Why are auto giants putting so much effort into making charging stations at this time?

The popularity of a mainstream product will always drive the popularity of peripheral supporting products. Just like the full implementation of smartphones, it has spurred the huge accessory industry such as film and protective cases. The rapid promotion of electric vehicles has also accelerated the construction of charging piles and charging stations. For example, if you open the map application in many big cities and search for gas stations and charging stations respectively, you will find that charging stations are more dense than gas stations.

It seems that charging piles and charging stations will be a good business in the future. In order to seize the commanding heights of the industry and even to control the charging standards, giants including Tesla and Volkswagen are all working hard on charging piles and charging stations. They are trying to win a future with broad prospects through forward-looking layout.

In full swing! The construction of charging piles will not stop

The "love" for charging piles and charging stations has made many companies addicted to them.

Recently, Musk revealed on Twitter that Tesla plans to cover the entire Europe with a charging network (Supercharger) next year. The reason is that Tesla wants to lay a solid foundation for the sales of its own electric vehicles. As early as November, Tesla began to prepare for the Model 3 in the European market. Tesla said that the European version of the car will be equipped with a combined charging system fast charging compatible port. In addition, Tesla will also upgrade existing charging piles. It is worth noting that Tesla's charging station in Hong Kong opened in October this year. This charging station has 50 charging positions and ranks first in Asia.

Tesla has such a grand plan for charging piles and charging stations. As a veteran car company, Volkswagen is naturally unwilling to lag behind. It is understood that Volkswagen plans to build a 360kWh mobile fast charging station that can provide up to 100kW of DC charging. Theoretically, when running at full capacity, the fast charging station can charge up to 15 electric vehicles. Moreover, Volkswagen's mobile charging stations focus more on convenient placement, which can be quickly put into use in large-scale events. In addition, this charging station can also be connected to renewable energy sources such as solar or wind power. It seems that Volkswagen has great ambitions for charging stations.

In the UK, the government also attaches great importance to charging stations and charging piles. A new proposal in the UK requires that all new homes must be able to charge electric vehicles. In addition to residential areas, corporate buildings, service stations near highways and street parking spaces must also be equipped with charging piles. To this end, the British government has invested 400 million pounds (530 million US dollars) to subsidize companies that produce and install charging piles.

It seems that the construction of charging piles and charging stations will not stop for a long time. With the accelerated implementation of charging piles and charging stations, an important problem has actually been solved for the popularization of electric vehicles.

Restraining competitors and controlling standards: the driving force behind the development of charging piles

At present, many countries and regions, car companies, etc. have successively issued plans to stop the production of fuel vehicles. For example, the United Kingdom and France have announced that they will completely ban the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles from 2040. Norway is even more radical, banning the sale of gasoline vehicles from 2025. Volkswagen previously announced a major strategy "RoadmapE", that is, the electrification strategy. By 2030 at the latest, all Volkswagen models will be electrified, and traditional fuel vehicles will be completely withdrawn.

Since fuel vehicles are destined to be run over by the wheels of history, automakers must naturally be fully prepared to seize the electric vehicle market. The core of seizing the market is actually charging piles and charging stations. Being able to deploy charging piles and charging stations on a large scale is moving towards winning the future and to a certain extent restraining opponents. For example, Tesla's various targeted measures have already made many old automakers "panic", and they have to disperse massive funds, resources and manpower to deal with them.

From another perspective, car companies are actively deploying charging piles and charging stations, and are also trying to control the "charging standards". At present, the charging standards for electric vehicles have not yet been completely unified. The global charging standards mainly include the ICE standard of the International Electrotechnical Commission, the SAE standard of the American Society of Automotive Engineers, the CHAdeMO standard of the Japan Electric Vehicle Association, and my country's national standard.

These charging standards not only have different hardware interfaces, but also have certain differences in software. For a long time in the future, charging standards will remain in a relatively chaotic and parallel state. If car companies can use their forward-looking layout to control the formulation of charging standards, it will have a positive impact on their own development.

Charging piles: a new blue ocean in the next decade

At present, traditional fuel vehicles are in a downward trend, while new energy vehicles, including electric vehicles, are rising against the market trend. According to the data of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first 11 months of 2018, the production and sales of automobiles fell by 2.6% and 1.7% year-on-year respectively, while the production and sales of new energy vehicles increased by 63.6% and 68% year-on-year, reaching 1.054 million and 1.03 million units respectively - both exceeding 1 million units. In the long run, the sales of electric vehicles are also on the rise worldwide. Many analysts at Katusa Research in the United States believe that by 2040, the annual sales of the global electric vehicle market may exceed 60 million vehicles.

As electric vehicle sales continue to hit new highs, the supporting charging market will naturally develop rapidly. Generally speaking, an electric car needs 2.5 charging piles to meet demand. Previously, Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, also said: "my country's new energy vehicle industry is still in its early stages of development. Although the scale of production and sales has achieved rapid growth, the construction of charging infrastructure still needs to be accelerated."

It can be seen that in the next ten years or so, the construction of charging piles and charging stations will be a blue ocean market. Large-scale social capital will flow into this market, and cutting-edge technology will continue to play a driving role. Under the active guidance of the government, the number of charging piles and charging stations is expected to explode exponentially. (New Discovery of Science and Technology Constantine/Text)