The number of charging stations around the world is far less than the number of electric vehicles. According to the survey,
the ratio of the number of electric vehicle chargers to the number of electric vehicles around the world, especially in Europe,
is even less than 1:10! Therefore, the government of many countries have actively responded to the call of the ev era and have introduced various policies to promote the development of the electric vehicle charging industry.
The premise of charging station operation is compatible with the present and future-oriented. We need to understand the needs of the current customer groups and consider the operation side of the public fast charging station field. The customer groups are mainly charging station operators and charging station users and this survey collects the above two groups. According to the demand information, the pain points of charging station operation are summarized as follows:
1. Charging Price:
In the industry, the current charging prices of public charging stations are based on general industrial electricity prices.
Merely about 2% of the charging stations are using solar storage technology or hydropower/green electricity and other energy-saving electricity prices for charging.
From the operator’s perspective: Without professional operators and price operation strategies,
it is easy to fall into price competition and revenue cannot be guaranteed.
From the perspective of drivers: They bear the charging costs themselves so they often prefer to choose charging stations with favorable prices.
Consumer customers value experience and are relatively insensitive to price.
2. Equipment Running Power Loss
Another core data of the operation of the station is the power loss rate which is the power loss caused by heating during the operation of the equipment.
The power loss rate of the DC charging stations in the industry is about 9-13%.
Taking the charging station with 10 pcs 120KW dual-gun DC charging stations as an example,
the charging station is used for 3.5 hours per day at the average full power, and the average electricity price is calculated at 0.7 yuan/KWH.
A year of power loss costs 94-140,000, choosing low power loss 5% equipment,
a single station can save 40,000-86,000 per year, according to 10 years of equipment operating life,
the whole life cycle can save 40,000-860,000 power loss costs.
3. Charging Speed
Since the main customer groups of public charging stations are operating vehicle drivers and individual car owners,
charging time is one of the factors that they care about. At present,
the average revenue of online car drivers is about 100 yuan per hour for taxi drivers,
which is translated into a business income of 1.7 yuan per minute.
To a certain extent, if the charging station can save time for drivers, drivers will even choose charging stations that cost more but charge the fastest.
4. Supporting Facilities
In the industry of public charging station products, technology increasingly homogenized and the pace of life accelerated.
Car owners will give priority to choosing supporting facilities, and intimate service charging stations.
However, the current industry-supporting facilities are extremely imperfect,
and only about 10% of the charging station is equipped with a driver lounge, supermarket, toilet, catering, etc.
5. Failure Rate of Equipment Operation
According to the weather conditions of high humidity and salt spray in some areas and the full investigation of major charging operators in the market, the equipment failure rate of public charging stations in some areas is the outbreak period of 2-5 years after the operation of the equipment, and the average service cycle of the DC module of the core component is 2 years.
It takes one day to repair the equipment at the earliest, and the operator needs to bear the revenue generated by the equipment stopping.
6. Geographical Position
The main customers of public charging stations are car drivers, who basically operate in urban core areas such as main roads, business districts, and CBD due to the nature of their work, while only about 25% of existing public charging stations in the industry operate in urban core areas, and the usage rate of charging stations in core areas is about 15% higher than that of charging stations in non-core areas.
Hope this can help whether you are operating stations at present or planning to operate your own station!