Tesla is in China or is stuck in charging islands

Tesla’s investors were not surprised by the loss in the first quarter, but on the May 8th conference call, Tesla’s question was particularly asked in the Chinese market. Tesla CEO Musk thinks that the biggest problem is how to establish a Tesla charging station network as soon as possible. "It is crucial for the future development in China."

At present, Tesla has built three exemplary super charging stations in China, located in Beijing and Shanghai respectively. However, there is still no progress in large-scale construction. Tesla announced two months ago that it would build a super-charging station along the expressway from Beijing to Shanghai.

Tesla's construction of a super charging station in China's market is facing a lot of difficulties. According to an expert from the Standardization Technical Committee of an electric car charging facility who did not want to be named, he told the reporter of the 21st Century Business Herald that Chinese electric vehicles are charged and exchanged for electricity. Initially improved standards, Tesla's charging is outside the standard, and it is difficult to build large-scale construction.

Tesla announced plans to stimulate the National Grid, which has already deployed many charging stations in the past five years. In May, the State Grid announced suddenly that in the short term, it would have to lay out a complete charging station on a number of high-speed routes from north to south and east to west, including the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway, and the Qingyin Expressway.

The two sides began to officially openly call out. Musk announced not long ago that it bypassed the State Grid to build off-grid charging. The response from the State Grid was ahead of Tesla's plan: the charging station along the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao high-speed line was planned to be completed in June this year; the remaining two high-speed charging stations were in this year. Completed in August.

The logic of robbing the charging station construction is that the country has the intention of a unified plan for the construction of the charging station. It is impossible to have a number of charging stations approved in a certain area. Whoever takes control of the charging station may monopolize the area. The Standardization Technical Committee of the Electric Vehicle Charging Facility once proposed a biased opinion that the construction of the charging and replacing facilities should be included in the urban and rural planning. The issues related to land and resources must be determined in the unified planning of the city.

Photovoltaic charging is only a requirement for Shantou to promote electric vehicles. Charging facilities must be constructed first. Since Tesla entered the Chinese market, it is looking for the optimal solution. In February of this year, Tesla and the State Grid were exposed, hoping to collaborate on the construction of charging stations and find a complete solution.

If the cooperation with the State Grid can be negotiated, Tesla will solve the problems of power distribution, charging, and charging station monitoring and post-maintenance. However, the State Grid has rejected Tesla’s goodwill. In response to the State Grid’s response to Mr. Musk’s visit to China at the end of April, he declared that the super charging station was able to bypass the national grid and exist independently and provide sustainable electricity.

Musk's response is based on the fact that the photovoltaic supercharger station that has been advertised along with Tesla's marketization process is not subject to power companies. Musk screamed that the Tesla Supercharger used solar power to generate electricity and provided free electricity to Tesla owners.

On April 22 and 23, Tesla announced that the charging stations in Beijing Jiuxianqiao and Shanghai Pudong had been completed one after another. However, surprisingly, these charging stations only installed solar panels and did not have energy storage batteries. This was not photovoltaic. Charge station standard configuration. The same is true of the Shanghai Jiading Super Charging Station afterwards.

Someone soon questioned Musk that Tesla was misleading the market. Liu Yongdong, deputy director of the China Electricity Council’s Standardization Center, calculated that the average daily solar power output of a supercharging station is only 62 degrees through the sunshine hours in Shanghai and the area of ​​the photovoltaic modules of the Tesla supercharger station, which is not sufficient for a Model S. Model.

BYD began to lay out the new energy automotive industry chain ten years ago. Apart from the new energy vehicle segment, it also has years of photovoltaic plate business. Due to the "economical efficiency of photovoltaic charging stations," BYD did not plan to develop photovoltaic charging stations.

On May 12, the BYD Photovoltaic Industry Sector insiders claimed to the 21st Century Business Herald that “it is assumed that the lighting conditions are extremely ideal, with a one-hour illumination time of 6 hours, and charging of 150 square meters of photovoltaic modules (Tesla supercharge station photovoltaic module area). The station can only send 114 kilowatts at most, and BYD e6's battery capacity is 61.4 degrees. For example, it is not enough for two cars and the charging time is up to 3 hours."

In fact, this power will also have to be discounted in practical applications. According to data from a car forum Tesla owners, Tesla's charge conversion rate is only 85%-90%, that is to say, the average daily photovoltaic power generation capacity of a super charging station can really be used in cars. 52.7 degrees-55.8 degrees. The Tesla Model S has two versions of battery capacity, 65 degrees and 85 degrees, respectively.

Tesla's supercharger station does not actually rely on solar power alone, but mainly on grid lines. In the face of Liu Yongdong, who represents the electric power company, “told”, as of now, Tesla has not responded.

There is a point of view in the power grid that the construction of charging and swapping facilities must be coordinated with the power grid because DC charging involves the distribution capacity of the distribution network and the capacity of the transformer. Musk actually could not bypass the power company.

That being the case, why does Tesla paint a beautiful blueprint for using clean energy to generate electricity and provide free electricity to owners? According to an insider of a photovoltaic module manufacturing company in Shenzhen, “With the serious fossil energy crisis and environmental crisis facing the world today, photovoltaic power generation will receive utmost support from both social and capital markets in terms of resource sustainability and environmental friendliness.”

The global market formed two waves of frantic photovoltaic industry development before 2008 and 2009 to 2010. If these two angles are connected with new energy vehicles, Tesla will form the whole industry chain concept of clean energy from production to use. After Musk put forward this model, Tesla has drawn attention from IT, investment, environmental protection, energy, government and other industries and organizations.

In addition, Musk also gained substantial benefits. U.S. governments at all levels continued to support the development of photovoltaic projects. California, where Tesla was based, had introduced a California solar development plan worth 10 billion U.S. dollars in 10 years as early as 2007. In 2012, it invested 327 million yuan to realize a new installed capacity of 400 million kilowatts.

Musk, outside of the lone country standard, did not realize that Tesla had a more powerful "enemy" behind the construction of a supercharger station in China, and he had actually formed a confrontation with China's national standards for electric vehicle charging facilities.

Chen Quanshi, director of the Electric Vehicles Branch of the China Automobile Engineering Society and a member of the Standardization Technical Committee of the Electric Vehicle Charging Facility, told reporters that China's charging standards have been initially improved and Tesla has its own standards and is independent of Chinese standards. The staff of the Tesla Shanghai Pudong Supercharger also stated that the Tesla charging station can only be used to charge Tesla brand models, and other brands cannot charge.

In fact, China established the Standardization Technical Committee for Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities in 2010. China has issued standards for DC chargers, AC chargers, on-board chargers, and power quality requirements, including power battery boxes, charging systems, and Equipment, charge and exchange interfaces, and power exchange systems have issued 56 standards.

According to an insider of a charging equipment supplier in Shanghai, there must be a communication protocol between the charging equipment and the electric vehicle to ensure the smooth progress of the charging. Therefore, the fast charging mode of the Tesla models cannot be used in the public network that already has a certain scale. Charging station charging.

The State Grid accelerated the pace of building a charging network and preemptively laid out important highways along the route. According to the national plan for new energy vehicles, the network for charging and replacing power stations will form a network that will take shape in the next two years: 2011-2015, the scale of electric vehicle charging stations will reach 4,000, and the construction of charging piles will be vigorously promoted; the State-Owned Network 2016-2020 The goal of building a charging station is up to 10,000, and a complete electric vehicle charging network is built.

According to the plan, the charge station of the Hong Kong and Macao Expressway will be south to Hunan, with a pair of electric car smart charging service areas built every 38 kilometers, and each fast charging station will deploy four 120-kilovolt split-type chargers for eight electric vehicles at the same time. Charging. Domestic automobile enterprises have produced models in accordance with national standards and can use these charging station networks arbitrarily.

Tesla’s strategy of independently building charging stations may isolate itself outside the network, and owners will increasingly find Tesla an island in China. “A company that does not have the strength to establish its own network in China can use the country's charging service network to provide convenience for electric vehicles. The United States does not have the possibility of national construction, but it will be built by national forces in China. Musk does not Understand China's national conditions," said an insider of an electric vehicle production company.

As another foreign-funded enterprise, another problem that Tesla has to face when it comes to large-scale construction of charging stations is that China's charging station construction has already set standards for engineering construction formulated by the Ministry of Land and Land, and issues such as land are uniformly planned by the city to ensure charging. The orderly construction of the station. The rapid layout of the State Grid actually squeezed Tesla's building space.