Reflections on the New Energy Vehicle Business Model: Sensibility Beyond Technology


Last week, the Ministry of Finance website said that four ministries and organizations have confirmed 28 cities as the first batch of new energy vehicles to promote cities. At the same time, during the Guangzhou Auto Show, various car companies have released trends and layouts of new energy sources, and the ready-made policies will once again trigger the industry's thinking on the business model of new energy vehicles.

Technology is challenged

The BYDs who have worked hard for many years in the field of electric vehicles are not convinced. They have made trouble to Tesla: Where is your core technology?

In the field of traditional fuel vehicles, technology worship is one of the leading factors in domestic car consumption in the past few years, but God seems to have made a joke with BYD headmaster Wang Chuanfu – this logic is not reflected in the electric vehicle field.

BYD, which started as a battery foundry, entered the electric vehicle market at the end of 2008 and released the world's first commercialized F3DM plug-in dual-mode electric vehicle. It is said that the car has already accumulated 5 years of technology before its mass production. Since then, Wang Chuanfu has begun to elaborate on his own green dream. His layout in the field of new energy is almost the whole industry chain, including batteries and battery control systems for the core components of electric vehicles, smart energy storage power stations and photovoltaic power generation. Subsequently, BYD began to promote its electric bus K9 and e6 pure electric taxis in the public transportation field.

At the beginning of this year, Wang Chuanfu also announced bidirectional inverter charging and discharging technology that will be carried on the new e6 electric vehicle in the BYD Technology Analysis Conference. This technology can convert the AC power of the power grid into DC power to charge the car, and at the same time, it can reverse the DC power in the car battery into AC power for external vehicles and household appliances. In other words, the e6 will be an extra large “mobile power source” in the middle of the city. An e6 electric vehicle with a battery capacity of 60 kilowatts can satisfy the normal power consumption of an ordinary family for 10 days.

In a few public interviews, Wang Chuanfu’s impression of most of the media was “technical madman”; however, Wang Chuanfu’s technical logic did not allow too many Chinese consumers to buy it, and everyone rightly attributed this to supporting facilities. Such as the overall market environment is not mature - until the advent of Tesla, it gives everyone a chance to re-think: the success of the electric vehicle market is only in technology?

According to public statistics on overseas markets, from January to May 2013, Tesla ModelS models sold a total of 8,850 vehicles, which exceeded the Nissan Leaf (with sales of 1,236 units in the same period) and Toyota Prius (with 3630 units in the same period).

In China, Tesla, located in Beijing, gathered in the first exhibition hall in China. The staff in the store has started to “sign” the subscribers. The earliest prepayment for the deposit of RMB 250,000 is expected to be made in the first quarter of next year. It is no surprise that the "BYDs" who have struggled for many years in the field of electric vehicles but have yet to keep up with the open, have even wondered if they are not convinced that they have started to trouble Tesla: Where is your core technology?

Bet on battery routes

Tesla respected the small single cell battery and BYD took a big battery path.

The battery that is the core component of the electric vehicle is the first to be affected. Tesla's battery was criticized for its "old technology" and "no core competitiveness." The reason is that it is the only company that uses the 18650 lithium cobalt-acid battery, which has been used in notebook computers. Currently, lithium iron phosphate batteries are preferred for models such as the Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf, BYD E6 and Fisker Karma. The latter has the advantage of high thermal stability, relatively long battery life, and can theoretically be greater than the entire vehicle life; at the same time, it has better power density, can discharge at a large rate, and has good acceleration performance. According to reports, the energy density of the lithium iron phosphate battery used on the e6 was only 70-80 watt-hours/kg five years ago, and is currently capable of 104 watt-hours/kg.

Lithium cobalt oxide batteries, despite their mature technology, high power, and high energy density, have low safety factors and relatively high costs. All three recent accidents in ModelS were confirmed as battery fires. "There are many reasons for the battery's fire, but the ultimate cause is the thermal runaway of the battery. The rapid temperature rise of the battery causes it to reach an unacceptable temperature," said Wu Zhixin, deputy director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center.

How does Tesla tie this mishap? Its founder, Musk, believes that its core competitiveness lies in the successful resolution of the battery management system. The solution is to combine the 6881 cells of the Panasonic 18650 package around 2 A.T. hours in series and in parallel. However, this does not seem like a "unique weapon" to many car companies. "BYD has also developed an energy management system for iron batteries. With this system, monitoring of battery charge and discharge capacity can be realized," said Hou Yan, general manager of BYD Auto Sales.

In fact, companies that are studying electric vehicles have similar battery system management technologies. Last week, the head of the BMW Brilliance brand also emphasized its advanced electric vehicle 1E advanced battery management system. The system has self-diagnosis and management capabilities, can detect battery storage, charge and discharge and operating status, once the abnormal The connection of the battery to the vehicle's electrical system will be disconnected within 30 milliseconds to ensure that all components are de-energized.

In addition to the choice of batteries, Tesla and BYD are also two distinct paths in terms of cell structure. Tesla respects the small single cell battery, which considers that the small battery can exert a cost advantage when the single cell damage needs to be replaced. On the contrary, BYD takes a big battery path. The 600 kilograms of batteries on the e6 consist of only 96 cells.

Fun Fan Economy

Tesla worth learning BYD should be the ultimate marketing experience of a new thing.

Obviously, Tesla's technology is not the reason it is popular at home and abroad, at least not the main reason. In fact, Tesla resembles an assembled creative product, innovatively integrating various technologies, and then using IT concepts to package and sell.

In the product design route, Tesla has locked in the “niche and high-end” audience. Many car companies represented by BYD have followed the popularized line of people, choosing a car body that can store enough batteries to be as compact as possible to control costs. Which route can eventually open the market is currently undecided. Tesla, who is worth learning from BYD, should have achieved the ultimate marketing experience of a new kind of thing and reached the goal of “fan economy”.

In the Tesla franchise store, there is only one ModelS electric vehicle and a car platform for displaying power. Customers can customize the exclusive ModelS model on the huge screen in the center of the shop. The staff in the franchised store is more a product expert than a salesperson. When China’s first Tesla owner Zhou Hang talked about Tesla’s “hit” on him, he said: “A lot of product details surprise you. For example, its car key is a car-shaped sensor with no buttons on it. He also told reporters that there is no physical button except for an emergency light and a copilot's drawer button. This is a very unique experience.

This open Internet thinking is precisely in conflict with BYD's long-standing foundry culture. An old employee at BYD's Battery Foundry Division stated: "The biggest feature of foundry companies is their high degree of confidentiality." This is why the industry used to think that BYD was closed. In fact, the focus of BYD's new energy strategy is still focused on the popularization of public transportation at home and abroad, including factories in Tianjin, Yunnan, Wuhan, and Zengcheng in Guangzhou. According to the company's plan, sales targets for e66000 pure electric vehicles and K92000 pure electric buses will be achieved in 2013 in the new energy vehicle segment. However, if BYD still insists on instigating the long-term goal of the private consumption market for electric vehicles, it needs to gradually dilute the cultural genes left by the OEMs in marketing ideas. At the very least, Tesla’s fire made it aware of how much sensuous power was there. Maybe when Wang Chuanfu next enters the public's line of sight, can he try to talk about something other than technology?



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