The bonus has entered the Red Sea, is the air outlet of the charging pile?

The pigs on the wind may not fly. With the rapid rise in new energy vehicles in recent years, the prosperity of the entire industrial chain has been very high, except for charging piles.

As the charging pile industry of supporting facilities for new energy vehicles, hundreds of billions of market spaces are large enough, and so far enjoy policy support. Such an industry with broad prospects and policy support. The leading enterprises in the industry should be full of money.

However, opening the financial reports of the two charging pile industries, the two charging pile industries of Wanma Co., Ltd., did not know that this is not the case. In fact, in recent years, the entire charging pile industry has not lived well. Not only not only leading companies have been trapped in the quagmire for many years, but even many early companies have disappeared. The dividends of the industry have entered the Red Sea of ​​the industry.

However, with the rapid rise of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the favorable factors of the industry began to gather, and the outlet of the charging pile seemed to return?

Beautiful bubble

Dongguan Securities once pointed out in the research report that before the battery technology and battery materials have achieved a revolutionary breakthrough, accelerating the construction of charging infrastructure is still the best solution to solve the problem of new energy vehicles. The market size is expected to reach 124.1 billion yuan, 134.7 billion yuan, 148.2 billion yuan and 204.5 billion yuan, respectively.

According to this growth rate, the charging pile industry is properly a golden track with a bright prospect. However, this may be a beautiful bubble that looks very attractive, but when it is touched, the taste can only be appreciated by the industry.

As a new infrastructure charging pile, with the increase in the amount of new energy vehicles, the industry's demand has also entered the fast lane. Especially in the context of steady growth in 2022, charging piles are expected to receive capital and policies.

But under this bright appearance, it is actually the deep water of companies in the industry in recent years. Taking the earliest and largest Wanma shares and Treed as an example, the two leading companies were trapped in the quagmire of losses until 2021.

According to data, in 2021, the subsidiaries of the special charging pile business of Trend, the net profit from the subsidiary of the charging pile business was -51.32 million yuan, and the loss of another charging pile giant Wanma shares reached -30 million yuan. The reason why the special call is less, a large part of the reason is that the current state charging pile subsidies have subsidized 66.56 million yuan, and the rewards for charging stations are 19.34 million yuan.

Generally speaking, after years of investment and operation, the charging pile industry still cannot rely on its own blood back, and the industry loss has become a common phenomenon.

Why are the revenue of these companies showing an increase year by year, but the profit has further expanded? It turned out that in order to expand the market share, many charging pile companies played a price war.

In the period of rapid expansion of the industry, charging pile companies have entered the model of horse -raid circles, hoping to sacrifice short -term profit to squeeze other competitors. This can also be seen from the operating data of special and Wanma shares.

In 2021, the charging volume increased by 55.6%year -on -year, but its charging business revenue increased by only 51.9%year -on -year, and during the same period, Wanma's shares also had revenue growth less than the growth of charging.

The income of the charging pile is charged for service fees according to the electricity per kWh. Therefore, according to common sense, the growth of the revenue of charging business should be consistent with the growth of the charging volume, but the revenue of the charging business of these two companies is less than its charging capacity than its charging capacity. The biggest reason for the growth rate is that the company played a price war in order to compete, making the unit price of charging service fees decline.

And this is the performance of the leading enterprise of charging piles, and the living environment of other small enterprises can be imagined. However, the price war usually occurs in industries with relatively scattered competition patterns, and the current status of the charging pile industry is not the case.

According to data, as of May 2022, the top three of the number of public charging piles operated by the national charging pile enterprises were stars charging, special calls, and national power grids, respectively, and 278,000 units, 277,000 units and 196,000 public charging piles were operated. tower. The number of operators operating charging piles in the top ten operators accounted for 85.1%, of which CR4 was as high as 65.4%.

Therefore, behind the price war is the low technical barriers in the industry, and there is no moat. This also makes it easier for potential competitors to enter. It is for this reason that the charging pile is at the air, but it cannot be soared.

Data from Tianyan Check shows that as of now, there are 176,300 existing charging piles in China, of which 22,800 were newly increased in 2019, 270,000 in 2020, and 54,700 in 2021, showing increasing year -on -year increasing increasing year -on -year increasing increases year by year. the trend of.

In fact, the charging pile is the same as traditional infrastructure enterprises. Although operating income is large, it is essentially the dirty work with heavy assets, heavy operations, and long return cycles. The cost is a little higher.

This has a lot to do with the industry's business model. Charging pile operating enterprises generally purchase equipment from upstream, then build charging stations, and finally collect electricity and service fees from car owners. Under such a single profit model, the unit price, turnover and scale effect of service have become a decisive factor.

Under the current conditions of excess capital, if you can make a monopoly by smashing money, I believe some of the capital is to do. Unfortunately, so far, the charging pile industry has not yet provided differentiated services. Therefore, the price war in the industry may continue to fight, which is destined to have a long -term profitability of the industry. In addition, the intervention of new forces such as Tesla, Xiaopeng, and Azure also indirectly dragged the industry's profit prospects indirectly. He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, said that Xiaopeng Automobile began to deploy a new generation of super charging piles in the second half of the year. Its super charging piles are 4 times faster than the current market "super charging" and 12 times faster than the mainstream charging stations in the market.

Picture source: Azure official website

New energy companies such as Tesla, Blue, GAC Ean have also begun to lay out their own super charging piles. Of course, these car companies are not to grab cakes with traditional charging pile companies. Energy vehicles are just competitive. However, the intervention of these car companies will largely exacerbate the way forward of the charging pile industry that has been faltering.

What is even more worrying is that the power replacement mode may completely subvert the charging pile industry.

At present, the power replacement mode is far more efficient than the charging mode. Generally speaking, a power change station can complete the replacement of power batteries within 5 minutes, and the time will be greatly shortened, which will also have an impact on charging pile companies.

Oriental Securities pointed out in the research report that in 2025, the number of trains in China is expected to reach 5 million, about 22,000 power stations landing, and the average annual compound growth rate of more than 100%from 2021-2025. New energy vehicle manufacturers, such as Xiaopeng, ideal, blue, etc., and power battery manufacturers Ningde Times have plans to accelerate the construction of power stations.

Taking Weilai as an example, at the end of 2022, the power station can cover a number of major high -speed roads across the country. By the end of 2025, the company will build more than 4,000 power stations worldwide, and it will also be able to build a power station, and it will also be. It is guaranteed that 90%of users' housing will become "electric areas" in the same year.

Therefore, under the influence of these factors, even if it is in the tornado, it can't fly, not to mention that the outlet of the charging pile is just a breeze.

darkness before dawn

There are also starlight partners

Although there are many unfavorable factors facing the charging pile industry, as the world's largest new energy vehicle market, China still has very huge development space in the charging pile industry, but the current industry is in a period of change in technology, market, and profit models. Moreover, the favorable factors of the charging pile industry have recently gathered.

First of all, the preservation and penetration rate of new energy vehicles has increased rapidly, becoming the most basic condition for industry growth.

As of the end of June 2022, my country's new energy vehicle ownership had reached 101 million units, accounting for 3.23%of the total number of vehicles, of which pure electric vehicles had 80.93%of the total number of new energy vehicles. At the end of 2021, my country's new energy vehicles had only 7.84 million vehicles. The rapid increase in the preservation of new energy vehicles could increase the operating turnover rate of charging piles and increase the profit release of the industry.

At the same time, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has continued to rise. Data show that in early 2022, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles was 14.3%, but by the end of June, it has risen to 26.6%. It is expected to reach 23.5%, and it may achieve 25%of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles before the end of the year.

Secondly, capital also began to change their minds to charging pile companies.

Earlier, due to the lack of a clear profit model, capital was avoided due to lack of clear profit models. However, this situation changed in the second half of 2021. Of the top ten operators in the charging pile industry at the end of last year, six of them received financing, of which two financing amount exceeded 300 million.

At the same time, there are many new faces in the charging pile industry, such as Prove representing the property party, the Ningde era representing the new energy industry, and the high -end of the risk capital.

Especially in June of this year, the listing of Nengzhi and Institute has brought back the industry back to the spotlight. And from the financial report of Nengzhi and Institute, it can also be seen that the explosive growth stage of the charging pile industry is coming.

The order volume of Nengzhi Zhi Electric increased from 7 million orders in 2019 to 55 million orders in 2021, an increase of 686%, and the transaction value increased from US $ 24 million to $ 184 million, an increase of 667%. The development momentum was extremely strong. Essence

The change of capital for the charging pile industry not only alleviates the shortage of cash flow in enterprises in the industry, but also expands financing channels and reduces financing costs.

Picture source: Star charging official website

Finally, the realization of high -voltage fast charging technology will increase the utilization rate of charging piles and shorten the return on investment.

With the maturity of high -voltage fast charging technology and the decline in the cost of corresponding accessories, high -voltage fast charging above 800V or even 800V has become a realized target, and the charging time has also been greatly shortened compared to the past.

At present, many new energy manufacturers including Xiaopeng, GAC Ean, and BYD are pushing the high-voltage platform, which can theoretically achieve the goal of charging for 10 minutes and 200-400 kilometers.

Once this technology is used on a large scale, it can not only reduce the hardware cost of the charging pile enterprise layout, but also the utilization rate of single piles, which indirectly reduces the return on investment return cycle. It is also based on this that capital will change their minds.

Although, with the rapid improvement of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles and the realization of high -voltage fast charging technology, the loss of the charging pile industry is gradually improving.However, due to the lack of technical barriers and industry protection, the hidden concerns of charging piles still exist. The biggest problem in the industry at the moment is to find a sustainable development path as soon as possible.

- END -