New energy vehicles: no future without after-sales

According to the current state of the art, the life of a power battery is generally 5 to 8 years. From the 2013 year of the so-called "China's new energy vehicle first year", after five years of development, the batteries of the first batch of new energy vehicles began to enter the centralized scrapping replacement period. It is certain that in the future, after-sales problems such as battery repair and replacement will also focus on outbreaks. In fact, the problem has already emerged. At present, 80% of the after-sales problems of new energy vehicles are triggered by power batteries, and this proportion is still further increasing. According to industry insiders, the new energy subsidy new policy officially implemented in June this year has improved the cruising range and battery energy requirements of various new energy vehicles. It can be seen that the New Deal has tilted towards high mileage, which has brought unprecedented challenges to enterprises. Before the implementation of the subsidy New Deal, there are so many problems in the new energy vehicle battery with low cruising range. If the technology consolidation and breakthrough are not realized to further reduce the battery cost, and there is no better after-sales service guarantee, the high cruising range will only make consumption. People face more troubles.

Looking at the charging problem is even more worrying. According to the "Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Development Guide (2015-2020)", the ratio of new energy vehicles to charging piles in China should be close to a reasonable level of 1:1 by 2020. However, the data of China's electric vehicle charging technology and industry alliance shows that the number of domestic charging piles (both public charging piles and private charging piles) has just exceeded 600,000, and there is still a big gap from the target. In addition, the existing charging pile layout is very unreasonable, the use efficiency is low, and the estimated usage rate is less than 15%. According to the alliance data, there are more than 40,000 public-type charging piles in Beijing, which is more than the total number of 18 provinces and cities such as Henan and Shaanxi, but the idle charging pile has reached 70%. These types of charging piles are mainly distributed in non-commercial areas and suburbs with low population density, and are often installed in remote locations, which are difficult to be discovered and are very inconvenient to use, seriously affecting the consumer experience.

The bigger problem facing the market for the distribution of charging piles is that many regional operators have squandered the quality in order to squander the land and compete in the market competition. This vicious competition makes the quality of the charging pile products uneven, and it is easy to cause bad money to drive out good money. In fact, in addition to the quality "bad money", there are a large number of technical "bad coins", and the latter brings more serious problems. We have seen that many of the charging piles that have been laid out now have a maximum power of only 40 kW, and an electric vehicle with a cruising range of 300 km takes 90 minutes to fully charge. The power of the charging pile built in Europe and the United States has reached 350kW, and charging takes only 9 minutes. In other words, many domestic charging piles are faced with the fate of being eliminated if they have not recovered their investment costs.

In any industry market, after-sales service is extremely important. It can be said that there is no future after no sale. This is especially true for the new energy vehicle industry, which requires more after-sales protection in terms of batteries and charging. However, as far as the current situation of the development of new energy vehicles in China is concerned, the after-sales field has just been neglected and neglected. The construction speed of new energy vehicle after-sales guarantee and service system is far from meeting the needs of high-speed growth of new energy vehicles, affecting consumers' experience and willingness to purchase, and affecting the sound development of the entire industry market.

Obviously, whether it is government decision-making, new energy vehicle manufacturers, and all related enterprises in the entire industrial chain that support the operation of new energy vehicles, including charging piles, they should have a sense of the overall situation and a long-term vision, and strive to do a good job after-sales protection. Service, safeguard consumer rights and improve consumer experience, the only way to maintain the harmonious operation of the overall industrial chain and promote the healthy development of the new energy industry.