The increase is nearly 50%! The number exceeds 12.8 million units! Charging piles are so profitable...

As new energy vehicles become more popular, the demand for charging piles is gradually increasing. Energy companies with charging piles as their main business, led by Xingxing Charging and Teladian, are developing rapidly. Among them, Teladian's charging pile network has covered 350 cities across the country. As of December 2024, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in the country will be 12.818 million units, up 49.1% year-on-year. It is expected that 1.038 million public charging piles will be added in 2025.

Traditional business model

The traditional business model that focuses on compressing operating costs. This model mainly exists in the initial stage of the operation of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Its characteristics are that the profit method is relatively single, mainly relying on charging service fees as a source of income. It is also the business model adopted by many companies in the early stage of the charging pile industry, maximizing benefits by reducing operating costs.

In 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission issued relevant regulations, clarifying that charging facility operators can charge electric vehicle users electricity fees and charging service fees, and charging electricity fees are implemented in accordance with national regulations. The service fee is charged at 0.4~0.8 yuan/kWh according to different local standards.

Photovoltaic storage and charging integration: photovoltaic panels are installed on the roof of the charging station canopy, and energy storage equipment and microgrid systems are equipped to achieve solar energy storage and charging integration. The clean power generated can not only be used to replenish the station's own electricity consumption, but also can be stored through the new energy microgrid system in the station, and "feed back" to the power grid to relieve the pressure of power supply and demand when regional electricity consumption is tight.

Compared with charging pile production and operation companies, this type of company mainly takes B-end industry customers as the starting point to provide charging solutions and comprehensive services for related companies.

Cooperation dividends: Find partners by integrating the power of the government, enterprises, society and other parties to participate in the construction together. There are two types of cooperation. One is to reach a cooperation with the venue that has the conditions for street power installation equipment. After completion, the partners will share the service fee income, such as: logistics park, parking lot, government, hospital, shopping mall, etc. From the perspective of cost and risk, it is reduced for all parties, and the cost can be recovered more quickly.

Another is to sell charging equipment, and then conduct trusteeship operation after completion, and share the service fee income dividends. I believe that many people have seen car charging piles near some tourist attractions, amusement parks or supermarkets. If operators place charging piles in these areas, it will not only provide convenience to new energy vehicle owners but also drive local consumption. Operators can reach cooperation with them and collect appropriate commissions or dividends.

Charging APP + intelligent management: Building a charging network is the basis of all profit models. If you don’t want to rely on charging service fees to make profits, then using the charging network as an entry to build charging, sales, leasing, and 4S value-added services can also maximize value and profits. The charging management system and mobile phone APP issue charging cards to owners of new energy vehicles to settle related expenses in a unified manner, and obtain cash flow through prepaid payments. It is also possible to build an intelligent platform to obtain a batch of high-quality customer information, and provide charging station operators with a variety of charging capacity and rate options by providing energy metering and management systems, thereby reducing the operating costs of charging stations.

Taking electric vehicle charging piles as the center, establishing a supporting commodity retail and leisure service business circle will become a new model for the development of electric vehicles and supporting industries in large and medium-sized cities in the future. According, in European countries such as Germany and Denmark, it is common to use the time of electric vehicle charging to further expand retail, fitness, beauty and other businesses to improve the stickiness of charging services.

Advertising revenue: Charging piles have become a new carrier of advertising. LCD screens or advertising light boxes are installed on charging piles, and print media advertisements are placed to promote the use and precautions of new energy and charging piles, provide safety instructions, parking instructions, service push and other content. In urban areas with considerable traffic, one day's advertising fees will bring huge profits.

Supporting auxiliary facilities: At present, most public charging piles are built on public parking spaces. Charging is divided into fast charging and slow charging. The charging time varies from 1 to 8 hours according to the capacity of the electric vehicle. Adding catering services such as convenience stores and recreational services such as small entertainment facilities around charging piles can make full use of this long waiting time and improve the utilization rate of charging piles in a humane and diversified way.

Transportation rental: Car owners with charging cars may face such problems: they need to change transportation on the way and cannot drive directly to the destination; there are no charging piles near their workplace/destination. Then the charging pile operator can solve the problem of the last few kilometers for the car owner. By renting electric scooters, bicycles, balance bikes and other transportation tools to electric car owners, it is convenient for car owners to travel and increase their own additional income.

Provide charging services for other equipment: expand self-service charging and electricity services for other equipment, such as mobile phones, computers, power banks, etc., and you can put the equipment in the scanning cabinet to charge without manual supervision. If the scanning cabinet is installed, you can also carry out temporary storage services for items, enter the password/scan the code to unlock through the mobile phone APP, and deduct fees according to time.