The call for "new infrastructure" has led to a three-legged pattern of new energy charging piles, with wolves in front and tigers behind

Standing on the cusp of the "new infrastructure", the charging pile industry has taken off, and giants such as Alibaba and Huawei have entered the market one after another.

However, in the early stage of the industry development, subsidies continued to be provided, and private charging pile companies such as Teladian and Xingxing, as well as state-owned enterprises such as China Southern Power Grid and State Grid, all "ran for land", and the number of charging piles increased. The industry problem of focusing on construction and neglecting operation became more prominent. Among them, Teladian, Xingxing, State Grid and other operators fought on their own, charging piles were incompatible, payment methods were not unified, and the state of competition was not interconnected, which made new energy vehicle owners suffer.

Now, with the introduction of new infrastructure, the charging pile market has entered a stage of climbing and upgrading. This also means that major charging pile operators, in addition to setting up more charging piles, must also keep up with service quality, and the market is moving towards an orderly industry ecological pattern.

Stop the wild growth

Public data shows that at the end of 2015, the number of public charging facilities in my country was only 57,792; at the end of 2017, a total of 213,900 public charging piles and 231,800 private charging piles had been built across the country, with a total car-to-pile ratio of about 8:1; at the end of 2019, the total number of charging piles in the country reached 1.22 million, including 520,000 public piles and 700,000 private piles, covering 404 cities across the country.

Among them, Teladian charging piles, Xingxing charging piles, and State Grid charging piles account for a relatively large number and are classified as leading companies in the charging pile market.

The obvious Matthew effect also means that the actions of the leading charging pile operators affect the entire charging pile market. At present, the strong alliance between private charging pile giants and state-owned enterprises is a change in the industry.

On July 4, Teladian announced that it has fully connected to the State Grid, Xingxing Charging, and China Southern Power Grid, achieving comprehensive interconnection from station query, navigation, charging to payment. After the four major platforms are interconnected, they will cover more than 70% of the charging pile market in the country, which means that new energy vehicle owners can complete charging services at about 70% of public charging piles in the country through the Teladian App.

The "strongest kings" in the charging pile industry have joined hands to break the previous market situation where charging pile operators operated independently, without standards and without order. One phenomenon that stopped the wild growth is that the industry scale continues to expand but a standardized industry order is formed.

Of course, even if the charging pile market moves from being "scattered, chaotic, and small" to being formal, orderly, and unified, it does not mean that the future will be smooth sailing, because the biggest factor affecting the development of the industry - the new energy vehicle market - is not developing so well at the moment.

Unsolved "difficult and complicated problems"

After a period of boom, the new energy vehicle market began to flatten out, and even showed a year-on-year decline, which brought a development crisis to the charging pile operator industry that relies on new energy vehicles for survival.

Public data on the Internet show that in May this year, domestic sales of new energy vehicles were 82,000, a year-on-year decrease of 23.5%; the cumulative sales from January to May were 289,000, a year-on-year decrease of 38.7%. In addition, data released on the official website of the China Passenger Car Association showed that domestic sales of new energy passenger cars fell by 34.9% year-on-year, which means that from July 2019 to date, domestic sales of new energy passenger cars have been declining year-on-year for 12 consecutive months.

Although the number of new energy vehicles in use is higher than the number of charging piles, the decline in sales will not lead to idle charging piles, but it will affect the utilization rate of charging piles and highlight the deficiencies in the layout of charging facilities and the technical level of charging pile operators.

On the one hand, the rapid expansion of charging pile operators in the early stage ignored the consideration of the flow of people in various regions, resulting in an extremely unbalanced market supply and demand. The most direct manifestation is that some charging piles in the underground parking lots of remote shopping malls are not used, while some areas with large flow of people and vehicles, such as schools and hospitals, are short of charging piles.

On the other hand, due to the low intelligence level and insufficient service capabilities, car owners have difficulty finding charging piles, and the maintenance of electric vehicle charging facilities is not in place, so charging often fails. According to CCTV media reports, many users have reported similar complaints in the charging pile APP, such as charging piles being damaged, unusable, and unmaintained.

In addition, the charging pile market is mixed, and low-quality products pose safety hazards. Data from the Guangdong Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Institute show that among 10 batches of electric vehicle charging pile products collected from 9 manufacturers, 70% of the samples have varying degrees of safety hazards such as fire, rust, leakage, and electric shock.

In short, the uneven layout of charging piles, questionable safety, low intelligence level and other defects have led to the low overall service quality of the charging pile industry, which is also the reason why new energy vehicle owners complain. However, the scale of new energy vehicles is still expanding, and charging piles must also keep up with its development pace.

Some institutions predict that the charging volume of new energy vehicles will reach 160 billion kWh/year in 2030, and the market size of electricity and service fees will reach hundreds of billions. For charging pile operators, this is both an opportunity and a challenge. In the next stage, major charging pile operators will pay more attention to improving the overall service quality and actively seek ways to make profits.

Capital starts a new battle

Although the charging pile market has formed a relatively stable pattern of three major players, namely Teladian, Xingxing and State Grid, new entrants such as Alibaba, Huawei and CATL are still increasing under the favorable wind of "new infrastructure".

Ant Group's wholly-owned subsidiary invested in Simple Charge (Hangzhou) Technology Co., Ltd. and became the second largest shareholder, entering the charging pile field through investment; Huawei released the HUAWEI HiCharger DC fast charging module and reached a cooperation with Teld, officially entering the charging pile track; CATL and Baicheng New Energy established a charging pile joint venture company, Kuaibo New Energy, extending from the new energy battery field to charging piles; in addition, AutoNavi and Didi also came to share the pie...

It can be seen that the billion-dollar charging pile track has attracted a large number of well-known and unknown players to enter the market. Tianyancha Professional Edition data shows that there are nearly 84,000 companies in my country whose business scope includes "charging piles, new energy smart charging, and electric vehicle charging."

The charging pile market has a limited pie, and there are many masters who are trying to grab it, which will inevitably breed a new battle. However, unlike the early development of the charging pile market, there were plenty of subsidy dividends and market dividends, and the entry threshold was low, making it easy to survive. After the first elimination round, the market is moving towards high technology and excellent services, which means that the entry threshold has become higher. It is not easy for new entrants to grab food from the top charging pile operators, and the war is more intense.

In summary, under the call of "new infrastructure", the charging pile ecosystem has gradually improved and matured, and the charging pile market has been targeted by more and more capital. With so many competitors, charging pile operators must seize the current market upgrade period, expand their scale, provide good services, and improve their own competitiveness to make a breakthrough.