“In recent years, the four new automobile modernizations such as electrification, networking, intelligence, and sharing have become the development trend of the automobile industry. After more than ten years of planning and cultivation, China’s new energy automobile industry has a certain scale advantage, and it has seized the opportunity in the new “four modernizations” of automobiles.
“
In recent years, the four new automobile modernizations such as electrification, networking, intelligence, and sharing have become the development trend of the automobile industry. After more than ten years of planning and cultivation, China’s new energy automobile industry has a certain scale advantage, and it has seized the opportunity in the new “four modernizations” of automobiles.
Data from the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: From January to December 2020, the production and sales of domestic passenger vehicles were 19,994 million and 20.178 million, a year-on-year decrease of 6.5% and 6% respectively. However, new energy vehicles have come out of a different market. From January to December, the domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles were 1.366 million and 1.367 million, an increase of 7.5% and 10.9% year-on-year.
According to the national industrial policy and development plan, in the future, the market share of new energy vehicles will further expand. The “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that by 2025, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new vehicles. By 2035, pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream of new sales vehicles.
Figure 1: 2017-2020 monthly sales of new energy vehicles and year-on-year changes (Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website)
Charging piles: shortcomings in the development of new energy vehicles
“New infrastructure” is the infrastructure construction that focuses on the scientific and technological end, mainly centering on the 7 major areas of 5G infrastructure, UHV, intercity high-speed railway and urban rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, and industrial Internet Unfold.
In recent years, new energy vehicles have achieved rapid development as a strategic emerging industry. However, as the infrastructure of new energy vehicles, the construction speed of charging piles has not kept pace with it. The reason why the charging pile can be selected into the national “new infrastructure” series is mainly because it has become an important shortcoming restricting the development of China’s new energy vehicles. As of the end of January 2020, China has built 531,000 public charging piles and 712,000 private charging piles. In fact, in the early stages of the development of charging piles, public charging piles were mainly for service vehicles such as taxis, online car-hailing and logistics vehicles. With the increase in personal purchases of new energy vehicles, the construction of private charging piles has obviously not kept up with the growing market demand.
The next ten years: a trillion-dollar market scale
According to data released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of the end of December 2019, the cumulative number of charging infrastructures nationwide was 1.219 million units, of which 516,000 were public charging piles and 703,000 were private charging piles. From January to February 2020, the national charging infrastructure will increase by 26,000 units, of which public charging piles will increase by 15,000 units and private charging piles will increase by 11,000 units. It is estimated that by 2025, the investment scale will reach 90 billion yuan.
The construction of charging piles will further promote the rapid development of related parts and components industry, including charging operation management, the number of new energy vehicles, etc. It is expected that in 2025, the related investment will be more than 270 billion yuan.
Figure 2: 2015-2020 New Energy Vehicle Charging Pile Holdings (Source: China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance)
According to the “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” draft issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of new energy vehicles in my country is expected to reach 64.2 million by 2030. According to the construction goal of 1:1 ratio between vehicles and piles, in the next ten years, there will be a gap of 63 million yuan in the construction of charging piles in my country, and it is expected that a trillion yuan in infrastructure construction market for charging piles will be formed.
DC charging pile: obvious technical advantages and bright market prospects
From the perspective of the industrial chain, China’s new energy vehicle charging pile industry has three links. Among them, the manufacturer of the equipment required to build the charging pile is located in the upstream of the industrial chain, and the participants in the middle of the industrial chain are the operators of the charging pile. Participants downstream of the chain are the end users of charging piles, including new energy vehicle companies and individual consumers.
From the perspective of the types of charging equipment, the current charging infrastructure includes AC charging piles, DC charging piles, AC and DC integrated piles, and wireless charging piles. Among them, AC charging piles and DC charging piles are the two most important types in the market at this stage. The application scale of AC and DC integrated piles is small. Although wireless charging has a high demand, it has not yet formed an industrial scale.
Figure 3: Classification of Charging Infrastructure (Source: 2020-2025 China Charging Infrastructure Development Expected Report)
The charging time of the DC charging pile is short, and the average power is 100-120kW. According to market statistics, the average price of a single pile of global commercial DC charging equipment is between 100,000 and 150,000 yuan. However, the single pile price of high-power DC charging piles is much higher, with an average price of 600-700,000 yuan. The average price of AC charging piles, also known as “slow charging piles”, is about 5,000-20,000 yuan.
The cost of charging piles includes raw material costs, manufacturing costs and labor costs. Among them, the cost of raw materials is the input cost of charging pile hardware equipment, accounting for about 90% of the total cost of charging piles. The equipment required for charging piles mainly includes charging modules, active filtering equipment, monitoring and billing equipment, and battery maintenance equipment. In addition, DC charging piles with high power and high voltage need to install additional power distribution equipment, such as large transformers, high and low voltage protection equipment, etc.
Take the DC charging pile as an example. The charging module is its core equipment. It is mainly used to convert AC power into DC power that can charge the battery. This part of the cost accounts for about 50% of the raw material cost, and the active filter device accounts for about 15%. Cost equipment and battery maintenance equipment each account for 10%.
If you further subdivide the hardware of the charging pile, you can also see that the core electronic component that really affects the performance of the charging module is the IGBT, which plays a role in power conversion and transmission during the charging process, and accounts for the cost of the charging module. Achieve more than 20%.
Semiconductor manufacturers enter the market and provide overall solutions
In this “new infrastructure” technology feast, how can there be no support from semiconductor manufacturers? Of course, they will never be absent.
・ ST DC fast charging station solution
STMicroelectronics believes that although architecture based on renewable energy and battery storage technology (removing charging stations from the grid) is emerging, the mainstream solution is still through the grid and converters (power range is 120kW or above, with A Three-Phase input power factor correction (PFC) and an isolated DC-DC converter supply power.
ST has strong technical strength in silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon power mosfets, diodes and protection devices (TV), insulated gate drivers, and high-performance STM32 microcontrollers. The charging pile solution composed of these devices, It can help charging pile manufacturers to develop high-efficiency and high-power-density DC fast charging stations.
Figure 4: ST DC fast charging station solution block diagram (source: ST)
・ TI DC charging station solutions
DC charging station design requires professional knowledge to achieve the following features: accurate detection and control of power output directly to the car battery; high power density to support faster and higher power charging standards; efficient PFC and DC/DC conversion to reduce Loss; HMI that facilitates user interaction with the system.
The reference design of the DC charging (pile) station provided by TI (Texas Instruments) mainly revolves around the above technical requirements to help charging pile manufacturers quickly build smarter and more efficient electric vehicle (EV) DC charging (pile) stations.
Whether it is a PFC stage, DC/DC power stage design, or a central control system, each subsystem is the correct component required to design an efficient DC charging station. Users can directly use the overall reference design, or according to their own needs Select one of the subsystems.
Figure 5: Block diagram of the main subsystems of TI’s DC charging station solution (Source: TI official website)
・ Infineon DC charging solution
Infineon Technologies (Infineon Technologies) summarized the design requirements of EV vehicle DC charging piles into four points: one is to increase the output power to shorten the charging time; the second is to increase the power density within a set of charging station size; the third is to increase the load. Improve efficiency; fourth, reduce power consumption to achieve cost savings.
Infineon’s DC charging pile solution covers the power range from kilowatts to megawatts. It is a series of high-efficiency semiconductor product portfolios, including high-quality power semiconductors, microcontrollers, gate driver ICs, and security authentication solutions to meet The need for fast charging of EV batteries.
Figure 6: Infineon DC charging solution (Source: Mouser Electronics)
Concluding remarks
Nowadays, a 120kW DC charging pile can charge an EV battery to nearly 80% in 30 minutes. With the improvement of fast charging technology, the charging time is expected to be further shortened. Compared with new energy vehicles, although the hardware technology threshold of charging piles is much lower.
However, it is still very challenging to design a successful EV DC charging power supply. From the perspective of the charging pile solutions provided by semiconductor manufacturers, they have basically given a complete reference design. Users can also select one of the subsystems for their own design. This flexible design idea is very conducive to charging. Pile manufacturing enterprises quickly promote their products to the market.
As we all know, the charging pile has been written into the government work report and the “14th Five-Year Plan” outline. With the continuous strengthening of the country’s deployment of “new infrastructure” tasks and the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the charging pile industry will enter a rapid development. stage. In order to effectively address the new needs in various application scenarios, the charging pile technology will continue to be optimized and upgraded, and will greatly improve in terms of safety, low carbon, economy and convenience.
In recent years, the four new automobile modernizations such as electrification, networking, intelligence, and sharing have become the development trend of the automobile industry. After more than ten years of planning and cultivation, China’s new energy automobile industry has a certain scale advantage, and it has seized the opportunity in the new “four modernizations” of automobiles.
Data from the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: From January to December 2020, the production and sales of domestic passenger vehicles were 19,994 million and 20.178 million, a year-on-year decrease of 6.5% and 6% respectively. However, new energy vehicles have come out of a different market. From January to December, the domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles were 1.366 million and 1.367 million, an increase of 7.5% and 10.9% year-on-year.
According to the national industrial policy and development plan, in the future, the market share of new energy vehicles will further expand. The “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that by 2025, the domestic sales of new energy vehicles will reach about 20% of the total sales of new vehicles. By 2035, pure electric vehicles will become the mainstream of new sales vehicles.
Figure 1: 2017-2020 monthly sales of new energy vehicles and year-on-year changes (Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology website)
Charging piles: shortcomings in the development of new energy vehicles
“New infrastructure” is the infrastructure construction that focuses on the scientific and technological end, mainly around the seven major areas of 5G infrastructure, UHV, intercity high-speed railway and urban rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, and industrial Internet Unfold.
In recent years, new energy vehicles have achieved rapid development as a strategic emerging industry. However, as the infrastructure of new energy vehicles, the construction speed of charging piles has not kept pace with it. The reason why the charging pile can be selected into the national “new infrastructure” series is mainly because it has become an important shortcoming restricting the development of China’s new energy vehicles. As of the end of January 2020, China has built 531,000 public charging piles and 712,000 private charging piles. In fact, in the early stages of the development of charging piles, public charging piles were mainly for service vehicles such as taxis, online car-hailing and logistics vehicles. With the increase in personal purchases of new energy vehicles, the construction of private charging piles has obviously not kept up with the growing market demand.
The next ten years: a trillion-dollar market scale
According to data released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of the end of December 2019, the cumulative number of charging infrastructures nationwide was 1.219 million units, of which 516,000 were public charging piles and 703,000 were private charging piles. From January to February 2020, the national charging infrastructure will increase by 26,000 units, of which public charging piles will increase by 15,000 units and private charging piles will increase by 11,000 units. It is estimated that by 2025, the investment scale will reach 90 billion yuan.
The construction of charging piles will further promote the rapid development of related parts and components industry, including charging operation management, the number of new energy vehicles, etc. It is expected that in 2025, the related investment will be more than 270 billion yuan.
Figure 2: 2015-2020 New Energy Vehicle Charging Pile Holdings (Source: China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance)
According to the “New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” draft issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it is estimated that by 2030, the number of new energy vehicles in my country will reach 64.2 million. According to the construction goal of 1:1 ratio between vehicles and piles, in the next ten years, there will be a gap of 63 million yuan in the construction of charging piles in my country, and it is expected that a trillion yuan in infrastructure construction market for charging piles will be formed.
DC charging pile: obvious technical advantages and bright market prospects
From the perspective of the industrial chain, China’s new energy vehicle charging pile industry has three links. Among them, the manufacturer of the equipment required to build the charging pile is located in the upstream of the industrial chain, and the participants in the middle of the industrial chain are the operators of the charging pile. Participants downstream of the chain are the end users of charging piles, including new energy vehicle companies and individual consumers.
From the perspective of the types of charging equipment, the current charging infrastructure includes AC charging piles, DC charging piles, AC and DC integrated piles, and wireless charging piles. Among them, AC charging piles and DC charging piles are the two most important types in the market at this stage. The application scale of AC and DC integrated piles is relatively small. Although wireless charging has a high demand, it has not yet formed an industrial scale.
Figure 3: Classification of Charging Infrastructure (Source: 2020-2025 China Charging Infrastructure Development Expected Report)
The charging time of the DC charging pile is short, and the average power is 100-120kW. According to market statistics, the average price of a single pile of global commercial DC charging equipment is between 100,000 and 150,000 yuan. However, the single pile price of high-power DC charging piles is much higher, with an average price of 600-700,000 yuan. The average price of AC charging piles, also known as “slow charging piles”, is about 5,000-20,000 yuan.
The cost of charging piles includes raw material costs, manufacturing costs and labor costs. Among them, the cost of raw materials is the input cost of charging pile hardware equipment, accounting for about 90% of the total cost of charging piles. The equipment required for charging piles mainly includes charging modules, active filtering equipment, monitoring and billing equipment, and battery maintenance equipment. In addition, DC charging piles with high power and high voltage need to install additional power distribution equipment, such as large transformers, high and low voltage protection equipment, etc.
Take the DC charging pile as an example. The charging module is its core equipment. It is mainly used to convert AC power into DC power that can charge the battery. This part of the cost accounts for about 50% of the raw material cost, and the active filter device accounts for about 15%. Cost equipment and battery maintenance equipment each account for 10%.
If you further subdivide the hardware of the charging pile, you can see that the core electronic component that really affects the performance of the charging module is the IGBT, which plays a role in power conversion and transmission during the charging process, and accounts for the cost of the charging module. Achieve more than 20%.
Semiconductor manufacturers enter the market and provide overall solutions
In this “new infrastructure” technology feast, how can there be no support from semiconductor manufacturers? Of course, they will never be absent.
・ ST DC fast charging station solution
STMicroelectronics believes that although architecture based on renewable energy and battery storage technology (removing charging stations from the grid) is emerging, the mainstream solution is still through the grid and converters (power range is 120kW or above, with A three-phase input power factor correction (PFC) and an isolated DC-DC converter supply power.
ST has strong technical strength in silicon carbide (SiC) and silicon power MOSFETs, diodes and protection devices (TV), insulated gate drivers, and high-performance STM32 microcontrollers. The charging pile solution composed of these devices, It can help charging pile manufacturers to develop high-efficiency and high-power-density DC fast charging stations.
Figure 4: ST DC fast charging station solution block diagram (source: ST)
・ TI DC charging station solution
DC charging station design requires professional knowledge to achieve the following features: accurate detection and control of power output directly to the car battery; high power density to support faster and higher power charging standards; efficient PFC and DC/DC conversion to reduce Loss; HMI that is convenient for users to interact with the system.
The reference design of the DC charging (pile) station provided by TI (Texas Instruments) mainly revolves around the above technical requirements to help charging pile manufacturers quickly build smarter and more efficient electric vehicle (EV) DC charging (pile) stations.
Whether it is a PFC stage, DC/DC power stage design, or a central control system, each subsystem is the correct component required to design an efficient DC charging station. Users can directly use the overall reference design, or according to their own needs Select one of the subsystems.
Figure 5: Block diagram of the main subsystems of TI’s DC charging station solution (Source: TI official website)
・ Infineon DC charging solution
Infineon Technologies (Infineon Technologies) summarizes the design requirements of EV vehicle DC charging piles into four points: one is to increase the output power to shorten the charging time; the second is to increase the power density within a set of charging station size; the third is to increase the load. Improve efficiency; fourth, reduce power consumption to achieve cost savings.
Infineon’s DC charging pile solution covers the power range from kilowatts to megawatts. It is a series of high-efficiency semiconductor product portfolios, including high-quality power semiconductors, microcontrollers, gate driver ICs, and security authentication solutions to meet The need for fast charging of EV batteries.
Figure 6: Infineon DC charging solution (Source: Mouser Electronics)
Concluding remarks
Nowadays, a 120kW DC charging pile can charge an EV battery to nearly 80% in 30 minutes. With the improvement of fast charging technology, the charging time is expected to be further shortened. Compared with new energy vehicles, although the hardware technology threshold of charging piles is much lower.
However, it is still very challenging to design a successful EV DC charging power supply. From the perspective of the charging pile solutions provided by semiconductor manufacturers, they have basically given a complete reference design. Users can also select one of the subsystems for their own design. This flexible design idea is very conducive to charging. Pile manufacturing enterprises quickly promote their products to the market.
As we all know, the charging pile has been written into the government work report and the “14th Five-Year Plan” outline. With the continuous strengthening of the country’s deployment of “new infrastructure” tasks and the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the charging pile industry will enter a rapid development. stage. In order to effectively address the new needs in various application scenarios, the charging pile technology will continue to be optimized and upgraded, and will greatly improve in terms of safety, low carbon, economy and convenience.