Author: Wang Xuan
During the Spring Festival holiday in 2022, the XPeng P7 is my daily commute tool.
On the evening of the third day of the Chinese New Year, at the XPeng Motors supercharging station in the Beijing Jianwai World Trade Center, I was surprised to find that even in the late night, the station was still full, and there were even vehicles waiting beside it.
Fortuitously, there was an old-fashioned G3 car owner smoking under the car beside me. During our conversation, he told me:
“For most electric vehicle users, private home charging stations are luxury items. Most communities’ property management will obstruct residents from installing private stations. Charging outside is the norm.
But I’m not an “electricity-only community” user. I still have to drive five kilometers from home. But when I do the math, even with the time to come here and charge added into the equation, it’s still less time than going to the National Grid charging station near my house. Sometimes at National Grid, if you run into an unreliable charging station, it’s not worth the trouble.”
The big brother’s words stung me. The World Trade Center is 20 kilometers from my house. The reason I came to charge in the middle of the night is a sad story. I met with a friend in the evening and charted out the approximate time in my mind. I left an hour early to charge the car, but plans never kept up with changes. A total of 10 charging piles were displayed on my GPS, with 5 vacant ones. In reality, the other five vacant spaces were taken up by “Huo La La” trucks.
With some kindly advice, one “prostrate work” big brother gave up his parking space. At the moment the charging gun was inserted, I was even more surprised. I originally thought that 40 kW of power was already the lower limit of National Grid charging stations, but I didn’t expect it to be cut down again this time. The stable power was only 20 kW. Consequently, after the meal with my friend ended, I came to the XPeng supercharging station to continue to replenish energy.
Only National Grid users are pitiful. The charging map is always offline, and there are always gasoline vehicles that need charging more than you. The charging experience is like opening a blind box. You never know if the string of numbers displayed on the car screen when you plug in the charging gun will make you happy or crazy.
Self-built charging stations are a common phenomenon among mainstream new energy vehicle companies. In half a month of use for the XPeng P7, the experience given by the supercharging station was the best. On August 15th, XPeng Motors released the S4 super-fast charging pile and announced that it had completed the construction of 1,000 charging stations. Furthermore, XPeng also brought its own understanding of self-built charging piles.
Super-fast charging is the key to accelerate the penetration rate of pure electric vehicles.The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China was 4.3% in 2018, and by the first half of 2022, it has risen to 22.7%, according to data from China Passenger Car Association. In addition, the sales ratio of pure electric vehicles to hybrid vehicles in the new energy vehicle market is about 4:1.
Even though we recognized four years ago that new energy was the future trend and thought that hybrid vehicles would be the backbone product for a long time to come, the fact is that we have misjudged the development path of new energy vehicles. No one expected that the sales of pure electric vehicles would rise so rapidly.
During the press conference, He XPeng pointed out that, according to their research, in the automobile market with a price of less than ¥100,000 ($15,546), gasoline vehicles are being quickly replaced by pure electric vehicles. In the market with a price range of ¥100,000 – ¥200,000 ($31,092), although gasoline vehicles have also been impacted to some extent, hybrid vehicles have performed better. In the market above ¥200,000, the primary market will be products with ultra-fast charging capabilities.
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, in the current situation, most car manufacturers who have been occupying the market below ¥200,000 have not explicitly laid out self-built charging networks. Coupled with the relatively backward experience of the State Grid charging system, the pure electric products in this market segment do not have competitive advantages in user experience.
He XPeng believes that products priced above ¥200,000 should have four key elements: intelligence, long endurance, perfect charging layout, and efficient charging efficiency.
“In the ¥100,000 – ¥200,000 vehicle market, we should not consider the charging facilities issue because most of these cars are used within a fixed range. But for larger and more expensive cars, it is essential to follow up with matching facilities.”
Perhaps products priced below ¥200,000 can achieve intelligence and long endurance, but the technical barriers and investment cost of the latter two factors are high, which further restricts the product’s unit price increase.
First, the high-voltage platform itself has a technical barrier and requires high research and development investment. Low-priced models can only give up on this technology.
Secondly, self-built charging networks are often regarded as supporting facilities or service systems for products, and are often cut off from product power. However, efficient charging efficiency is a value jointly output by ultra-fast charging piles and high-voltage platforms, and they are indispensable in the core product power of electric vehicles. The key issue is whether every user can experience the convenience brought by ultra-fast charging.Currently, XPeng Motors has laid out 1,000 self-operated charging stations nationwide, including 799 fast-charging stations and 201 destination charging stations, covering all prefecture-level administrative regions and directly-administered municipalities across the country. In terms of high-speed charging stations, XPeng’s privately-owned stations have already connected the two main arteries of Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau and Beijing-Shanghai.
He XPeng also said that the G9 is currently the first vehicle model equipped with an 800V high-voltage platform, and the future S4 super-fast charging station will prioritize the distribution of G9 users for construction. In the past, the main layout of the S2 supercharging piles was in first-tier cities, but in the future, they will expand to second- and third-tier cities, and at the same time, suburban areas around cities and highways will also be a key area for the future layout of charging systems. It is expected that by 2025, 2,000 XPeng super-fast charging stations will be built.
Finally, He XPeng made a fierce statement that the system of super-fast charging, high endurance, and self-operated charging stations is enough to eliminate hybrid cars.
XPeng’s S4 super-fast charging pile has a maximum single pile power of up to 480kW, and the peak power of the 800V high-voltage platform can reach 400kW. In comparison, the maximum power of a single pile of Tesla’s V3 supercharging pile on the current market is 250kW, and the maximum power of a single pile of Porsche Turbo supercharging pile is 350kW.
At the press conference, a video shot on-site was also shown. An engineering vehicle of XPeng G9 was able to recharge 210 kilometers in 5 minutes with the help of S4 super-fast charging station. In the video, it was found that the peak power reached 443.6kW, and the peak period was very long.
The S4 super-fast charging pile adopts a liquid cooling system, with thinner and lighter cables, making it more female-friendly. It is also compatible with XPeng’s old models. Although it is limited by the voltage platform and cannot reach the calibrated peak value, it still has a certain degree of improvement.
Interestingly, XPeng G9 is positioned as the “super-fast fully intelligent SUV”, and this time “super-fast charging” is ahead of their proud “intelligent”.Recently, XPeng He published a video on his WeChat video account testing NGP, pointing out the existing problems of the product in a generous manner as a real user.
In recent years, the popularity of urban navigation assisted driving continues unabated, but the products of various manufacturers and suppliers have repeatedly been postponed. It’s understandable that in the more complex urban road conditions and facing more corner cases, assisted driving is indeed difficult. Out of the consideration of responsibility, car companies also need longer validation time.
At a time when intelligent capabilities are relatively stagnant, XPeng, who plays up the “intelligence” angle, has a decreasing appeal to users, as reflected in sales in the first half of the year. Therefore, in a sense, ultra-fast charging is also adding fuel to XPeng’s brand story. Taking the G9 as an example, at a price point of around 300,000 yuan, precisely grasping the core attributes of the product that users are most anxious about may be a powerful measure to further increase sales.
Finally
We have discussed a question before, “Why is user-oriented enterprise more popular in the electric car field”, and the conclusion we drew was that it was because of the result of the inherent deficiency of energy supplement in electric cars.
Where there is a demand, there is an opportunity. When there is a gap in the user experience, filling it in a different way will greatly improve the user’s favor. Therefore, many car companies have launched services such as “one-click charging”.
However, the added services are only products in the process of transitioning from gasoline vehicles to pure electric vehicles. Faster charging efficiency is the ultimate solution to alleviate electric vehicle user anxiety.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.