Ningde era / BYD "meet each other" online car-hailing

Following BYD holding hands with DiDi to hunt the ride-hailing market, the old rival Ningde era has also made big moves; the competition between the two giants for the passenger car segment is becoming increasingly fierce.

Ningde era / BYD entered the game on a large scale

The Ningde era is ferocious this time. On December 18, Hengdao Travel, a mobile travel company under SAIC Group, officially announced the completion of more than 300 million yuan A round of strategic financing, jointly invested by Ningde Times and Alibaba. At the same time, Hengdao Travel announced the completion of the layout of the "panoramic Smart Travel complex", covering online car-hailing, corporate car-hailing, personal car rental and taxi business. Industry experts believe that Huandao of the Ningde era is quite ambitious and can compete with Didi in some areas.

Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, said that while enjoying the trip will be closer to the needs of users, at the same time, create a people-based one-stop travel service platform. "the absolute figure of 300 million yuan is not that high." Wu Bing, CEO of Hengdao Travel, said that the introduction of investment from Ningde era and Alibaba mainly focused on the two strategic resources. Among them, Ningde era, as the leading enterprise of new energy battery in the world, will certainly promote the upgrading of Hengdao travel in the application of new energy vehicles.

In addition, it is understood that Zhiji Automobile, a high-end intelligent pure electric vehicle project jointly created by SAIC and Alibaba, was announced last month. Since then, it has been reported that Ningde era will jointly develop "silicon-doped lithium cell" technology with Zhiji Automobile, and mass-produce power batteries equipped with this technology in the future. It is not difficult to imagine that the technology is also very likely to be used in road travel in the future.

It is worth noting that Didi D1, the world's first all-electric customized ride-hailing car jointly created by BYD and DiDi, was officially unveiled on November 16, before Ningde era enjoyed the trip. It is equipped with a blade battery produced by Chongqing Fudi Lithium Battery Co., Ltd. Didi D1 is mainly for ride-hailing operation scenarios, and the Didi platform currently connects more than 31 million vehicles.

According to DiDi CEO Cheng Wei, Didi plans to popularize 1 million exclusive ride-hailing vehicles by 2025. According to the data, the total sales of electric vehicles in China in 2019 are 1.2 million, and the installed capacity of power batteries is 62.2 GWh;. According to a rough calculation, the corresponding battery installed capacity of 1 million exclusive online car-hailing cars is about 50GWh.

Not only that, in addition to Didi D1, BYD will soon launch a new medium and large sedan BYD E9, which is based on the "BYD DM shape + BYD EV powertrain" and is also equipped with BYD's brand new blade battery. The model will be sold by BYD e in the short term and will only be used as a high-end ride-hailing car.

As the saying goes, a gentleman sees the same thing. As China's largest power battery leader, Ningde era and BYD have entered the online ride-hailing market on a large scale, which must have its underlying reasons.

The online ride-hailing market is "full of wind and unboiled water".

In fact, in recent years, the development of the domestic ride-hailing market has really sprung up, the scale of the industry is growing, and there is a trend of accelerated development. According to the statistical report released by the China Internet Network Information Center ((CNNIC)), the number of ride-hailing users in China has reached 400 million in 2019, and the market size of the whole industry has exceeded 300 billion yuan. Especially since the decline of the national new energy vehicle subsidy, the sales volume of the new energy vehicle market is in the doldrums, and the enthusiasm of many car manufacturers for ride-hailing is accelerating.

In addition, according to CNNIC data, as of October 31 this year, a total of 207ride-hailing platform companies across the country have obtained business licenses for online ride-hailing platforms, and a total of 2.545 million online ride-hailing driver certificates and 1.059 million vehicle transport licenses have been issued. According to the statistics of the national online ride-hailing regulatory information interactive platform, the platform received a total of 630 million order information in October this year, and there were eight online ride-hailing platforms with a total order of more than 1 million in that month. including DiDi, Cao Cao Travel, T3 Travel, Meituan ride-hailing, Hengdao Travel and other giants.

It is understood that at present, including the new regulations issued by the governments of many provinces and cities across the country, including Hainan, Hebei, Henan, and Guangdong, many of the documents clearly state that "newly registered ride-hailing must be new energy vehicles." Obviously, the broad market development prospect of ride-hailing is the reason for the intensive delivery of industrial chain enterprises such as Ningde era and BYD.

It is worth noting that although the cake in the ride-hailing market is attractive, it is not easy to share the food in the summer. Different from ordinary private cars, the ride-hailing market as an operator is a high-frequency car-hailing scene, usually the daily operating time of online ride-hailing drivers is about 10-12 hours, and the mileage is about 300 km-400 km per day. In this way, the annual mileage of full-time ride-hailing is about 100000 kilometers, and if the mileage is greatly shortened due to the decline of battery capacity, it will no longer be suitable for operation. Because of this, the battery for assembling a ride-hailing car should have a long enough cycle life.

Only with diamond can you get porcelain work. Earlier this year, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, revealed that Ningde Times could produce power batteries with a service life of up to 16 years and a cumulative mileage of 2 million km. Ningde Times said that its "super battery" uses self-repairing long-life technology to extend its service life by inhibiting the side effects in the charging and discharging process of lithium battery. and commonly used in the current new energy vehicle market mainstream ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery.

In terms of long cycle life, the blade battery as lithium iron phosphate also performs very well. Under the current technical conditions, the cycle life of the blade battery can reach more than 3000 times, and when assembled to the electric vehicle, it will have a service life of more than 1 million km. In this regard, some industry insiders said, "if the blade battery can really achieve 8 million kilometers of use, without the decline of half the service life, then it is indeed the best partner for ride-hailing."

It is not difficult to see that the technical ability of Ningde era and BYD to cut into online car-hailing has been proficient. From the business model, many industry insiders believe that because of the long mileage and high frequency of operation vehicles, ride-hailing is one of the most suitable subdivision areas for power exchange. The power replacement mode can complete the battery replacement in a few minutes, which greatly improves the power supply efficiency of the operating vehicle, and the two complement each other. Coincidentally, both giants have layouts in the field of power exchange.

There is no need to say in the Ningde era. As early as last year, Ningde era began to change electricity, and set up a joint venture with Hello Travel and Ant Financial Services Group to change power stations for the construction of two-wheeled electric vehicles nationwide. Since the beginning of this year, we have made frequent moves to sign a car-electricity separation project contract with BAIC New Energy, formally enter into the field of power exchange operation as a battery manufacturer, and join hands with Lulai Automobile, Guotai Junan and Hubei Science and Technology to establish Wuhan Suneng. In order to promote the development of the new business model of "car-electricity separation" in the new energy automobile industry.

On the other hand, BYD's layout in the field of power exchange seems to be "straight to the point". On December 7, only a month after launching car-hailing D1 jointly with Didi, BYD, together with Didi and Nanwang Electric, jointly announced the official launch of the "first batch of smart energy operation of car-electricity value separation in the world". This is the first time that BYD has officially cut into the field of "separation of car and electricity", and the intention of tailor-made for the power exchange operation of online car-hailing is very obvious.

As the saying goes, opportunities are always left to those who are prepared. On the whole, Ningde era and BYD's layout in the field of ride-hailing is well prepared, whether it is the research and judgment of the market prospect, or the technical reserve and the business model. It can be seen that the two giants have taken the lead. On the other hand, we should also see that the tuyere of the ride-hailing market is huge, and its development is in the ascendant, leaving a lot of opportunities for other power battery manufacturers.