World Bank Launches Action Plan for China or New Energy Sources

At the current stage, a large part of China’s work center is electric vehicles. From policy formulation to technology development to new business models, China may be one of the world’s leading countries in the development of electric vehicles.

I. Policy Framework 1. Strategic China has stated that promoting the electrification of automobiles is an important strategic factor in the future development of the country. This is reflected in the following four aspects: global climate change, energy security, urban pollution, and the development of the automotive industry. .

At present, it is difficult for Chinese automakers to occupy an important position in the international automobile industry. However, the electrification of automobiles will bring about changes in the industry chain, which will enable China to take more advantages in technology and supply chain. China will benefit from the pure electric vehicle power and driveline value chain, thanks in large part to China’s strength in batteries and electric motors. For example, China has already positioned itself for production capacity and value chain, and can mass produce lithium batteries in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner.

Moreover, as a major rare earth exporter, China also has advantages in electric motors. Permanent magnet motors are the type of motor commonly used in electric drive systems, and rare earth resources, especially helium, account for about 30% of the cost of such motor materials. The advantages of raw materials, as well as the relatively low labor costs in China, have created a new supply chain for motor technology and production in China.

China's advantages in the field of batteries and electric motors will enable Chinese companies to have an overall advantage in the field of electric drive system components, and it is likely that Chinese car manufacturers will be global leaders in the electric vehicle industry.

2. Project Scope In early 2009, the Chinese government began implementing the “Ten Cities Thousand Vehicles” plan. The plan is to stimulate the development of electric vehicles through large-scale pilots in 10 cities. The pilot can also solve the technical problems related to the development of electric vehicles and its safety performance. Since then, the program has gradually expanded its coverage to 25 cities.

The "Ten Thousand Cities" program stipulates that each city must carry out pilot projects for at least 1,000 cars. In order to solve the problem of promoting the mileage and infrastructure of pure electric vehicles in the early stage of the promotion, the project mainly focused on the public domain vehicles with controllable driving range, including buses, postal cars, sanitation vehicles and taxis.

In June 2010, the project included the purchase of cars by ordinary consumers in five cities in Shanghai, Changchun, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Hefei. In order to encourage consumers to purchase new energy vehicles, the central government decided to provide buyers with subsidies for buying cars; in addition to the central subsidies, the pilot areas also provide consumers with additional subsidies.

At present, China's new energy vehicle project is developing and progressing almost every day. Recently, the central and local governments announced that they will invest about US$15 billion to support projects related to new energy vehicles. This is a substantial increase over the figures previously announced by China and sets a new starting point for other countries in the world.

3. Standards At present, the development of national standards for charging infrastructure, car charging methods, car/charging pile interfaces, battery packs, charging network communication, and charging network charges are not the key issues that China is concerned about when it develops the new energy automotive industry. In the "Ten Cities Thousands" plan, the initial actions did not involve the formulation of the above-mentioned national standards. Due to the lack of national standards, local governments have introduced their own methods when piloting.

China's approach to setting national standards is to allow local standards to be developed first, and then to evaluate the methods developed by various localities for the formulation of national standards. This model was first used to develop a car charging standard. Under the leadership of China's Ministry of Science and Technology, infrastructure companies, auto parts suppliers and automakers are jointly formulating national standards for charging methods and interfaces. At present, the standard has not yet been finalized, but the State Grid Corporation of China has worked with related companies to develop a 7-pin car/charging pile interface that allows AC and DC charging. Other standards, such as battery cells and network communications, have not yet been developed.

Second, the technology level In the field of pure electric vehicle technology development, China's auto companies and universities have made very clear progress, this progress is mainly concentrated in the field of battery and charging technology. At the same time, China is also actively researching technologies in the fields of electric motors, power electronics, and vehicle integration.

1. Battery In the field of mobile phone lithium batteries, China is currently one of the leaders. This advantage has enabled China to have a strong lithium battery technology base, which can be used to solve the power and drive system of lithium batteries involved in pure electric vehicles. The key issue in the application. However, at present, China, like other countries, is facing the most important issue is the battery cost and service life.

According to our discussions with related parties in China, the cost of producing lithium-ion batteries per kilowatt-hour in China in 2010 was 3,400 to 5,000 yuan. For a standard C-class electric car, which is similar to the Volkswagen Golf [Review Photo Forum] editor's note, it requires a 25 kWh battery and the cost of these batteries will reach 8.5. 10,000 to 125,000 yuan, which is almost the same as the cost of a C-class car using a gasoline engine currently sold in the Chinese market.

As the upfront cost will become the major obstacle for most consumers to purchase electric vehicles, the research focus in all aspects is how to reduce the cost of the battery by developing new materials and optimizing production. It is expected that by 2020, the battery cost will be reduced by about 60% to 1300 to 2,000 yuan/kWh, which will reduce the battery cost of the new car to 32,500 to 50,000 yuan.

As battery costs remain high, the length of battery life becomes another key issue. At present, the on-board battery has a service life of about 3 to 5 years, which is equivalent to 160,000 kilometers. (Editor's Note: If the number of cars used by most families in China is 10,000 to 20,000 kilometers per year, it should be 30,000 to 100,000 kilometers). The estimated lifespan of the main components of traditional automobiles is usually more than 240,000 kilometers, which means that the battery life needs to be increased by at least 50% to meet the needs of most vehicle owners.

2. The entire vehicle benefits from the "Ten Thousand Vehicles" project carried out by the Chinese government. Electric buses are a major area of ​​vehicle technology development for China's new energy vehicles. At present, many new energy buses have been put into operation in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities. At present, their technical level is sufficient to meet the high energy and high load cycle requirements of the bus market.

In terms of passenger cars, China has also made some progress. Taking BYD E6 as an example, the current driving range of most of the world's electric vehicles is about 160 kilometers, while the nominal mileage of E6 has reached 300 kilometers. This is indistinguishable from the driving range of traditional power cars. It can satisfy the needs of taxis and reach the expectations of a large number of consumers. The key factor in ensuring the mileage is that the car is equipped with a 62 kWh battery. For most car manufacturers, such a large-capacity battery will make its product cost too high. As a large-scale lithium-ion battery manufacturer, BYD can use its cost advantage to produce such models as the E6, which can solve the short-term driving mileage of this consumer's biggest concern for pure electric vehicles.

3. Infrastructure Since China's early electric vehicle applications were dominated by vehicles in the public sector, the development of charging infrastructure technology has always focused on meeting the needs of team vehicles. Due to the high utilization rate of team cars, many teams use the car mileage will exceed the standard mileage range allowed by a battery charge. For example, the pure electric bus in Beijing has a maximum driving range of 200 kilometers after full charging, but it is limited to traveling only 100 kilometers. However, because many buses travel more than 100 kilometers, they need to be recharged on the same day. In order to ensure that the bus is maintained for a longer period of normal operation, it must be quickly recharged.

In order to achieve a longer normal operating time, Beijing is currently adopting a fast battery replacement mode, that is, the car enters a battery exchange station. The automatic battery removal system locates and removes the battery pack in the car. The system positions and puts the battery back along the edge. The empty spaces in the vertical battery charging area are placed on the walls of the bus. The charged battery pack is then removed from the charging area and placed on an empty battery holder on the bus. From the bus to the replacement station to the battery replacement operation, the entire replacement process took about 12 minutes.

In addition to fast battery replacement, another way to meet the needs of the fleet is to charge quickly. For example, Shenzhen currently has two charging stations in operation and plans to build another charging station by the end of this year. Currently, two charging stations in operation are equipped with three chargers with a power capacity of 180 kilowatts and can charge a taxi within 10 to 30 minutes. According to the "Ten Thousand Cities" plan, China will establish 75 similar charging stations in 27 cities nationwide by the end of 2010.

In addition to the above mentioned exchanges and quick charging facilities, some regions have also deployed a lower-power, slow-speed charging infrastructure suitable for overnight charging. The city of Shenzhen has set up 100 charging posts with standard 220V outlets. All charging posts have network communication capabilities and can be synchronized for verification, payment, and diagnosis. At present, this kind of charging pile is not set up separately, but is installed in a special charging station.

III. Business Model In order to better complete the “Ten Thousand Cities” program, the level of development and cooperation in all aspects of the industry chain has significantly improved, and it has begun to develop into new commercial and business models. It provides an ecological environment for the development of pure electric vehicles that consists of infrastructure, components, vehicles, and services.

1. The field of vehicle manufacturing To bring electric vehicles to the market, China is forming a new industrial chain in the vehicle manufacturing field to resolve the gap between China's automobile current industrial chain in terms of technology and production and the international advanced level.

An example of this emerging industry chain is the action of Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co., Ltd. (BAIC). In order to accelerate the development of electric vehicle technology, BAIC has established a subsidiary company, Beijing New Energy Automobile Company. BAIC plans to produce 150,000 pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles by 2015. In order to achieve the goals of the plan, the company has established partnerships with companies around the world and established branches around the country. For example, the company’s auto platform acquired from Saab Automotive has become the basis of high-grade pure electric vehicles.

The main task of Beijing New Energy Automobile Company is to research and develop pure electric vehicle control and electric drive systems in China. For this purpose, it also established a subsidiary company, Beijing Pride Power System Technology Co., Ltd., to develop battery systems, including Battery pack and battery management system.

2. Infrastructure construction While establishing the entire vehicle and component development industry chain, the establishment of another industrial chain is also very important, that is, the industry chain established around the development, promotion and operation of the vehicle charging infrastructure needs multiple benefits. Participants.

First of all, the power company must ensure that the electric load brought by the electric vehicle charging to the grid will not cause interruption of the power supply. Second, smart grid technology suppliers must participate in the development and production of new charging equipment and backbone networks. Again, auto manufacturers and suppliers of battery management systems need to balance the infrastructure and car battery systems to optimize the charging system.

Taking Beijing's bus battery exchange station as an example, it involves many stakeholders in the industry chain. The automobile operator is Beijing Public Transportation Group, which is responsible for formulating the fleet operation model composed of pure electric vehicles; the State Grid Corporation of China is the supplier of electricity and it is responsible for resolving the impact of bus battery charging on the power grid; the battery supplier is CITIC Guoan League. Gugli company, which is responsible for assessing the overall impact of different charging methods on battery life; the battery management system designer is Beijing University of Science and Technology, responsible for determining the battery charging method, this method should be able to balance the local grid load restrictions and bus operation of the vehicle Time operation requirements; the bus manufacturer is Zhongtong Bus Company, which is responsible for determining the layout type of the vehicle, that is, how to arrange the battery inside the vehicle so that it can be conveniently removed and recharged, and the safety and comfort of the bus can be guaranteed. Claim.

3. Service areas In addition to vehicle production R&D and infrastructure construction, new service chains have emerged in the service business model field. For example, in the above case, due to the high upfront cost of bus batteries, the battery manufacturer cooperated with the bus operator to launch a leasing model in which the latter leased batteries to the former and paid the distance to the former. In addition to battery suppliers and bus operators, this model also requires the participation of other stakeholders in the industry chain. For example, since the battery management and charging system will determine the battery life, this requires the addition of the technology provider Beijing University of Science and Technology, which determines the degree of battery aging and depreciation.