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Scan the QR code with your mobile phone to open the cabinet, put the low-power battery into the "small yellow cabinet", then take out a battery and put it into your own electric bicycle. The whole process takes less than one minute.

The battery swap model of "battery sharing, replacement instead of charging" has the advantages of safety, economy, greenness and convenience. It can solve the problems of frequent charging accidents and slow charging of electric bicycles to a certain extent.

Text | Li Jianchang, Wu Shuguang, and Jia Yunpeng, reporters of Outlook News Weekly

In Qingyun County, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, Zhang Ruiying, a resident of Dongfang Mingjun Community, is replacing the battery of her electric bicycle. A reporter from Outlook News Weekly saw Zhang Ruiying park her electric bicycle next to the yellow battery exchange cabinet at the entrance of the community, use her mobile phone to scan the code to open the cabinet, put the low-battery battery into the "small yellow cabinet", and then take out a battery and put it into her electric bicycle. The whole process took less than a minute.

Recently, due to the advantages of safety, greenness and convenience, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong and other places have accelerated the layout of electric bicycle intelligent battery replacement networks. Intelligent battery replacement has become a new option to solve the safety risks of electric bicycles.

It should be noted that the current smart battery replacement for electric bicycles faces constraints such as difficulty in site selection and entry, and different battery standards. Relevant people believe that the battery replacement facilities for electric bicycles have the dual attributes of people's livelihood and "new infrastructure", and support can be strengthened in terms of standardization, cost reduction, and "old for new", further helping to promote the "replacement instead of charging" model.

"Shared Power Bank" for Electric Bicycles

According to statistics from the China Bicycle Association, by the end of 2023, the number of electric bicycles in my country will be approximately 400 million, and this will bring with it frequent and intensive charging needs.

On the one hand, there is a great demand for travel, and on the other hand, there are hidden safety risks. In recent years, electric bicycles have had problems such as "entering buildings and homes", "people and vehicles in the same room", and "flying wire charging", which have caused many fire accidents. According to data from the National Fire Rescue Bureau, 21,000 electric bicycle fires were reported nationwide in 2023, an increase of 17.4% over 2022, of which 80% occurred during charging, and safe charging has become a weak link.

Relevant functional departments have long regulated the charging of electric bicycles. The "Regulations on Fire Safety Management of High-rise Civil Buildings" promulgated and implemented in 2021 clearly states that "it is prohibited to park electric bicycles or charge electric bicycles in public foyers, evacuation corridors, stairwells, and emergency exits of high-rise civil buildings." Although various measures have been taken in various places to manage the situation, the phenomenon of charging electric bicycles upstairs and "flying wire charging" still exists.

The battery exchange model of "battery sharing and replacement instead of charging" has the advantages of safety, economy, greenness and convenience. It can solve the problems of frequent charging accidents and slow charging of electric bicycles to a certain extent, and has become a new way for many places to solve the safety hazards of electric bicycles.

In Qingyun County, Shandong Province, Jinli Battery Exchange (Shandong) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has set up 60 shared battery exchange cabinets, equipped with more than 3,000 sets of batteries, which have benefited 30,000 people. The battery exchange cabinet is equipped with an intelligent management system to monitor the battery current, voltage, and temperature in real time, and automatically alarm to cut off power, separate fires, and actively extinguish fires according to the situation.

"By digitally managing the entire life cycle of batteries, the fire safety risks caused by electric vehicle charging can be eliminated to a large extent." Jiao Peng, chairman of the company, said that the battery swap platform also has special management projects such as smart transportation, smart fire protection, and carbon emissions. It can provide data call ports for fire protection, emergency, urban management, development and reform and other departments to improve the level of urban safety.

In addition to being safe and convenient, smart battery swapping also means being economical. Elephant Battery Swap, a subsidiary of State Grid (Shandong) Electric Vehicle Service Co., Ltd., is an electric bicycle battery swap service platform for community residents. As of the end of April, 1,835 battery swap cabinets and 15,715 battery swap batteries have been built and put into operation in Shandong, with 64,000 registered users and a total of 1.38 million battery swaps, with no safety issues. According to Elephant Battery Swap's calculations, compared to self-charging, users only need to purchase a frame and pay a battery deposit in the battery swap mode, saving about 1,000 yuan in vehicle use costs.

A resident in Qingyun County, Shandong Province replaces the battery of an electric bicycle through a battery swap cabinet (Photo taken on June 7, 2024) Photo by Ma Xinlei

Smart charging still has multiple bottlenecks

Nowadays, many places are accelerating the layout of intelligent battery replacement for electric bicycles.

Shanghai proposed that by 2025, the total number of charging and battery swapping cabinets in the city will reach 20,000, which will be able to meet the charging and battery swapping needs of more than 300,000 electric bicycles in the delivery industry such as takeout and express delivery; Shenzhen will build 50,000 new battery swapping cabinets (500,000 battery swapping warehouses) within three years, and gradually achieve a construction ratio of 10:1 between the number of electric bicycles and battery swapping warehouses; Zhejiang will give priority to promoting "battery swapping instead of charging" in industries with concentrated use of electric bicycles such as express delivery and takeout, and basically realize the battery swapping model.

The reporter learned from interviews that various regions are facing bottlenecks in exploring the electric bicycle battery replacement model, such as lack of unified standards, difficulty in site selection and entry, and difficulty in involving existing electric bicycles in battery replacement.

The lack of unified standards for everything from battery swap cabinets, installation locations to line layouts is a common problem faced by related companies. Song Yong, marketing manager of Shandong Branch of Tower Energy Co., Ltd., said that due to the lack of standards, hundreds of battery swap companies have large differences in battery dimensions, interfaces, communication protocols, etc., and batteries cannot be interchanged, which will lead to duplicate construction.

It is difficult to select a site and enter the site for building a battery swap cabinet. Considering the huge number of electric bicycles, there must be enough battery swap stations to meet the public's demand for battery swaps. Many battery swap operators reported that when the battery swap cabinet is actually put into operation, it is necessary to coordinate with local streets, fire protection, electricity and other departments, but there are differences in the degree of awareness and policies of battery swapping among all parties, resulting in resistance when setting up battery swap cabinets in certain areas. At the same time, many community properties and commercial properties charge high site rentals and power transfer fees, which increases corporate operating costs and user usage costs.

The enthusiasm of existing electric bicycles to participate in battery replacement is not high. The reporter learned that a large number of residents' electric bicycles are not national standard electric bicycles, and the battery replacement batteries are not highly compatible with them. At present, the business of many battery replacement companies is mainly concentrated in industries with high demand such as takeout and express delivery. The cost of battery replacement is relatively high for most people, and it is difficult to promote the battery replacement model on the resident side.

Cultivate new business forms of battery replacement

According to estimates by a third-party agency, if one-third of vehicles adopt battery swapping services and the monthly battery swapping fee is 40 yuan per vehicle, the annual battery swapping fee will exceed 60 billion yuan. If the investment in battery swapping cabinets, shared vehicles and batteries is added, the market size of electric bicycle battery swapping will reach hundreds of billions of yuan.

To seize market opportunities, the key is to form a policy synergy from the aspects of standardization, cost reduction, and old-for-new exchange, so as to further solve the bottlenecks in the promotion of the battery swap model.

It is imperative to issue industry standards for battery swapping of electric bicycles. Zhang Jian, chairman of State Grid (Shandong) Electric Vehicle Service Co., Ltd., said that industry standards should be issued around key technical standards for battery swapping, interchangeability of battery swapping, inspection and testing, supervision of battery swapping facilities, construction and installation of battery swapping facilities, and quality of battery swapping services to achieve "battery swapping interconnection" between different regions and enterprises, and promote the "networking" and sustainable development of the battery swapping industry for electric bicycles.

How to reduce the high operating costs is the key. In response to the difficulty in site selection and access for the construction of battery swap cabinets, Liu Tao, secretary of the Qingyun County Party Committee, said that smart battery swap facilities should be incorporated into urban infrastructure and urban and rural construction planning, and public spaces such as municipalities and street corners should be opened to promote them. Referring to the support measures for new energy vehicle charging facilities, policy support will be given to the site selection and construction of smart battery swap facilities for electric bicycles and the use of electricity at a reasonable price, so as to reduce the operating costs of enterprises and the cost of battery swaps for the public.

Grassroots cadres and heads of battery swapping companies believe that smart battery swapping facilities have the dual attributes of people's livelihood and "new infrastructure". They suggest strengthening policy support in terms of "old for new", standardization, etc., cultivating a new "battery swapping model" business model, and promoting the orderly development of electric bicycle battery swapping.

Many interviewees suggested that electric bicycles be included in the scope of the "trade-in" policy for consumer goods, so as to encourage residents to replace their "non-standard vehicles" with new national standard electric bicycles through market-based self-purchase, thus curbing the safety hazards of existing electric bicycles from the source. ■