In recent years, my country's electric bicycle industry has developed rapidly, which not only brings more travel convenience to residents, but also adds to charging safety hazards. Although various governance measures have been taken in various places, the phenomenon of electric bicycles charging upstairs and "flying line charging" still exists.

  How to solve this problem? In April 2024, the State Council Safety Committee Office held a meeting to deploy the full-chain rectification of electric bicycle safety hazards.

  The battery swap mode of "battery sharing, replacement instead of charging" has the advantages of safety, economy, greenness and convenience, which has solved the problems of many electric bicycle charging accidents and slow charging, and has become a new choice for many places to solve the safety risks of electric bicycles.

  This model is the first to make breakthroughs in the field of takeaway riders. The "battery swap mode" fits the high power consumption characteristics of the rider group, avoids the wasted time and energy of waiting for charging, and largely solves the "battery anxiety". But there are only more than 10 million electric bicycles in the field of food delivery riders, while there are 400 million electric bicycles nationwide. It is difficult to fundamentally solve the national problems without solving the C-end residential market.

  According to reports, the C-end residential market has become the hardest hard bone to crack, and there are many reasons. Low project profits and difficult pricing are the most important considerations. Residents have low battery replacement frequency, with an average of 2 to 3 battery replacements per week. If the pricing is too low, investors will be unprofitable and the pricing is too high, and residents will find it difficult to accept it. In addition, the residential side requires a higher layout density of manufacturers.

  In January this year, the national team for the full-chain rectification of electric bicycle safety hazards issued the "Notice on Promoting Typical Practices for Electric Bicycle Sharing and Battery Exchange". The electric bicycle sharing battery swap model in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province has successfully opened up a breakthrough on the residents' side, becoming the first case of this "Notice", making it possible to further expand the scope of the promotion of the "replacement instead of charging" model.

  Lu Yongyan, chairman of Beijing Electric Investment Greentong Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that Kunshan City has a large number of electric bicycles, with about 2.35 million, with nearly 150,000 new vehicles each year. The company first chose Kunshan as a pilot. If Kunshan can succeed, it will be more meaningful to the promotion across the country.

  Judging from the results, as of now, Kunshan has built 443 smart electric bicycle battery swap cabinets, forming a "500-meter service radius" convenient battery swap network, which can provide all-weather battery swap services for 50,000 electric bicycles, and has initially completed the construction of the first smart electric bicycle network in the whole region. According to Kunshan’s “Smart Battery Swap” project plan, 5,000 battery swap cabinets will be completed in the next three years, serving 600,000 users, and will be the first in the country to realize the construction of a large-scale battery swap network, forming an experience model that can be learned from, replicated and popularized.

  Economicality is the most important consideration for whether the user side can accept the battery swap mode. At present, Power Investment Green Connect Company has determined the rent to 576 yuan/year through cooperation with Kunshan Transportation Development Group and other units, which is equivalent to 48 yuan per month. It is estimated that the rental service package of 576 yuan/year can travel about 500 kilometers, basically covering the usage habits and scenarios of most residents.

  Whether the battery swap mode is efficient and convenient is also an important factor affecting user selection. In the early stages of my country's electric vehicle industry development, State Grid Corporation took the lead in building charging pile infrastructure on a large scale across the country, which played an important role in promoting the rapid development of the electric vehicle industry. For the development of the electric bicycle battery swap industry, powerful central and state-owned enterprises will build battery swap stations on the residential side as infrastructure, and electric bicycle manufacturers will simultaneously develop and promote battery swap models, which may be effective measures to solve the convenience.

  Lu Yongyan believes that in the residential market for electric bicycle battery swap, large-scale laying of battery swap stations through government-led and corporate cooperation has provided citizens with convenient battery swap service infrastructure, thereby attracting more users to choose the battery swap mode. With the further coverage and improvement of the construction of the battery swap network, the convenience of battery swap among residents will be effectively solved. (Reporter Wang Yichen)

[Editor in charge: Gu Yue]