage anxiety" can be said to be one of the biggest problems plaguing new energy owners. The charging pile market still has a huge space and is far from mature. It will be further reshuffled in the next two or three years, which is expected to break through the bottleneck state of chaotic industry and difficult profitability of enterprises.

As the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to rise, the charging pile industry has also ushered in further development and expansion, and a number of listed companies are continuing to promote the layout of the charging pile market.

Not long ago, NexteV announced that it had accumulated more than 10,000 charging piles in 269 cities across the country. Coincidentally, at the end of July, GAC Group announced the establishment of GAC Energy Technology Co., LTD., which will focus on the construction and operation of electric charging network, and is expected to build 2,000 super electric charging centers in 300 cities across China in 2025.

The charging problem of new energy vehicles is considered to be the "last kilometer" of the promotion of new energy vehicles, which is crucial to the promotion and development of new energy vehicles. Some industry experts believe that with the expected growth of new energy vehicles, the industry chain of charging piles is expected to usher in the tuyere, and the market scale will exceed 100 billion yuan.

Race to enter

China's new energy vehicle market has maintained high growth since the second half of 2020. Public data show that the number of new energy vehicles in China has exceeded 10 million, of which pure electric vehicles account for about 80%. It is expected that the sales volume of new energy vehicles in China is expected to exceed 5 million in 2022, and close to 10 million in 2025.

With the surge in the number of new energy vehicles, the demand for supporting charging infrastructure is increasing. Facing the infinite potential of the development of the industry, a number of companies are continuing to promote the layout of the charging pile market. Not only Nio, Guangzhou Automobile and other vehicle enterprises, battery manufacturers and traditional oil giants are also vigorously layout new energy vehicle charging business recently.

Recently, the first "photovoltaic charging" filling station project jointly built by Sinopec Fujian Petroleum and Ningde Times in Fujian Province was put into operation. The station is a comprehensive energy service filling station integrating a number of advanced technologies such as photovoltaic power generation, fast charging of new energy vehicles and battery detection. Previously, Sinopec announced in April 2021 that it would cooperate with NexteV to build 5,000 NexteV power stations in Sinopec's nationwide network by 2025.

It's not just Sinopec. Bp recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Aveta Technology to accelerate the development of ultra-fast charging networks in China.

According to the latest data released by the National Energy Administration, 1.3 million new charging piles were added from January to June this year, 3.8 times that of the same period last year. By June this year, China had built 3.92 million charging piles, forming the world's largest charging infrastructure, which will meet the charging demand of more than 20 million electric vehicles by 2025. Tianyan Research data shows that up to now, China has more than 249,000 charging pile related enterprises, including 54,000 newly registered enterprises in the first seven months of this year, a growth rate of 41.9%.

Profit problem

With the increase in the number of new energy vehicles, the shortcomings of new energy vehicles have also begun to appear. "Range anxiety" can be said to be one of the biggest problems plaguing new energy car owners, especially when they need to travel far, the phenomenon of charging queues in high-speed service areas during holidays and getting up at 4 am to grab charging piles has been ridiculed by consumers. It can be said that driving new energy vehicles, charging is an inescapable step.

It should be noted that the current construction of charging infrastructure in our country is not perfect, and it is facing many challenges in private cars due to residence restrictions, low utilization rate of public charging stations, difficult and slow charging, etc. At the same time, the industry barriers are low, the degree of product differentiation is low, compressed the profit space of the industry, the profit problem has become one of the main bottlenecks in the development of the industry.

In 2014, the country liberalized the charging pile market, and a large number of private capital poured in. By 2017, there were more than 300 domestic charging pile manufacturers and operators.

However, since 2018, the industry has begun to reshuffle, and the competition in the charging pile market is out of order, with frequent price wars. Many cities have seen the phenomenon of charging pile platforms competing for users at low prices, with continuous promotional activities such as "big price reduction", "free service fee" and "large discounts". Due to the broken capital chain, more and more enterprises have quit. By the end of 2019, only over 100 enterprises remained, and most of these enterprises are struggling to break even.

It is understood that at present, the main source of income of charging pile operating enterprises is charging service fees, and the income of enterprises is completely determined by the charging demand of customers. At the same time, high investment and construction cost, unreasonable charging pile layout and high operation and maintenance cost in the early stage lead to a long return period of investment cost for operators, and it is difficult to make profits in the short term.

Usher in the tuyere

It is generally believed in the industry that from the policy-driven perspective, the investment and construction of charging piles, as a series of "new infrastructure", is expected to become one of the key areas of infrastructure to promote growth in 2022. With policy support, the charging pile industry chain is expected to usher in the wind.

According to the analysis of Guoyuan Securities, under the constraint of the target of 1:1 ratio in 2030, the cumulative market space of charging piles is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan from 2020 to 2025.

Industry analysts believe that the charging pile market still has huge space and is far from mature. The gap in the number of charging points and clear policy guidelines will also attract new players not limited to traditional operators. It can be predicted that as more and more enterprises enter the charging pile industry and market competition intensifies, the charging pile industry will be further reshuffling in the next two or three years, which is expected to break through the bottleneck state of chaotic industry and difficult profit.

In this environment, enterprises need to complete relatively complete and mature business layout. In this asset-heavy industry, enterprises with poor financial strength are easy to be eliminated by the market, while enterprises with both strength and capital are expected to become the final winners.

"Despite the rapid increase in absolute numbers, from the perspective of consumer convenience, our charging infrastructure is not yet able to fully meet the needs of users, and there is a lot of innovative work to be done on the existing charging infrastructure," an industry expert suggested. New players need to learn to backtrack the required resources from the application scenarios, and then combine their own advantages into various segments, so as to promote the continuous changes in the operation pattern and industry ecology, and promote the healthy development of the industry.