Translation

by Joey

Anxiety is everywhere nowadays, even when driving.

The anxiety I am referring to is no longer about getting lost or getting stuck in traffic. To relieve anxiety, the first step is to be in control of the situation, this is the underlying logic. With technology to help us navigate and weather updates to avoid traffic, one problem is almost solved, while the other relies purely on luck.

So, what else is related to driving that is worth worrying about? It might just be energy efficiency and power supplementation.

Just yesterday, FEV Motors joined forces with JENGA Smart Energy to officially launch the RBS (RISING Battery Service) FEV electric car separation service. With the launch of the “RISING POWER FEV energy plan”, leading three-core technology in the industry, battery security maintenance technology and standardized battery replacement technology all made an appearance.

This is yet another topic that has been talked about for a long time around range anxiety: batteries that can’t last long, slow charging and the inability to find a charging point. To be honest, I had anxiety even in the days of internal combustion engines, not to mention the inevitably forthcoming age of electric vehicles.

In the past, to relieve range anxiety for electric cars, it seemed that the solution lies in both technology and luck. While technology may provide longer range and the convenience of checking charging station location on a smartphone, the real solution, or cause of problems, still relies on luck. Even when you manage to find a charging point, it might be occupied or not fast charging, and even if it’s fast charging, it might still malfunction.

In short, this type of travel method that combines technology and superstition only improves travel efficiency, but fails to solve the underlying logic that causes anxiety, as it is beyond one’s control.

Then how can we relieve anxiety? FEV has its own answer.

Control the underlying problem to control the anxiety

The most effective way to relieve anxiety is to control the underlying problem so that anxiety doesn’t arise. However, people who make electric vehicles seem to be more focused on increasing driving distance.

Therefore, in the previous stage, the focus on electric smart cars was on chip computing power and driving range.

Driving ranges of 700km or even over 1000km are still challenging the limits of energy density of batteries. Or, like Nissan and Li Auto, they still use fuel to generate electric power, reducing fuel consumption and alleviating the randomness and long charging time of power supplementation.

These problem-solving ideas are not necessarily wrong, but they still fail to address the old problems, such as using fuel consumption to calculate energy consumption units, as well as the safety risks of overheating due to forcibly increasing the battery capacity, especially in instances where smaller battery capacity density equates to quicker charging times.

Therefore, some people have drawn inspiration from the ancient mobile phone exchangeable battery function — electric cars can also exchange batteries. The most familiar of these is NIO’s BaaS mode. So the question now is, is FF’s RBS just a replica of BaaS?

The answer is: yes and no.

Battery replacement mode is not unique to automobile companies. This mode was already widespread during the era of feature phones. However, in the age of smartphones, Apple overhauled the battery’s appearance to conform with the one-piece casing, obscure its look, and improve aesthetic design. Therefore, it seems that anyone can adopt such a mode, including FF (in fact, aside from FF, there are many new third-party battery replacement brands, such as CATL’s EVOGO).

According to Xue Jiong, the general manager of FF’s new retail operations center, there are three most “fold” areas in FF R7. Firstly, the RISING MAX 3+1’s bunkbed-style huge screen; secondly, battery replacement and separation of car electronics that have already been announced in RISING POWER FF Energy Plan; thirdly, RISING PILOT, FF’s full integration advanced intelligent driving.

And if there are any aspects of this that are closely related to users’ deep anxieties, perhaps battery separation is the most relevant. More importantly, what FF has done is not just a simple battery replacement mode. More often than not, battery replacement is just one of the pieces of FF’s “RISING POWER FF Energy Plan” puzzle.

In this set of “RISING POWER FF Energy Plan,” “hard-core three-electric technology,” “battery safety maintenance technology,” and “standardized battery replacement technology” have become FF’s three important sides of the steady triangle to alleviate users’ energy anxiety.

Meanwhile, this stable triangle reflects FF’s systematic and complete thinking about eliminating energy anxiety for electric vehicles and its underlying logic based on this reflection.

That is, efficient and high-speed concurrency.

Efficiency and speed can solve most problems

So now the question is, what is efficiency? In simple terms, it is to more precisely utilize energy consumption during driving, and reduce energy loss and waste during actual power transmission.In fact, the energy loss of an electric motor itself is much higher than that of a gasoline engine car. Currently, the most efficient gasoline engine cars have thermal efficiency exceeding 40%, which can be considered highly efficient. However, the efficiency of electric motors is basically in the range of 80%-90%. In order to achieve even higher efficiency, allowing every bit of electricity to be fully utilized, FEIFAN needs to make breakthroughs on this basis.

Therefore, FEIFAN Motors has adopted the new generation 8-layer Hair-Pin motor with flat wire winding technology and direct waterfall-style oil cooling technology, making the motor efficiency approach the physical limit of up to 97%, and increasing the constant power ratio by approximately 50%.

Simply put, by using this motor, firstly, the output power of the vehicle can be increased (the four-wheel drive version has a peak power of 400kW and a maximum peak torque of 700 N·m, and can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.8 seconds). At the same time, lower losses mean that the same amount of energy can provide higher speed and longer-lasting use time.

Of course, no matter how low the energy consumption is, it will eventually be used up. At this time, high-speed energy replenishment will provide FEIFAN’s products with fast battery replacement, ensuring that the vehicle can be put into use with full energy in the shortest time possible.

How fast is this quick replenishment? According to the QUICK CLICK reinforced battery replacement technology used by FEIFAN’s first battery swapping station, which is about to be put into operation in Anting, users of FEIFAN’s vehicles can enjoy a 2 minute and 30 second ultra-fast battery swapping experience. How to measure this data?

According to the high-speed highway battery swapping data released by NIO during last year’s National Day holiday, the average time for users to replenish energy was 14.1 minutes. Obviously, if QUICK CLICK is really as fast as FEIFAN claims, it will undoubtedly greatly reduce the users’ energy replenishment time. It may even be shortened to the level of refueling time for gasoline cars.

More importantly, compared with NIO’s self-built battery swapping stations (which may be in a long-term loss state because of this), FEIFAN has adopted a more efficient cooperative model. That is, it is pushing “Sinopec and PetroChina” to transform over 50,000 gas stations across the country into comprehensive energy service stations with both charging and battery swapping functions.According to RisingAuto’s plan, nearly 40 comprehensive service energy stations will be built by 2022, and this number will reach 3000 by 2025. Obviously, if this system is established and combined with more efficient energy-saving technologies, electric vehicles will truly have the possibility of breaking through energy anxiety.

But what RisingAuto wants to do may be far more than this. In a recent interview, Lu Xu, the COO of RisingAuto Smart Electric, said, “In this multi-party cooperation push mode, what RisingAuto wants to do is to become a national standard. In short, RisingAuto hopes to ensure the implementation of functions and durability in technology, and make it easier and more acceptable for users in terms of experience, so that more people will gradually like this way, and more brands will choose it.”

What’s more important is that it does not conflict with RisingAuto’s existing charging station route. According to Lu Xu, “if users choose car-electric separation, they can charge, exchange, and upgrade. If users already have home charging piles, then the battery exchange station is a more diverse and upgraded choice.”

Now we should know why the range of RisingAuto R7 is only a very “straight” 642 kilometers, because they have bigger goals.

Value Anxiety, also broken.

In fact, anxiety about electric vehicles, such as range and energy replenishment, is largely an explicit source of anxiety. More often, an implicit anxiety that is more likely to hinder people from choosing electric vehicles comes from value.

As we all know, there is a considerable gap in the selling price of electric energy and traditional internal combustion engine energy vehicles of the same type or even the same model (this is still based on the fact that many products still have subsidies). And the biggest problem that causes this gap is the vehicle battery.

At the same time, the low residual value of the same battery in the second-hand car trading process will lead to electric vehicles bought at high prices being sold at lower prices. In this process, the car owner will bear all the losses.

Choosing not to replace the vehicle but to replace the battery will face even greater costs, as well as using the same car for a long time which leads to rapid technological obsolescence, resulting in buying an old car at a high price.

How can I describe this era of backwardness to you? For example, Lu Xu said, “the technical specifications, stability, and reliability of different vehicle models and charging piles are still uneven, and even after the 800V standard comes out, many charging piles from 15 to 16 years and even older may not be compatible.”As a result, FF (RisingAuto) has introduced a monthly payment model for consumers to choose RBS (Removable Battery and Separation) technology. In fact, this is exactly the BaaS (Battery as a Service) model of NIO. Like RisingAuto, and even NIO, adopting battery swapping technology, whether purchasing the battery outright or leasing it, greatly alleviates concerns about the high upfront cost of purchasing an electric vehicle and the low value of selling it later. This is expected to better promote electric vehicle sales.

Obviously, for more people, this small change makes the value system of electric vehicles tend to be normal, and undoubtedly will push their products to become more popular. NIO has already done it, and now it should be up to RisingAuto.

Of course, a better system and better underlying thinking will undoubtedly bring better products and trend development. As for RisingAuto, if they pay more attention to R7, it is better to focus on whether R7, after having this set of logic for energy-saving and energy-supplying, will bring some changes that belong to RisingAuto to the new energy vehicle market.

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.