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On November 22, Changan and Weilaiguanxuan reached a cooperation agreement on power exchange business, under which the two sides will cooperate in four areas: unifying battery packs, jointly establishing power exchange system, jointly building battery asset management mechanism, and jointly developing power exchange model products. According to the agreement, the two sides will jointly promote the establishment of exchange battery standards. On the basis of a unified battery package standard, Changan Automobile will jointly develop interchangeable models with Lai Motor. The first interchangeable passenger car model of Changan Automobile, which shares battery packs with Lulai Motors, is scheduled to be launched in 2025.

Li Bin, CEO of Weilai, said, "after five years of development, Weilai power exchange network and Weilai energy cloud have accumulated rich experience in research and development, construction and operation, and the power exchange business is ready to be opened to the industry." It is understood that in addition to Changan Automobile, Weilai is also discussing cooperation with four to five automobile companies.

According to relevant data, as of November 20, there were a total of 2103 power stations across the country, with a total of 798 new stations this year. According to the plan, this year, Xilai Automobile will have a total of 2300 power stations.

Wei from the beginning of the birth of a huge investment in the layout of power stations, which is also one of the main reasons for the serious losses. In fact, the outside world has always questioned the power exchange model of Weilai. On the one hand, the cost of changing the power station is high, and every year it needs to pay a huge amount of investment to change the construction of the power station, which leads to sustained huge losses. On the other hand, the improvement of charging speed has reduced the profit space for the replacement of power stations. In addition, there is also a model compatibility problem in the Weilai power station, which makes it difficult to adapt more automobile companies to amortize costs, which makes it more difficult for Weilai to break even.

In order to make a profit, the Weilai power station has been changed from free to charge. In April this year, Weilai reduced the number of free power changes from six to four. In June this year, Weilai announced that it would cancel the free replacement of electricity for life, adjust the vehicle warranty period from 10 years to 6 years or 150000 kilometers, and reduce the price of new cars by 30, 000 yuan. Qin Lihong said, "the charge for power exchange service is actually right, because consumers charge for refueling." Based on this adjustment, it may be possible to reduce the cost of power exchange input in Weilai and promote the realization of more profits.

In fact, after so many years of layout, we can see that Weilai has achieved more positive feedback and industry recognition, but if Weilai wants to maintain its advantage in the new energy vehicle industry, it is not enough to insist on it. It also needs to promote the real profit of the energy business and the commercial closed-loop growth of selling cars and replenishing energy. Moreover, from 2018 to 2022, Weilai lost 76.4 billion yuan in five and a half years, and it will greatly promote the replacement of power plant layout in the future, which will also affect Weilai's profitability.

Since 2020, the relevant state departments have continued to promote the formulation of standards such as power stations and battery packs. At present, Weilai has been assisted by Changan Automobile. Once it is established as a national standard, its previously expensive replacement power station will be transformed into benign assets, with obvious first-mover advantages, and investors will also re-evaluate the value of the replacement power station.

At present, more and more enterprises also begin to layout and change electricity. In July this year, the EAN Haopin GT officially went on sale with a price of 21.99-339900 yuan. The model is positioned as a pure electric coupe and supports the power exchange mode, which also announced a comprehensive accelerated power replacement plan some time ago, and even shouted the slogan that "it only takes two and a half minutes" to complete the power change.

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