Electric vehicle interface standard unification

Will 2012 become the ice-breaking year for the development of standardized electric vehicle industry? The Wanli Long March has taken the first step.

Everything is clearing the day.

The chaotic situation of the lack of development standards in the electric vehicle industry is expected to be gradually eliminated.

On December 27, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced four items related to charging interfaces and communication protocols for electric vehicles jointly drafted by the National Energy Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Electric Power Enterprise Association, and the China Automotive Technology and Research Center. National standards have been approved for release, and these standards will be implemented on March 1, 2012. In addition, 25 national standards and safety standards for electric vehicle charging equipment will also be introduced in 2012.

The four standards released this time, including "Connecting Devices for Conductive Charging of Electric Vehicles Part 2: AC Charging Interfaces" and "Communication Protocols between Non-Conductive Conductive Chargers for Electric Vehicles and Battery Management Systems", are considered It is the basic regulation in the field of electric vehicles. Without these four standards, the nation’s electric vehicles will have nowhere in sight to become public when it replaces the electricity infrastructure.

All along, the electric vehicle industry has not formed a norm in terms of research and development, technology, manufacturing standards, and battery management. The electric vehicle industry is difficult to form a mature business operation model and has achieved breakthrough development. In order to use the new energy vehicle project "upstream," most domestic electric car companies even have their own battles, and so far no unified strategy has been formed.

This is a major positive news for electric car companies that have been in vain for years. At least, they can provide important technical and standard support for the construction of electric vehicle infrastructure. However, this is only a necessary condition for the development of the industry. To achieve the commercialization of the electric vehicle industry, its technical supporting programs, business model framework, and how the government can effectively promote its development are all problems that need to be resolved. It can be foreseen that there is still a long way to go before the electric car industry is commercialized.

Inconsisted and punctuated by regulations Before the release of national standards for electric vehicle interfaces, there are two corporate standards, State Grid and China Southern Grid. The products produced by electric vehicle companies must be connected with the standards implemented everywhere. This is very troublesome for electric vehicle interface manufacturers: The delivery of goods to different cities needs to be produced according to different standards. For example, in Beijing, the national grid standard must be adopted, and in Shenzhen, the standard of the South China Grid must be adopted.

Some electric car manufacturers have already waited for national standards and started their own actions. In Guangzhou, BYD took the lead in Shenzhen to start selling its e6 pure electric car, becoming China's first pure electric private car. In terms of charging, BYD cooperated with China Southern Power Grid to install charging cabinets for consumers.

If each locality and enterprise has its own standards, it is easy to form a regional blockade and it is difficult for the industry to develop in scale.

“Regardless of what kind of standards were used before, after the introduction of the national standard, they must be implemented in accordance with the new standards, and the reforms should be changed.” Xie Zicon, a researcher of the new energy vehicle business model, accepts “China's economy and informationization.” The reporter said in an interview. As for the impact of charging interface standards on enterprises, Xie Zicong believes that the impact on enterprises will not be great. “Now the electric vehicle industry is still in its early stages, and BYD has only sold hundreds of electric vehicles, and now the standards are relatively timely. When the industry develops on a large scale and different specifications are formed, the problem is more troublesome."

“We have received national standards. The most obvious is that the standard regulates the specifications and dimensions of the charging interface. In the future, we will make revisions and adjustments according to national standards.” Zhao Depeng, general manager of Chengdu Yinxin New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. told China's Economy and Informationization. Although in his view, the country still needs to introduce more standards to regulate the manufacture of electric vehicles, such as technical parameters and voltage standards for key parts of electric vehicles, but he is optimistic about the prospects of the electric vehicle industry. After the charging interface standard came out, companies have a sense of direction, will take less detours, go faster."

In Chengdu, electric vehicle manufacturers like Yinxin are manufactured according to the standards of the State Grid, which mainly depends on the implementation of urban electric vehicle charging infrastructure. According to Jia Hongyi, secretary-general of Chengdu New Energy Automobile Industry Development Alliance, Chengdu has built three electric vehicle charging devices in 2011 according to the standards of the State Grid, and there are three under construction.

Zhao Depeng has a deep understanding of the problems faced by the electric vehicle industry due to lack of standards. “Before the charging interface standard was released, electric vehicle manufacturing companies like us were very hesitant to know how to develop in the future and would not dare to mass-produce cars. They could only do some prototypes,” said Zhao Depeng.

Chen Siwei, deputy director of the automotive industry management department of the Chongqing Municipal Economic and Information Committee, said in an interview with China Economics and Information Technology that the promulgation of interface standards is one of the things the country should do. The charging interface standard is like a fuel filler. The norm of size is a very common national standard. For electric vehicles, the most important is the battery standard.

The first step in the Wanli Long March is to end the chaos of domestic industrial development. It is only due to the introduction of the four major standards. Implicitly, there is another profound meaning: China is very likely to occupy a very important commanding height in the clean energy automobile industry, and use this as a starting point to gradually gain the right to speak.

Xie Zicong analyzed that the unification of standards can unify the entire vehicle and infrastructure to avoid diversification and redundant construction of infrastructure. In addition, with the standard, China may have the advantage of “leading the ears of the global electric car industry”. In this way, foreign companies must follow China's standards after entering the Chinese market. Chinese standards may also serve as international standards and have the right to speak on the world stage.

At the same time, he pointed out that although from the current government's efforts and determination to promote the development of electric vehicles, the possibility of leading the world exists, but there are still many problems in the electric vehicle industry, it is still unknown whether the smooth development, "Charging interface standards released It is only the first step of the Long March."

"For their respective interests, enterprises have been arguing and failing to cooperate with each other to become the norm. They lack the spirit of cooperation. They haven't been swept away and are always trying to control other people's 'creams'." Xie Zicong said: "This phenomenon is A major obstacle to the development of China's electric vehicle industry."

The more practical problem is that the technical problems of electric vehicles have not been fundamentally solved. The government and enterprises have not yet seen the development laws of the electric vehicle industry, and have not clearly realized that the innovation of electric vehicles is not just driven innovation but also the innovation of the energy supply system. Therefore, it is difficult to make the electric vehicle industry.

"So far, the technical conditions of electric vehicles, especially the technical conditions of the system, have not been matched. Vehicles, battery companies, and power grids are all on the line, and commercial development has been greatly hindered." Xie Zicong pointed out that the development of the electric vehicle industry is a System engineering, the car must cooperate with the infrastructure. "Electric vehicles are durable products. The people who buy cars should consider the features of the goods, the price/performance ratio, and the technical functions are all incomplete. At the same time, they must consider using them for a long decade or fifteen years." Is it convenient or not?"

In fact, there are also problems with policy promotion. "They did not see the development of the electric vehicle industry, they carried out blind, large-scale promotion, and developed the new energy automobile industry in 25 cities at the same time." Xie Zicong said: "In the past 30 years, China has been promoting color TVs, refrigerators and air-conditioning washing machines. During the development of the industry, they all refer to foreign mature products and models, but in the new energy automotive industry, foreign teachers have become classmates, and foreign countries do not provide mature products, mature business models, and require domestic industry independent innovation. There is not yet one city that has built the infrastructure of electric vehicles and provided conditions for the sale of the entire vehicle. “The East One is in the west and there is a stick.” The entire vehicle cannot be sold, and the infrastructure has not been used yet. They do not cooperate with each other.”

Promoting the commercialization of electric vehicles should not merely be a slogan and requires more practical actions.

There are also people in the industry who believe that the business model of the electric vehicle industry is not a simple business plan for product sales. The period of the "12th Five-Year Plan" is very critical. During this period, the development of the electric vehicle industry should not care about selling 100,000 vehicles or 1 million vehicles. It should pay attention to infrastructure and vehicle cooperation to establish available technologies, business models, and sustainability. Development of a commercial platform for development.