The new configuration of electric vehicle charging opens the era of wireless charging

Driven by a new round of new infrastructure policies, automatic driving and wireless charging systems supporting new energy vehicles will be the future trend. Imagine that in the future, after we arrive at the destination by car and get off, the vehicle will park itself in the parking space and start charging for the next trip.

The overall principle of wireless charging for electric vehicles is similar to wireless charging for mobile phones. At present, the wireless charging method used at home and abroad is to install an energy receiving device in the vehicle chassis, install an energy transmitter on the ground, and send electric energy from the ground end to the car end through the conversion of electric and magnetic fields, and charge it to the lithium battery.

Electric vehicle wireless charging principle

Compared with the traditional wired charging method, the difference between the two is only 2%-3% in terms of charging efficiency, but the wireless charging system has a significant advantage of safer and more convenient for users. The wireless charging system eliminates the need for charging lines and electrical connections, avoids the safety hazards of wired charging in plugging electrical sockets and exposed high-voltage cables, and the intelligent way of stop-go charging and automatic charging also greatly facilitates the operation process. Moreover, the use characteristics of wireless charging with stop and charge also make it possible to achieve multiple shallow charging mode, which helps to extend the service life of the battery.

Shanghai Wanji Electronic Technology Co., LTD., established in 2016, is a technology enterprise under the listed company Wanan Technology, which focuses on the research and development and manufacturing of wireless charging systems for new energy vehicles. It is the only supplier in China with both auto parts and mass production experience of automotive wireless charging products. Part of the core backbone comes from "Shanghai Chaoying New Energy Technology Co., LTD.", an enterprise that has been funded by Shanghai University Students Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation in December 2016.

At present, Wanji has an international research and development team of more than 30 people, and the actual project participants are more than 70 people. The wireless charging system developed by Wanji ranks among the first echelon of the global electric vehicle wireless charging industry. At present, it has built the most complete research and development laboratory of high-power wireless charging system in China and the first semi-automatic wireless charging product assembly and trial production line, becoming the first enterprise to obtain the small-batch production project of automotive wireless charging products and the mass-production model project of automotive wireless charging products in China, and the first enterprise to obtain the wireless charging development project of foreign automotive brands in China. The customers of the third generation products cover AUDI, BAIC, FAW, SAIC Maxus, Jianghuai and so on.

Smart charging ecosystem unmanned last link

In recent years, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and many other countries and regions have announced the ban time of fuel vehicles, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, Changan Automobile, BaiC and many other car companies have also announced that in recent years, traditional fuel vehicles will exit the market, and gradually turn to hybrid versions and pure electric vehicles.

In a recent study on the electric vehicle market, KPMG estimates that electric vehicles will account for 24 to 37 percent of the global automotive market by 2030.

In the domestic market, the "China Electric Vehicle Charging Facility Technology Development White Paper II: Wireless charging" released by the China Electric Power Union in 2020 predicts that with the improvement of product reliability, cost reduction and the development of autonomous driving technology, the car wireless charging market is expected to reach 100 billion level by 2035.

The national new energy strategy has pushed the entire new energy automobile industry to a considerable height. After the Internet and the Internet of Things, the charging network has become an important symbol of the development of a city. The charging network, the Internet of vehicles, and the Internet are integrated to create a smart charging ecosystem under the "Internet + charging" mode, which is more conducive to realizing the interaction between electric vehicles and the grid, and playing the role of mobile energy storage of electric vehicles. Wireless charging of electric vehicles is the last link in the whole unmanned operation of automatic driving, and it is also the most feasible automatic charging solution recognized by the industry in mass production.

Yao Chen said that in recent years, the state's policy support for new energy vehicles is very strong, but there is indeed a reality gap from planning to implementation, such as personal families without fixed charging parking Spaces and other problems that are difficult to solve at this stage. But under the broad push of another wave of policies in the 14th Five-Year Plan, the situation will improve significantly.

Break through technical problems, Become a leader in the wireless charging industry

According to Engineer Yao Chen, a complete set of Wanji wireless charger equipment is composed of three parts: wall box, ground charging board and vehicle charging board, and the system is complex and the threshold is high.

For example, metal foreign object detection technology. If there is a metal foreign body in the energy path of wireless charging, it will cause heat and even the risk of fire. How to accurately identify different types of metal objects, including as small as paper clips, is a technical difficulty in the development of wireless charging systems, and different algorithms are required according to the different spatial locations of metal objects.

Another example is the docking identification and accuracy of the ground charging board and the vehicle charging board. The range in which both the vehicle receiver and the ground transmitter can be effectively matched and operated determines the actual use experience.

In terms of hardware equipment, Wanji has built the most complete research and development laboratory of electric vehicle wireless charging system in China, which can independently complete all related functions, performance tests and some reliability tests; Built the first semi-automatic wireless charging system assembly line in China, which can be used for sample assembly, process verification and to meet customers' small-batch production needs.

Wanji inner

At the same time, Wanji has obtained more than 1,500 patents authorized by WiTricity and the former Qualcomm in the field of wireless charging, and has applied for dozens of patent licenses for self-developed platforms and related technologies.

At present, the National Standards Management Committee has issued four national standards on wireless charging of electric vehicles, covering some technical requirements, performance requirements, functional requirements, safety requirements, etc., in public and private applications, which are prepared by members of the research and development team of Wanji.

High-end configuration into the people's homes, opening the ceiling of enterprise development

At present, the entire automotive wireless charging industry is still in the penetration period. The medium and high-end EV in the industry began mass production, public applications began to gradually promote, and automatic charging schemes were formed with automatic driving and automatic parking, and a business model was gradually formed.

A common problem in the wireless charging industry is the high cost. Especially in the initial stage of the current industry, the cost of a set of wireless charging equipment may be as high as tens of thousands of yuan, of which the ground wall box and the transmitter spend close to 70%.

This also determines the business model of Wanji automobile wireless charging system, the ground end is mainly for equipment operators, parking lots, shared cars and other objects, the vehicle end is for other wireless charging equipment manufacturers, Oems, 4S stores sales, while providing overall solutions or module services.

Wanji automobile wireless charging system business model

Yao Chen admitted that the current wireless charging industry supply chain is still in its infancy, and there are still certain challenges for mass production security and cost control. Wanji is expected to start planning small-batch production models this year, with an expected output of 1,000-2,000 units.

In the next five years, electric vehicle wireless charging system models will increase rapidly, the industrial chain will gradually improve, sales will increase, costs will decrease, and the business model will become stable. According to the 2019 evaluation results of a well-known investment institution in the field of wireless charging, by 2025, the demand for wireless charging systems will reach 350,000 sets, and the market will enter a period of rapid development and promotion.

After that, wireless charging will become the standard for medium and high-end models and expand to low-end models, with rapid growth in shipments, further reduction in costs, and complete opening up of the industrial chain. But it all takes time to accumulate.

Yao Chen bluntly, in the face of the uncertainty of manufacturing research and development time, Wanji's car wireless charging project can be said to be the last stand. The research and development teams of ZTE New Energy, Anjie Wireless, and Sense technology, which are also relatively leading in the domestic industry, are also going all out and taking a gamble.

Because of its high added value and high technical threshold, the high-end wireless charging industry is indeed conducive to the breakthrough of emerging high-tech enterprises, but in the context of such a profound industry as automobiles, especially for entrepreneurial enterprises, the physical input cost is too large.

Through the past two years of equity incentives, the introduction of industrial capital, and the optimization of shareholder structure in line with the direction of enterprise development, Wanji is seeking to further open the ceiling of enterprise development.

After the predictable large-scale development stage, the industrial situation is still mostly a game between powerful old factories, and traditional factors such as channels will return to the dominant position of the industry's resource tendency. Wanji is still an emerging interloper in the big car business.

Wan and need, but also determined to product hard power fight to become the "great escape" in the last few survivors, and even that one survivor.