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Pure electric car owners in Chengdu felt the real charging anxiety this week.

The country has been experiencing high temperatures recently, with the highest temperature in some parts of the southwest exceeding 40℃. Chengdu has issued orange and red warning signals in succession and has gradually begun to limit power supply.

There were intermittent power outages in the residential area, air conditioners were shut down in the business district, and even commercial charging piles were taken offline one after another. Even the charging piles in operation were limited to the maximum power. With fewer charging points, lower power, and slower charging speeds, new energy vehicle owners were confused by the sudden power restrictions: after driving for a year or two, they had never seen a queue for a charging pile.

At this time, car owners' anxiety about using their cars was put in front of them, and charging became a problem.

No charging piles available, super charging is also slow

The scope of power restrictions on vehicles is wider than imagined.

First, the number of available commercial charging stations will decrease, the power will be reduced, and the charging speed will be slower.From my personal experience, the charging station with a nominal 120kw can only reach a peak of 40kw. It originally took 40 minutes to fully charge, but it took nearly an hour and a half to charge to 95%.

At this moment, 800V, 900V, liquid cooling, and super charging are like wilted balloons in the face of power restrictions. None of them can reach the maximum speed, let alone charging for 10 minutes and being able to run 300 kilometers.

The slower charging speed means that the number of new energy vehicles that can be served in the same unit of time is reduced, and the reduced number means that more vehicles need to queue up to enter the station. This further increases the charging anxiety of new energy vehicle owners. So you can see that there are already long queues at the entrance of some charging stations.

Tesla's charging network shows that some charging piles have been suspended, while the rest of the super charging piles are normal. Using the Jiadian app to check, a considerable number of third-party charging piles are in a gray offline state.

However, you are lucky if you can see the offline and operating status of charging stations on the APP. If you are unlucky, the APP shows that the charging station is operating normally, but when you arrive at the site, you find that it is out of service, then you can only turn on the energy-saving mode and rush to the next charging point.

Secondly, battery swap stations were not spared.Even if NIO does energy storage and battery swapping, it is still squeezed by power restrictions and electricity demand at the same time, and there is not much room for buffer.

NIO, which is deeply involved in energy, knows the significance of accurate charging information to users. On the APP, you can see the real-time operation status of the battery swap station, and the NIO service group will also manually send the schedule of suspension of supercharging piles and battery swap stations in real time.

Just compared with the daily battery replacement situation, the number of people waiting has increased significantly, and NIO users jokingly call it "grabbing batteries."

In contrast, extended-range/hybrid models are more capable in this occasional situation. Extended-range hybrid car owners can choose between gasoline and electricity, and are free to choose. In theory, more people will choose to refuel at this time, but there are still many extended-range hybrid models in the charging team.

Home charging is not the only solution to high temperature power restrictions

Some are happy while others are sad. At this time, car owners who own charging piles at home do not seem so panicked.

Since home charging piles are usually used at night, when electricity consumption is low, they have a small load on the overall power grid and are the cheapest. A night of charging usually costs only 10 yuan. When external charging points are unable to supply energy, home charging piles are the most reliable and unparalleled way to replenish energy.

Therefore, there was once a saying that "Don't buy an electric car if you don't have a charging station at home, even a plug-in hybrid will not work."

The advantages of home charging piles are obvious, but for communities that do not have fixed parking spaces or even the conditions to install home charging piles, this is not a reason to prevent owners from purchasing pure electric vehicles.

Even those who have charging piles at home cannot rest easy. Who can guarantee that your car does not need to be charged outside? Reasonable, reliable and abundant charging infrastructure is the most indispensable part of new energy vehicles.

The biggest reason for the power restriction in Chengdu is the high temperature. According to Xinhua News Agency, on August 21, the power load of the Sichuan power grid hit a record high twice, with the highest reaching 67.97 million kilowatts, an increase of nearly 13% over last year's maximum power load. Therefore, power grid companies in many places in Sichuan Province have issued initiatives to save electricity, advocating that everyone use electricity at off-peak times to ensure normal electricity consumption for residents.

This year's power rationing has just begun, but it has already shown the shadow of two years ago.

In August 2022, Sichuan Province experienced extreme high temperatures, low rainfall, and record-high power loads. Industrial power consumption was restricted, and civilian power was also temporarily shut down. New energy vehicle owners suffered greatly under the power restriction trend. You can still see some complaints from car owners two years ago: "I was still queuing up to charge after getting off work at 1 a.m." and "I had to queue up for an hour to charge at Raffles."

Compared to the sparse energy replenishment network at that time, today's new energy infrastructure is much more solid than two years ago. Therefore, this year's power restriction did not really affect the normal travel of new energy vehicle owners, but it would only take more time to recharge.

Normally, at least in Chengdu, new energy vehicles can provide a charging experience comparable to that of fuel vehicles without the need for home charging. Even in terms of cost, new energy vehicles are more attractive.

Infrastructure is perfect, new energy vehicles are still the future

New energy vehicles are undoubtedly the future trend.

But this does not mean that new energy vehicles will replace fuel vehicles. For a considerable period of time, fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles will move forward side by side.

In July this year, the penetration rate of China's new energy vehicle market exceeded 50% for the first time in a single month, which means that there will be more and more new energy vehicles on the road in the future. With the increase in the scale of new energy vehicles, the load on the power grid will also increase in the future.

Power rationing due to high temperatures is always an occasional event, but it also tests the buffering capacity of new energy infrastructure.The State Grid Corporation of China has carried out a pilot program of staggered charging in provinces with high temperatures and high loads, regulating peak electricity loads by adjusting the charging power at fixed times.

Weilai's V2G charging pile

At the same time, V2G (Vehicle-to-grid) business is also being gradually promoted. In simple terms, V2G is the reverse transmission of the electric energy in the car to the power grid. At night, the electricity rate is cheap and the power consumption is low, so we fully charge the car. During the day, the electricity rate is high and the power consumption of the power grid is high, so we reversely transmit the electricity in the car to the power grid. While reducing the peak and filling the valley, we can also earn the price difference between the two. It can be understood as a carrier of electric energy.

Interestingly, the Chengdu Auto Show will open at the end of August, and the power restriction on charging can be regarded as a preview of the auto show.