The battery swapping trend is booming, is Xiaomi also going to join in?

Qichacha APP shows that recently, Xiaomi Youpin's affiliated company Youpin Information Technology Co., Ltd. has undergone industrial and commercial changes, and its business scope has been expanded to include sales of new energy vehicle electrical accessories and new energy vehicle battery replacement facilities. It is worth noting that relevant equity information shows that the company is jointly held by Lei Jun, Hong Feng, Li Wanqiang and Liu De, and Lei Jun holds up to 70% of the shares.

According to information provided by Qichacha, the company was established in 2018, with Bai Fang as the legal representative and a registered capital of RMB 50 million. Its business scope includes: online cultural management, Internet sales, ticket agency services and cosmetics wholesale, etc.

Image source: Qichacha

Since Xiaomi officially announced its entry into the automotive market in March, its subsequent moves have been attracting much attention from the industry. Last week, Xiaomi's official website posted multiple job postings for autonomous driving positions. Moreover, the recruitment locations for these positions are all located in Haidian District, Beijing. As a result, the industry speculated that the headquarters of Xiaomi's R&D center may be located in Beijing. However, Xiaomi has not yet commented on this.

The industrial and commercial changes of Xiaomi Youpin's affiliated companies have led to speculation that this may be a layout for Xiaomi cars. Some industry insiders even raised questions: Does this mean that Xiaomi will adopt a battery replacement model similar to NIO's?

At present, there are two energy replenishment modes in the new energy field: the supercharging + charging mode adopted by most car companies, which is also led by Tesla; and the battery replacement + supercharging + home charging mode led by NIO. In fact, as early as 2013, Tesla intended to try the "battery replacement" mode. However, due to high costs and low operating efficiency, the battery replacement mode was abandoned.

Image source: Ministry of Finance

Judging from the current policies, the government has a more positive attitude towards the battery swap model. In April 2020, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles", which clarified the details of new energy subsidies from 2020 to 2022. Undoubtedly, the biggest highlight of this new policy is that the pre-subsidy price of new energy passenger vehicles must be less than 300,000 yuan (including 300,000 yuan), except for battery swap vehicles. Immediately afterwards, Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, stated during the two sessions that "the development of the battery swap model is encouraged."

At this point, NIO has naturally become the biggest winner under the new policy. However, in 2021, NIO, which was the first to try out the new policy and has reaped the rewards, is still accelerating its sprint: it will continue to rapidly promote the construction of the second-generation battery swap stations, and strive to achieve the goal of building 500 battery swap stations in 2021 as soon as possible.

As leading domestic automakers have joined the battery swapping race, all parties are eager to try. At present, the participants in the battery swapping industry include not only automakers, but also energy companies such as Sinopec, and even third-party service providers such as Aulton.

According to data provided by CCTV Finance, as of mid-May 2021, the number of battery quick-swap vehicles connected to the national platform was 155,900, an increase of more than 30% over 2019, of which private passenger cars accounted for approximately 78,800, accounting for nearly half of the total.

Image source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

At the same time, the arrival of new trends will also push industrial policies to adjust in a timely manner. On April 30, the recommended national standard GB/T 40032-2021 "Safety Requirements for Battery Replacement of Electric Vehicles" proposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and managed by the National Technical Committee for Automotive Standardization was approved and issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Administration of Standardization. The standard will be implemented on November 1, 2021.

According to official interpretation, this is the first basic general national standard formulated by the automotive industry in the field of battery swap mode, which fills the standard gap in the automotive industry and solves the urgent problem of the lack of standards for battery swap mode.

However, despite the popularity of battery swapping, there are still many challenges and standards issues that need to be resolved in actual operation. Therefore, we need to be vigilant that things that seem to be in the limelight may have dangerous bubbles behind them. Many times, there is only one step between "shortcuts" and "cliffs".