2024 National Two Sessions Decoding China’s Power Sources
How to develop battery life for new energy vehicles
China's conversion of old and new driving forces is accelerating, and the overall quality of its manufacturing industry is improving.
In 2023, China's new energy vehicle production and sales will reach 9.5 million units, an increase of 35%, lithium battery output will increase by 25%, and photovoltaic cell output will increase by 54%.
In terms of export products, the "three new products" such as electric passenger vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar batteries totaled 1.06 trillion yuan in exports, breaking through the trillion yuan mark for the first time, an increase of 29.9%.
Among them, the export volume of new energy vehicles exceeded 1.2 million units, an increase of 77.6%, ranking first in the world, and driving the export volume of new cars to rank first in the world.
This year's government work report mentioned in the review of work in 2023 that in the past year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles accounted for more than 60% of the global share.
When introducing the government's work priorities in 2024, it was proposed that the leading advantages in industries such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles should be consolidated and expanded, and mass consumption such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles should also be boosted.
How to develop "range" for new energy vehicles?
Beijing Youth Daily reporters interviewed many National People’s Congress representatives from the automotive industry.
Feng Xingya, deputy to the National People's Congress
Improve the standardization construction of new energy vehicle power batteries
Feng Xingya, deputy to the National People's Congress and general manager of GAC Group, expressed the hope in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily that he hopes to further improve the standardization of power batteries for new energy vehicles.
He suggested that to establish an all-solid-state battery standard system and seize the technological high ground, leading domestic all-solid-state battery research and development companies, well-known universities, scientific research institutes, industry experts, etc. can strengthen collaboration and accelerate the establishment of standards.
Beiqing Daily: I noticed that you attach great importance to further improving the standardization of new energy vehicle power batteries. What are your considerations and what is the current status of this aspect?
Feng Xingya: The rapid growth of domestic new energy vehicle ownership has created a large demand for energy replenishment. Charging and battery swapping complement each other and have become the two major ways to replenish energy for new energy vehicles.
However, whether it is charging and swapping or the development of new forms of batteries, there is a problem of inconsistent standards, which restricts the further scale of new energy vehicles.
First, the key standards related to new energy vehicle charging are still not unified, and there are still "two tracks" for high-power charging interfaces; second, for power replacement products, the current situation of diversified power battery specifications restricts the unified power replacement standards. The formation of; thirdly, under the background that all-solid-state batteries have formed an industry consensus as the next generation of high-performance lithium batteries, and domestic related technology research and development has made significant progress, the safety standards, performance standards, manufacturing and recycling standards of all-solid-state batteries have not yet been Established, the current power battery standards cannot fully cover and adapt to new technical requirements.
The insufficient standardization of power batteries has led to varying degrees of increased R&D costs, difficulties in industrial chain collaboration, waste of resources, and reduced competitiveness in the international market.
Therefore, I believe that accelerating the standardization of new energy vehicle power batteries in my country is of great strategic significance.
Beiqing Daily: You just talked about the need to unify the battery swap standards. The battery swap model has attracted a lot of attention at the moment. Do you think there are any problems with the current battery swap standards?
Feng Xingya: The battery swap mode has many advantages.
Compared with the charging mode, the battery swap mode has the characteristics of fast energy replenishment and good energy replenishment experience. Compared with the charging mode, it can greatly improve the energy replenishment efficiency per unit land area and the utilization efficiency of battery assets, which has obvious advantages.
At present, my country's pure electric commercial vehicles have realized the unification of battery swap interfaces, which has greatly promoted the development of battery swap models for commercial vehicles.
However, due to the large number of participants in the passenger car battery swapping market, it is difficult for all parties to spontaneously reach an agreement on their interest demands, and a unified set of battery swapping standards has not yet been formed, making it difficult to achieve large-scale promotion and application of the battery swapping model in the passenger car market.
Under this situation, each car company can only work independently, which not only faces high construction and operation costs of battery swap stations, but also easily leads to problems such as waste of land resources and unreasonable layout.
Therefore, I hope that the power exchange standards can be gradually unified and shared power exchange can be realized.
Beiqing Daily: How to unify battery replacement standards?
Feng Xingya: This requires the government and enterprises to work together to promote the standardization and unification of battery replacement standards.
On the one hand, organize participants in the battery swap market to establish a standardization cooperation mechanism and promote R&D cooperation on relevant standards; on the other hand, the government formulates corresponding standardization rewards and supporting policies to encourage market participants to actively participate in battery swap standardization work.
Through the joint efforts of all parties, a unified battery swap standard will be formed, so that the battery swap model can realize battery swapping of different car models at a lower cost, improve the efficiency of battery swap stations, enhance consumers' energy replenishment experience, and ultimately promote the development of the new energy vehicle industry. Achieve qualitative improvement.
Beiqing Daily: What other suggestions do you have for improving the standardization of new energy vehicle power batteries?
Feng Xingya: There are two other aspects. On the one hand, we need to unify high-power charging standards and eliminate industry differences.
On the other hand, we are exploring the establishment of an all-solid-state battery standard system and seizing the technological high ground.
Leading domestic all-solid-state battery research and development companies, well-known universities, scientific research institutes, industry experts, etc. have strengthened collaboration to accelerate the establishment of a series of standards for all-solid-state batteries.
Text/reporter Gao Yuyang
Ding Bo, deputy to the National People's Congress
The vast number of counties and villages are blue ocean markets for new energy vehicles
Ding Bo, deputy to the National People's Congress, party committee secretary and general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle Zhengzhou Branch, said in an interview with a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily that new energy vehicles have huge room for development in the domestic market, including third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, including counties and villages. It is definitely a blue ocean market.
Beiqing Daily: What do you think is the future prospect of new energy vehicles in the domestic market?
Ding Bo: There is still huge room for development of new energy vehicles in the domestic market.
On the one hand, the total number of cars in our country is far lower than that in traditional Western countries; on the other hand, although new energy vehicles are now deployed in first- and second-tier cities very quickly, they are still in more third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, including counties and townships. An absolute blue ocean market.
As long as we seize the needs of users and provide more products that can enjoy mobile travel and are more cost-effective, then with the development of the economy, this market will gradually expand.
Beiqing Daily: What are the current problems with bringing new energy vehicles to the countryside?
Ding Bo: In July 2020, the country launched a plan to bring new energy vehicles to the countryside.
After four years of practice, the current penetration rate of new energy vehicles in counties and rural areas still needs to be improved.
At present, new energy vehicles have formed a good balance in terms of product styling, configuration, technology, cost performance and many other areas for rural areas, but the layout of dealers, service networks and charging piles still needs to be solved.
In order to bring new energy vehicles to the countryside, dealers and service systems must be able to reach the county and township level network layout. This kind of detailed network layout will cost more for dealers, but if they do not The dealer network and service network covering counties and villages will bring a lot of inconvenience to users. This is the first problem that needs to be solved.
The second one is about charging.
In first- and second-tier cities, the layout of charging piles and charging stations is being implemented rapidly. However, at the county and township level, there is still much to be improved when it comes to issues such as power grids, electricity, sites, and profitability of operating charging piles.
Beiqing Daily: What suggestions do you have to solve these problems?
Ding Bo: Regarding the sinking of dealer networks and service systems, on the one hand, OEMs must use innovative models and flexible mechanisms to establish sales and service systems that are close to users.
At the same time, the government should provide certain policy support during the network development and layout stage to help companies build a good network for new energy vehicles in rural areas.
In terms of charging pile layout, the government needs to combine regional economic development planning to formulate a persistent investment plan for power grid infrastructure, and provide policy support for the initial stage of charging station layout.
Text/Reporter Liang Ting
Liu Yiyan, deputy to the National People's Congress
Intelligence will become the competitive high ground in the second half of the new energy automobile industry
Liu Yiyan, deputy to the National People's Congress and deputy secretary of the Party Committee of SAIC Zero-beam Technology, believes that after electrification, intelligence has become the competitive high ground in the second half of the new energy vehicle industry.
On the new leading track for the development of the new energy automobile industry, intelligence, talent team construction plays a vital role. It is recommended to accelerate the construction of a "smart automobile talent highland".
Beiqing Daily: Facing the attack of international brands and new car-making forces, what is the next development direction or focus of new energy vehicles?
Liu Yiyan: The automobile industry is making great strides into the era of intelligence. Based on the original mechanical attributes, automobiles have greatly increased technological attributes.
Intelligence has become the competitive high ground in the second half of the new energy automobile industry.
From a disciplinary perspective, in addition to machinery, electronics, energy and power, and transportation, smart cars have become a fusion of communications, computers, software, artificial intelligence and other fields.
From an industrial perspective, the deep integration of consumer electronics, communications industries and automobiles will become an important path to promote the intelligent transformation of the automobile industry.
Artificial intelligence will become an important part of the core competitiveness of smart cars, and the cultivation and reserve of artificial intelligence talents is particularly urgent.
Under the general trend of AI+software-defined cars, it is foreseeable that AI large models will reconstruct the human-computer interaction experience and R&D operation efficiency of smart cars. The product, R&D, operation, and organizational paradigms of smart cars may all have disruptive changes. Influence.
Beiqing Daily: Is there sufficient artificial intelligence talent in my country now?
Liu Yiyan: The demand for talents in the smart car industry shows the characteristics of multi-disciplinary, cross-field, deep integration and strong crossover.
Since its establishment, my country's vehicle engineering major has still been regarded as a second-level discipline under the first-level discipline of mechanical engineering in the engineering category. Its subject positioning does not match the strategic significance of its high-tech comprehensive carrier, and its training objectives and curriculum system are incompatible with the strategic significance of its high-tech comprehensive carrier. There are differences in current industry needs, resulting in a certain degree of disconnect between the knowledge structure of supply-side college graduates and the actual needs of demand-side enterprises.
Beiqing Daily: What suggestions do you have?
Liu Yiyan: I believe that it is necessary to formulate a specialized artificial intelligence talent strategy to lay a solid talent foundation for the development of artificial intelligence in our country.
It is necessary to strengthen the training of interdisciplinary, cross-field and compound talents and cultivate the technical force required for the development of the smart car era.
Promote the upgrading of the vehicle engineering discipline to a first-level interdisciplinary discipline, accelerate the improvement of the subject knowledge system, achieve in-depth integration with other related disciplines, and establish a talent training system that meets the needs of industrial development.
In terms of professional setting, curriculum design, teaching material compilation, practice arrangement and teacher construction, industry and academic experts are invited to communicate, participate and cooperate, and the integration of industrial practice and university teaching is increased. Special funds are set up to encourage and support enterprises and universities. Based on the industrial pain points, "stuck" technologies and cutting-edge technology development directions in the development of smart cars, we will establish a cooperation platform for "research innovation" and "talent training" with enterprises as the main innovation body.
For top talents, a systematic combination policy can be introduced to release the signal of recruiting talents with greater sincerity. In terms of salary, settlement, children's education, medical care, housing, financial support and other aspects, we can increase efforts and speed up attracting overseas talents. Highly sophisticated professionals in the field of artificial intelligence will return to China to engage in academic research and technology implementation; for campus talents, we will accelerate the improvement of the artificial intelligence discipline system in Chinese universities and accelerate the construction of first-level artificial intelligence disciplines.
Text/reporter Meng Yaxu
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Focus on "going global" of automobiles. Brands, patents and policies are the key words
In 2021 and 2022, my country's automobile exports will reach 2 million and 3 million vehicles in a row.
In 2023, it crossed two million levels, exporting 5.221 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 57.4%.
How to better support Chinese independent automobile brands to go global?
Several National People's Congress representatives from the automotive industry have made suggestions.
Feng Xingya believes that my country's automobile export performance was outstanding last year, but as overseas brands accelerate the competitiveness of electrified models, and the complexity and severity of overseas political and business environments continue to increase, my country's automobile exports will also face greater challenges. pressure.
From the perspective of brand influence, my country's exported automobile products are mostly concentrated in the mid-to-low-end market. There are few world-class automobile brands. Their popularity and influence in the international market are relatively low and they have not been fully recognized.
He suggested that automobile products be listed as a key item in the national bulk trade consultation, promote the liberalization and facilitation of automobile trade, reduce trade costs, and establish institutional arrangements for bilateral automobile economic and trade cooperation.
Enhance my country's voice in the field of international standards, strengthen the export of automobile-related standards, and vigorously promote the "going out" of Chinese standards.
In Liu Yiyan's view, the overseas patent layout of Chinese car companies still lags behind the overseas layout of products and technologies.
From 2018 to 2023, the patent applications of Chinese car companies are mainly concentrated in the domestic market, accounting for more than 80%. Overseas patents are mainly focused on markets such as Asia, Africa and Latin America. In markets that currently account for a large export scale, such as Europe The layout is even weaker.
The proportion of domestic patents of European, American and Japanese car companies is generally between 35% and 56%, but they own many patents around the world.
She believes that when formulating patent export strategies, companies need to comprehensively consider the target market of the product, the legal environment of the target country, and the global patent layout of competing products.
Ding Bo believes that with the rapid expansion of the international market, whether it can keep up with the speed and scale of business development in terms of its own capacity building, and whether it can achieve long-term, healthy and stable development based on global win-win cooperation, global sharing of benefits, and global industrial cooperation. Development is a new challenge facing the automobile industry.
He suggested that relevant departments should track changes in overseas countries’ automobile industry policies, automobile import and export policies, restriction and protection policies, and tariff policies, inform and guide domestic export companies on how to respond, and make various preparations in advance.
Text/Reporter Gao Yuyang, Liang Ting, Meng Yaxu
Photo courtesy of this edition/Interviewee
Coordinator of this edition/Liu Xiaoxue