It has been five years since Wei, a lone ranger, came to this matter!

Insist on changing electricity for 5 years, Wei Lai's loneliness and pride.

Text/Niu Li

Producer/Coach and Cattle Girl

I'm sorry, I still use the word "lone brave".

Although Eason's "The Lone Ranger" has been extremely popular, it is the most accurate word to describe Weilai, who started the power exchange business five years ago.

By March 3, 2023, Weilaiyi * * * had deployed 1339 power stations in the world, including 13 in overseas markets such as Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

In addition, there are over-filled stations 1285 (7 overseas) and over-filled piles (22 overseas).

On May 20th, 20 18, Weilai's first power exchange station was completed in Shenzhen Nanshan Science Park.

On 2021April 15, Weilai's first second-generation power station was officially opened at Sinopec Ying Chao Gas Station.

On March 28th, 2023, Weilai's first third-generation power station was completed in Shangri-La Hotel, Haikou.

In five years, the power exchange business has changed from 0 to 1, and Weilai is a "lone ranger" with the qualification of electric vehicle industry.

The eyes of the outside world on Weilai's power exchange business have changed from questioning to envy, which is quite "can't afford it before".

Recently, in a forum speech, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, shared the latest progress and achievements of Weilai's power station exchange business with the whole industry, and proudly announced that 1 1,000 power stations will be added in 2023.

Li Bin's pride has enough capital.

In recent two years, more and more local governments, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, have introduced policies to encourage and reward power exchange. Power exchange stations and charging stations have become an important part of new infrastructure in the new energy era.

Weilai has led the audience.

The mask era ended in 3 years, and Vientiane was updated in 2023.

In fact, just at the end of last year, in the face of 2023 full of unknowns and uncertainties, Weilai carefully planned the goal of building 400 new power stations.

But obviously, Weilai in early 2023 is full of energy.

What's more, there are 1 1,000 new power stations, 90% of which are more efficient third-generation power stations.

It can be predicted that the increasingly perfect distribution network of power exchange stations will be the strongest killer and brand moat that distinguishes Weilai from other new energy brands in the future.

0 1

The third generation: faster and smarter

Experience and efficiency are improved in an all-round way

On March 28th, at the inauguration ceremony of Shangri-La third-generation power station in Haikou, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, and Shen Fei, senior vice president of Weilai Energy, personally broadcast the improvement of service efficiency and service capacity of the third-generation power station for users.

According to Shen Fei, the service capacity of the third generation power station is more powerful, with the battery capacity increased to 2 1 cell, and the daily service can reach 408, which is 30% higher than that of the second generation power station. At the same time, the third generation station adopts a brand-new three-station cooperative operation mechanism, which can shorten the power exchange time by 20%. It only takes about 4 minutes for users to complete a power exchange service at the third generation station, even faster than refueling at the gas station.

Considering the huge losses in Weilai's financial report, Shen Fei added that, in fact, by "reducing the design cost", the construction cost of the third generation station is even lower than that of the second generation.

At the same time, the third generation station is more adaptable, and will definitely integrate all the models that adapt to the second brand Alps of Weilai.

In addition, the third generation power station will be equipped with two laser radars and two NVIDIA Orin X chips, and the single station computing capacity will reach 508TOPS, which will prepare for calling vehicles and automatically changing power in the future.

Shen Fei revealed that Weilai will have an automatic unattended power station connected and put into trial operation this year, which will greatly reduce the operating cost.

Up to now, Weilai has obtained more than 1400 authorized patents in the field of power exchange, and published patent applications.

Shen Fei said that it is expected to add 1 1,000 power stations this year, of which 600 are in cities, mainly in second-and third-tier cities and sinking markets; Another 400 are laid out on expressways, and by 2025, the layout of expressway power exchange network in nine horizontal, nine vertical and nineteen big city groups will be accelerated.

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On Weilai's NIO Power energy map, more and more dense energy distribution points constitute Weilai's loneliness and pride bit by bit.

02

In the two-hour communication meeting, Shen Fei mentioned "user" 1 10 times.

"Where is the Weilai user, where is the power station built?"

When it comes to the brand Weilai, the first reaction is associated with two words: user and wire transfer.

At the communication and sharing meeting about the third generation power station, I noticed that Shen Fei said the word "user" very frequently, so I simply counted it according to communication shorthand. In this two-hour communication meeting, he said 1 10 times, which can be said to be a "mantra".

Talking about the goal of building 1000 power stations this year, Shen Fei said:

"Building 1 000 stations a year is still a big challenge. I am not at the bottom of 65,438+000%, but I will do my best with the whole energy team. Since the birth of NIO Power, my team has never let users down, and this year will not let users down. "

1000 how and where will the power station be laid out?

The iron law followed by Weilai and Shen Fei Energy Team is-"Where Weilai users are, the power exchange station will be built."

Not long ago, Weilai organized a "user wish list" activity and received nearly 6.5438+0.4 million wish lists for power station location.

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"We hope that users will continue to tell us where your wishes are and where it is inconvenient." Shen Fei said that although users' wishes can't be 100% satisfied, they will try their best to meet them.

In addition to the user's wish list, Weilai also has its own Athena intelligent system to help choose the address of the power station. Finally, the user's wish list is compared with the address recommended by the system for mutual reference and help, and finally the location of the power station is decided.

"Assuming that the number of users grows steadily and no new power stations are built this year, then each power station can receive 50-60 orders to achieve breakeven." Shen Fei revealed that with the increase in the number of users, the efficiency of the power station is gradually improved, and the input-output ratio of the power station is also gradually improved.

In Spring Festival travel rush in 2023, many experts made a wrong prediction. I didn't expect the power exchange during the Spring Festival to be so "intense".

On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Shen Fei had a meeting with the regional general manager of the whole country. After going to work during the Spring Festival and consulting with more colleagues inside, he decided to build more power stations this year.

"Wei lai's decision is particularly simple, that is, to think from the interests of users and see if the internal systematic ability can be done. If users have this demand and our ability is still lacking, we will try again; If you already have the ability to satisfy it, do it at once. It is such decision logic. "

Shen Fei said that whether it is building a power station or changing a charging pile, Weilai's thinking logic is not to see if there is any subsidy in that place, and the subsidy is not high, but just "because my users go there, I will go there to build it."

Of course, these facilities will also be open to non-Weilai brands, but regardless of price or order, Weilai users will be given priority. During the peak period, users of other brands will be kept as little as possible to ensure that Weilai users will be charged first.

"Any user, no matter where you are located, is a user of Wei Lai, and I will try my best to serve him well. I don't care whether he is in Pudong, Shanghai or Chongming, or in a county or township in Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei, I will make the layout. Of course, in this process, I will try my best to make the marginal benefit of each station bigger and serve more users. "

Shen Fei explained Weilai's customer service concept like this.

03

A real moat

Many people will say that users are the moat of Weilai.

But I don't think this statement is accurate.

There are loving users and fickle users.

Facing the future, with the rapid development of electric vehicles, the more and more perfect power station changing system is the real moat of Weilai brand.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past two years, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces and cities have successively issued policies to encourage, encourage and reward power exchange.

For example, in August last year, the Beijing Urban Management Committee issued the "Development Plan for Charging and Replacing Facilities of New Energy Vehicles in Beijing during the Tenth Five-Year Plan", with clear planning, promoting the construction of power replacement stations and encouraging the development of vehicle-electricity separation mode.

On June 5438+ 10 last year, Shanghai issued the "Implementation Opinions on Further Promoting the Construction of Charging and Replacing Infrastructure in this Municipality", which proposed to explore the advantageous areas to enjoy the service mode of replacing electricity.

In September of the same year, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission and other departments 10 issued the Measures for Shanghai to Encourage the Development of Electric Vehicle Charging and Replacing Facilities, pointing out that it is necessary to support the demonstration construction of high-level power stations.

In March last year, the official website Guangzhou Municipal Development and Reform Commission released the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Innovation and Development of Intelligent and New Energy Vehicles in Guangzhou, proposing to speed up the construction of the power exchange infrastructure service network and reach 400 power exchange stations by 2025.

In June last year, the Guangdong Provincial Energy Bureau issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Guangdong Province", proposing to encourage the rational allocation and construction of power stations in expressway service areas to improve the efficiency of energy replenishment; Encourage qualified cities to carry out the application of power exchange mode according to actual demand.

In September last year, Guangzhou Bureau of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Three-year Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure in Guangzhou (2022-2024)", proposing to build about 120 power stations during 2022-2024.

Last year, the Guangxi government issued the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Financial Subsidies for the Three-year Action to Promote and Apply New Energy Vehicles in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The detailed rules put forward subsidies for power station construction. Give a one-time construction subsidy according to the rated charging power of the charging module of the power exchange equipment. The subsidy standard is 1500 yuan/kw, and the maximum subsidy for a single station is 400,000 yuan.

……

Shen Fei said that on a certain day during the Spring Festival holiday in 2023, the power exchange frequency of Weilai power exchange system was more than 62,000 times a day, which is the peak so far, and has recently stabilized at around 46,000 times/day. At the beginning of April, the total number of exchange points exceeded 20 million.

More than 50% of the new power of Weilai car owners comes from changing electricity. Compared with charging and exchange, the proportion of exchanged electricity is increasing, while the proportion of charged electricity is decreasing. 80% of users have had the experience of changing electricity.

Weilai has already felt the benefits of changing electricity-more and more users who can't afford household appliances have bought Weilai's products.

Another very valuable and meaningful direction of power exchange is to participate in the interaction of power grid supervision.

At present, the power exchange station is a single item, but in the future, it can fully participate in the frequency modulation and service of the power grid and the stability of the power grid, and become a two-way interactive mode.

According to the instructions of the power grid, the speed and quantity of taking and returning electricity are adjusted according to different time periods and different sections. Let electric vehicles travel more electricity-saving, money-saving and energy-saving.

This is not a fantasy. From an academic point of view, this problem has been studied very clearly. Shen Fei said that Weilai actually increased its cooperation with the power grid last year.

Last year in Zhejiang, Weilai has connected all 72 power exchange stations to power grid dispatching through virtual power plants to observe how they play a supervisory role.

This year, the distribution of power stations in Europe will also begin such an attempt.

In Shen Fei's view, the final solution to power-on is to charge and replace the comprehensive station.

At present, the charging pile and the power exchange station are operated separately, but perhaps the mode of Weilai's next generation power exchange station will be upgraded to a comprehensive station for charging and replacing electricity, and at the same time, it will be made into a comprehensive station for charging and replacing electricity with photovoltaic power generation.

According to Shen Fei, the service capacity of the integrated charging and replacing station will be 1.6 times to 2 times or even higher than that of the ultra-fast charging station with the same power capacity.

What is the concept of "wei? Flexible combination of charging and replacing electricity to adapt to different scenarios. " Shen Fei added.

Single user single charge/exchange, single station efficiency, battery use efficiency and experience, and interaction with the power grid-from these four dimensions, the battery, charging and exchange network and power system are combined to make a systematic solution, which is not the dimensional competition of a single 800V ultra-fast charging pile. Just like in the science fiction "Three-body".

"Let's do this together, make the network more open and make the user experience better. In the competition between trams and oil tankers, the final winner must be trams. "

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Li Bin also said many times on different occasions that Weilai's power exchange network and batteries are open to the whole industry.

In Weilai's charging network, 80% of non-Weilai brand electric vehicles have been charged.

On different occasions, Li Bin also spared no effort to call on colleagues to build more infrastructure.

Niu Niu said:

If you don't understand, you can laugh at a new thing as much as you like. The deeper you know, the more cautious you are about what you say. In the past, I was also one of the worst people who laughed at Weilai's bankruptcy and Li Bin.

But now, I am in awe of this company.

Many enterprises are talking about "permanence", but they have actually practiced it far. After going bankrupt, Li Bin and his Weilai gained more leisure, building and replacing power stations one station at a time, charging piles one by one, and countries entered developed markets to participate in strong competition.

This is the other side of Wei Lai's loneliness and pride.

This article comes from the author of Summer for Girls in Niu Hao, Che Yi, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.