SKI and Ningde era seize the beach to exchange electricity and compete for the future market

On January 21, Blue Valley Wisdom (Beijing) Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Blue Valley Wisdom') announced that it has completed the A+ round of financing with a financing amount of more than 300 million yuan. In the new energy vehicle industry, this amount is not large, but the investors behind it are not small. In addition to funds from BAIC Group, SK New Energy (SKFS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SKI in China) and Ningde Times have all appeared on the investment list. Both SKI and CATL are the most important battery suppliers of BAIC New Energy. Judging from their participation in Blue Valley Wisdom, these two battery companies are obviously not satisfied with only supplying power batteries for the entire vehicle, but also to compete for the importance of replacing power stations. market. According to Blue Valley Wisdom’s plan, only in the next five years, the construction of its replacement stations will exceed 2,500, and the demand for power batteries will exceed 70,000. Blue Valley Wisdom, established in 2016, is a subsidiary of BAIC Group engaged in battery replacement and power battery cascade utilization business. The business covers the Ru0026D, manufacturing, construction and operation of smart power swap stations, as well as the traceability production and leasing and sales operations of power battery cascade utilization. At present, BAIC New Energy's power swap business in various places is carried out based on the wisdom of Blue Valley. Some people in the industry told DCH Hui that the purpose of CATL and SKI's participation in the financing of Blue Valley Smart is to deeply participate in the power exchange market. Although a number of new energy vehicle upstream and downstream companies and capital have begun to pour into this market in the past two years, including Weilai, BAIC New Energy, Changan New Energy, Geely Automobile, Aodong New Energy, Ningde Times, etc., have deployed their positions. However, from the actual layout, only Blue Valley Smart, Aodong New Energy, and Weilai have scaled up the construction of power swap stations. Among them, BAIC Blue Valley is the first domestic car company to implement large-scale application of battery swapping models. As of November 2020, BAIC Blue Valley has achieved mass production of EU260, EU300, EU5 and other battery swap models, and has 19 vehicles nationwide. The city has built and opened 225 power swap stations; 22,000 power swap vehicles have been put into operation, 6.8 million power swaps have been completed, and the total mileage of power swap vehicles has reached 950 million kilometers. In fact, CATL and SKI (both including subsidiaries) are the most important battery suppliers of BAIC New Energy (including BAIC Blue Valley Magna). According to the statistics of the tramway, the recommended catalog of 1-13 batches of new energy vehicles in 2020 Zhongbei New Energy has declared a total of 40 models, 23 models of Ningde Times and 10 models of SKI. However, SKI is equipped with the high-end brand Polar Fox under BAIC New Energy, and Ningde Times of Polar Fox only supports 4 models. Judging from the participation of SKI in Blue Valley Wisdom, the Jihu brand may also participate in the entire battery exchange system of BAIC New Energy in the future. Competing for the future market is worth noting that two battery companies, CATL and SKI, have frequently set foot in the field of separation of cars and electricity in the past year or so. In August 2020, Ningde Times and NIO established a battery asset management company, Wuhan Weineng Battery Assets Co., Ltd., to deploy passenger car power swaps, invest in Haro power swaps to enter the two-wheeler power swap market, and invest in Xiangdao travel layout dedicated In the vehicle swap market, and Beiqi Foton Zhilan New Energy entered the heavy truck swap market. In addition to these, the chairman of CATL, Zeng Yuqun, also proposed to promote the replacement of construction machinery at the two sessions in 2020. Also in August 2020, SKI and Hyundai Motor signed a memorandum of understanding for BaaS (BatteryasaService), involving electric vehicle battery leasing, battery management services, and various business areas related to the reuse and recycling of electric vehicle batteries. The two parties aim to strengthen the stability of the battery supply chain and establish a virtuous cycle of resources from recycling to production. In the past two years, new energy vehicles have received much attention from industry and policy levels. In May 2020, the 'Government Work Report' included the construction of charging and swapping infrastructure for the first time in the category of 'new infrastructure'. The charging and swapping infrastructure for new energy vehicles has become one of the seven important areas of new infrastructure. In November of the same year, the 'New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)' also proposed to improve the infrastructure system, promote the construction of the charging and swapping network, and scientifically deploy the charging and swapping infrastructure. In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has previously stated that it is speeding up the formulation of the national standard 'Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Replacement'. With the strengthening of policy support and the advancement of the pace of enterprise layout, the construction and operation of power station construction and operation enterprises may become an important customer of power battery enterprises in the future. BAIC New Energy once announced a data, each of its substations needs to reserve at least 28 sets of replacement batteries according to the standard. Zhang Feng, deputy general manager of Blue Valley Smart, once stated at a public forum that it will launch the 'Urban Power Exchange Partner' 'The plan is to form a joint force with partners in the next five years to jointly deploy no less than 2,500 replacement power stations in 120 cities across the country. Based on this calculation, Blue Valley Wisdom will have at least 70,000 sets of power batteries in the field of power replacement in the next 5 years. As strategic investment participants, CATL and SKI may share most of these orders.