How the charging pile industry sails against the water

Although the development trend of the charging pile industry seems to be good in recent years, the industry has naturally begun to implement a diversified business strategy and its business has expanded rapidly. But in fact, there are still many problems. Although the industry's prospects are consistently promising, the current development of the electric vehicle market is not fully mature. The three major problems of standards, planning, and land are in the way of charging pile construction, and charging pile construction is not smooth. Therefore, under this background, how will the charging pile industry face the turbulent "wave" and go against the water?

Faced with the problem: "there is no car with a pile, there is no car with a pile," and other phenomena coexist. In the face of the current situation of charging piles, industry people have felt that although the charging pile industry has already bid farewell to the horse race, the domestic charging pile industry still faces related barriers. In recent years, charging piles have maintained a rapid growth momentum, and some regions have shown problems such as excessive development and inconsistency with the power grid. The pile construction was unreasonable, and then immediately faced: "there is a phenomenon of coexistence of vehicles without piles and piles without cars." According to Huang Zheng, director of the electrical system room of the China National Aeronautics Center Laboratory, as far as the promotion process of charging piles is concerned, the promotion goal of 5 million charging piles in China in 2020 is difficult to achieve.

With the continuous expansion of the new energy vehicle market, the problem of insufficient structural supply of charging infrastructure is becoming increasingly prominent, and the overall scale of charging piles is still lagging significantly. On the one hand, the scale of charging piles does not match the scale of new energy vehicle development during the same period; on the other hand, the layout of charging facilities is unreasonable, the utilization rate of charging piles is low, and enterprises lack a sustainable and replicable business development model.

According to the data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, based on the 1.72 million new energy vehicle holdings, the vehicle-to-pile ratio is approximately 3.8: 1, far below the 1: 1 construction target. Large gaps in the construction of charging piles, difficulty in supporting charging facilities, and low utilization of charging facilities are prominent. Due to the different utilization levels of public charging piles in different cities, the construction speed of "Large Steps" also brought about a large number of idle charging piles.

China Bus.com learned by reviewing relevant statistics that the current utilization rate of charging piles in the urban areas of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou has reached 70%, but the utilization rate in second- and third-tier cities is extremely low. Although the total number of charging piles in China is considerable, the average utilization rate of public charging piles is only 15%, and some charging piles have even become zombie piles. At present, the quality of charging equipment on the market is uneven, and some charging piles cannot be effectively used. Due to the initial "horse race enclosure", many companies did not consider market demand when they built piles, and only focused on grabbing land and expanding market share. There are also some charging piles installed remotely, and the number of effective charging piles is not as large as (statistical).

The way to crack: rationalize the operation and optimize the allocation of resources. For the charging pile industry, relying on the prosperity of electric vehicles, as a "gas station" for electric vehicles, the full development of charging pile construction will undoubtedly provide a huge market. However, there is still a large gap to meet the goal of 5 million electric vehicles. The profitability of charging pile companies is not ideal. If no new profit model appears, it will affect the popularity of charging facilities.
It is understood that under the guidance of policies, more business models will emerge in the future, including vehicle-pile linkage, vehicle-pile integration, and so on. In addition, the development and innovation of charging technology will also promote the diversification of the charging industry, including electromagnetic replacement technology. The convenience and diversification of charging technology will also increase the penetration rate of charging piles. In the future, to allow the construction of charging stations to more fully integrate with the market and restructure the future business model of the charging industry, we must also pay more attention to new technologies and applications such as super charging stations, wireless charging, and interconnection and sharing.