Since Tesla came to China, the concept of electric vehicles has been hotly hyped. However, how to solve the bottleneck of the development of electric vehicles - the charging problem is still a difficult point discussed in the industry. Charging, as an industry, is newer than electric cars.

On May 25, 2015, Jia Xuefeng, CEO of Judian, a leading company in the domestic charging industry, was interviewed by a reporter from Beijing’s GEEKCAR automotive portal in Judian. Jia Xuefeng has set up locations one by one in this industry and has his own solutions to the bottleneck problems of charging networks and electric vehicles. As an industry insider, he feels that what this industry needs is not a concept, but a solid foundation for the construction of a charging network. The following is the transcript of the interview:

1. How do you evaluate the cooperation with Tesla and Tesla’s self-built charging points?

There is no doubt that Tesla is a catfish that has stirred up China's electric vehicle industry and has contributed a lot to educating the Chinese market. However, catfish are not crocodiles. There is a shortage of parking spaces that are willing to be used to charge electric vehicles in China. It is not appropriate to monopolize public charging resources with one car. If further subsidies are required, it would be equivalent to using the country's new energy development budget to subsidize an imported car model and serve high-income people. Although I don't know much about politics, I understand that this is untenable. Many people use the value of Tesla, a relatively well-known brand, to package it. It works well as a gimmick in the short term, but there will be problems in the long term. Any business logic must be beyond gimmicks and do something practical that can change the business format.

For example, destination charging, but asking owners to bear costs such as electricity and parking fees is equivalent to overdrafting public resources. Once the public's attention to the brand declines, this kind of business will not last long. In other places, the charging points in some places use household chargers, which do not have safety measures to prevent leakage and waterproofing, and do not meet national safety standards. It is not appropriate to use a home charger to overdraw public charging parking space resources to only serve one imported model. Such a business arrangement is not appropriate.

But this is also the problem facing the industry now.

2. What are the characteristics of Judian’s charging points?

As a company dedicated to solving this problem, Judian has three characteristics:

1. Publicity. All the charging points we build are public and can be used by plug-in electric vehicles; this is to maximize the efficiency of resources in a state where the infrastructure is still relatively small.

Second, safety. All equipment complies with national safety standards;

Third, intelligence. We will not harm the interests of any party. Our equipment can be measured, charged and managed remotely. It is very convenient to use through the mobile APP.

3. What do you think of the many start-up companies that have emerged in the market today?

There are not many. The concept of entrepreneurship has been very hot in the past two years. New energy vehicles are a very popular industry due to the support of national policies and some topical events. Naturally, some companies that want to make something in this industry will emerge.

Many companies make charging equipment, but no company that produces equipment will just stop at making equipment. Everyone wants to build a charging network and deploy it into a network. But it’s easier said than done. It needs to be deployed point by point, and each point has actual operating benefits before you can call it a network. Otherwise it has little practical significance.

Investors are smart, and they will not easily pay for a network story. Most investors are financial investors, and they value the economic value of the charging network more. What we have to do is to solve the basic bottleneck problem in the development of electric vehicles, which has both economic and social value. We are thinking every day about how to solve the bottleneck problem of infrastructure in a market-oriented way.

This was originally a matter for the State Grid and a few state-owned enterprises, but the progress in this field over the years has not been ideal. Infrastructure is different from other fields, requiring large investments, long return times, and requiring a lot of policy support. No market-oriented private enterprise can stand up and say that I can do it well. However, this industry, just like China's reform and transformation, still needs some idealism. So what we are doing now is to build charging points one by one step by step, ensuring that each point can be powered and connected to the Internet, and can provide car owners with a good service experience, which is a bit like Foolish Old Man moving mountains.

4. What kind of company is Judian?

The electric vehicle charging industry is still an emerging industry, and there are only a few companies in our industry that have all the elements to lay out a charging network. First, we have complete hardware and software. Some of the team members make hardware, some make embedded software in hardware, and some make Internet applications. Second, we are very open-minded and good at cooperation. We have joined forces with Tesla’s after-sales installation partners to provide door-to-door installation services for car owners. Third, we know how to innovate, and we have financial support solutions to use the power of capital to solve infrastructure service problems.

5. What do you think of listed companies with charging pile concepts?

Concepts are one of the best levers in the capital market. Also driven by policies, many companies have similar concepts in their listing structures. However, in view of the development stage of this emerging industry, we can know that there are not many manufacturers, and the few manufacturers are concentrated in the station-level DC piles of public buses.

At present, this is also an area where the charging pile industry can quickly create benefits. One DC pile shipped is equivalent to hundreds of AC piles shipped. Therefore, most listed companies have not yet made up their mind to think about operations for the civilian market, and they do not have an Internet team to coordinate with the hardware team.

Judian also has its own fast DC charger products. We regard this type of product as another experience in providing charging services to the outside world, which is to solve the problem of fast charging for car owners. Whether it is DC or AC, fast or slow, we use an operating system and control it with a mobile phone.

Judian is an enterprise with solid basic skills. Our cost of deploying the charging network is low, and each charging point is operated more efficiently.

6. What do you think of apps and the concept of “Internet+”?

How does this industry become “Internet+”? Developing an APP is not difficult, but developing a system platform is very difficult. But what is a system? There are at least hundreds of thousands of concurrent users on it, and it is confirmed that there are no problems.

Take WeChat, for example. Its UI is really not difficult to look at, and you can easily imitate it. However, it is very impressive that 5 to 6 billion people can grab red envelopes during the Chinese New Year without any problems. We don’t have many concurrent users yet, but we have done a lot of stress tests and can confirm that there is no problem with at least 100,000 users using it at the same time. All settlements and information collection are safe and accurate. The connection between software and hardware during remote management is fast and stable. This is what our system is pursuing.

Nowadays, there are also teams who come from mobile Internet background and want to rely on APP to solve the charging problem. I think it is not enough. The Internet is just a tool, Internet+. This plus sign must be followed by real materials. For example, to solve the charging problem, engineers working on the Internet application level must sit together with engineers who understand power automation and embedded software. They collide every day. The operation team will provide real-time feedback on the problems encountered ahead. In this way, it may take several years to polish a useful "Internet + new energy smart hardware" system together.

7. Which models can Judian’s charging piles be connected to?

What we originally used was a stupid method but also an effective method, which was to benchmark each car company. Now we hope that the country’s new national mandatory standards will come out as soon as possible, so that we can save a lot of troubles about benchmarking. But even so, the handshake agreements between various models and charging piles are not all consistent, and the battery management systems are not all open. Therefore, when new standards come out, they still need to be benchmarked.

Car companies are open to benchmarking. After all, car companies also hope that there will be more charging points for their cars on the market, so that their users can also receive better services.

8. What are the short-term goals of Judian?

If we look at it in two years, if we build 10,000 charging points across the country, the Pearl River Delta region will account for more than half, because the Pearl River Delta is our base, including some of our regional partners across the country, and we will use the strength of our partners to expand into other regional markets. Here is an advertisement. No matter which city across the country friends want to join this industry, they can come and chat with Judian. We have always been adhering to an open mind and the ability to provide support to our partners.

9. What is your prediction for charging piles in 2 years?

In the past two years, due to the encouragement policies of the central and local governments for new energy vehicles and the craze of Tesla, the two waves from the government and the private sector have combined, making the concept of new energy vehicles and charging piles very popular.

The government plans to have 200,000 vehicles this year and 500,000 vehicles next year. This is a relatively exciting plan. However, with changes in policy subsidies, the electric vehicle market may cool down, and a lot of the hot money attracted by the Tesla concept may gradually fade away in this industry. After a year or so, the industry will stabilize.

At that time, one or two companies with this as their main business will be able to stand out and rely on market-oriented operating methods to achieve steady profits. People will also know who to look for when buying electric cars in the future, and awareness of some brands will gradually emerge in each region. We hope Judian will be one of such companies.