BAIC Group, State Grid EV step up cooperation in battery swapping, charging businesses

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- BAIC Group and State Grid Electric Vehicle Service Co., Ltd. (called “State Grid EV” for short) signed a framework agreement on July 27 to cement their strategic cooperation in order to promote the development of NEV industry.

Under the agreement, both parties will carry out in-depth collaboration in such businesses as the sale of complete vehicles and packages of charging services, the battery power pack, the battery swapping, the transaction of green power, the smart energy service, and the capital work.

To be specific, BAIC BJEV and BAIC Mobility will promote the charging service packages offered by State Grid EV, and cooperate with the latter on the connectivity and operation of charging piles, the EV orderly charging business for communities, and the new technologies like the plug-and-play, the high-power charging and the automatic charging, so as to jointly form an ecosystem and a marketing model integrating complete vehicles, charging piles and charging service.

As for the cooperation in the battery power pack business, both parties will make joint efforts to research the battery purchase and leasing, operation, cascade utilization and recycling based on the separating consumption of vehicles and batteries, and correspondingly hammer out the battery lifecycle management and operation solutions.

Besides, BAIC Group and State Grid EV will jointly build and operate battery swapping networks and stations, and popularize the energy service stations that integrate battery swapping, charging and energy storage functions. Meanwhile, they will also be engaged in such ancillary services as flexibly regulating the load of power grids and helping battery swapping stations offer the value-added service of adjusting the power demands at peak hours.

In addition, two parties will explore how to bring the load of EV charging stations, communities’ charging piles and EV manufacturing bases into the green power transaction. They will also work on promoting the application of EV orderly charging and V2G (vehicle-to-grid) technology.

On the signing day, “Jinan Ⅰ”, the first battery swapping station jointly developed by State Grid EV and BAIC BluePark Smart Energy officially put into operation. It is expected that a total of 10 battery swapping stations will be set up this year in Jinan to serve not fewer than 1,000 new energy vehicles (photo source: BAIC Group's WeChat account).