Innovative practice of EV-carsharing in China for urban E-mobility

EV-Carsharing (called as ‘EV-Timesharing’ in China) has been rapidly developing with the 2nd round National EV promotion and application project in 88 Chinese EV pilot cities authorized by Central Governments from 2013. While EV-Carsharing has been launching in more than 10 cities by end of 2014, Central Governments will select 4 as demonstration cities from 2015 and give special support to help them integrate EV-Carsharing into urban E-mobility more successfully. Recognizing importance and benefit for energy conservation, emission and traffic congestion reduction from EV-Carsharing, encouraged by Central Governments and pilot cities, more and more cities are preparing for EV-Carsharing to develop local EV industry and expand usage for urban E-mobility.This report is based on deep understanding of Chinese EV Pilot City as the biggest background for EV-Carsharing’s boom in China in past 2 years. Through conducting comparative studies, field investigation, survey, expert interview, data collection and analysis, this report comprehensively summarizes latest status of EV-Carsharing in China and some typical practice in different cities and highlights successful experience as well as barriers on key dimensions for EV-Carsharing, including application of telematics on EVs, Governments’ policy and administration, business and operating models, safety and security system and consumers’ education. Suggestions and guidelines will also be provided with recommendations on operating successful EV-Carsharing for urban E-mobility and better low carbon society for both China and other areas.


Introduction
With continuous development of EV promotion and application in all fields of urban mobility, EV applied in carsharing has become increasingly widespread. Positively affected by early well-known and successful cases worldwide, such as Car2go in Germany and Autolib' in Paris, Chinese EV-Carsharing has been blooming since 2013 encouraged by fast development of Chinese EV pilot cities and strong demand for sustainable urban mobility.

Background
The first EV-Carsharing project in China was 'Chefenxiang', which kicked off in 2011and was operated by Hangzhou EVnet Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. The company learned from experience of American Zipcar Carsharing model to carry out carsharing service of Internal Combustion Engine Vehicle (ICEV) and also conducted testing business operation of 2 EVs (vehicle model: BYDF3) using operating experience of Car2go and Autolib' EV Carsharing for reference. Followed this earliest Chinese EV-Carsharing in Hangzhou, with substantial increase of Chinese EV production and sales in the past two years as well as the 2 nd round of Chinese NEV pilot city development as the most important background, EV Carsharing rapidly expands in these cities. By January 2015, at least 15 cities had begun commercial operation or entered test preparation phase while more and more cities had proposed development plan.

Main power for fast development of Chinese EV-Carsharing
The biggest driven power and base for boom of EV-Carsharing comes from National EV strategy and EV Pilot City project in China.
In 2012, Chinese State Council published 'Energy saving and new energy vehicle development plan (2012 -2020),' making a strategic plan on national level that cumulative production and sales of New Energy Vehicles (NEV), including Electric Vehicles (EV) and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles(PHEV) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles(FEV) , should reach 500,000 by 2015 and more than 5,000,000 by 2020.
To assure the national EV strategy, the Four Chinese National Ministries (Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of industry and information technology, the Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission) led and conducted the 2 nd round national project named EV Pilot City to facilitate EV usage in urban mobility from 2013 based on the closed 3 years' 1 st round project from 2009-2012. 88 cities including 30 single cities and 58 cities grouped in 9 city clusters in 9 provinces were selected as EV Pilot Cities and should promote and apply at least 5,000 EVs or 10,000EVs for each city or city cluster in their urban mobility during 2013-2015.
All 88 cities should promise to promote at least total 336,000 EVs in the 3 years. Chinese central governments and cities have adopted many policies to encourage NEV application, especially a large number of policies have been introduced densely to form effect superposition since the second half of 2014, and Chinese NEV production and sales have increased rapidly as shown in Figure 1. National annual production and sales of NEV in 2014 are respectively 78,499 and 74,763 vehicles, which are respectively at 3.5 and 3.2 times year-on-year growth. But due to various obstacles of NEV application, by the end of November 2014, the average task completion rate of the 88 pilot cities in NEV promotion and application is lower than 12%. [ EVs, which especially applied in EV-Carsharing business operations, are not affected by the restriction on the purchase of vehicles. They play an important role in meeting the demand of travel from residents and relieve traffic congestion contradiction in cities which have implemented restriction on the purchase and travel of vehicles.
 Improve smart transportation: By means of Internet of Vehicles, mobile Internet and Internet technology, intelligent multiple terminal interconnection will be realized among cars, charging poles, parking spaces, people as well as operating companies even the entire city traffic monitoring system. If EV-Carsharing realizes self-service and smart car rental, car rental process, battery status, driving process, security, charging poles' performance are monitored and aspects of billing payment and settlement are intelligentized, it will improve the level of smart urban mobility.  Providing test driving to people without drive license will help improve safe driving level of urban residents.  Providing test riding and test driving opportunities help people better understand and ready to buy EV. In addition, to individual or corporate users, EV-Carsharing is a more economical way to travel.

Chinese EV-Carsharing and characteristics
Compared with international EV-Carsharing cases, such as Car2go and Autolib', Chinese EV-Carsharing has its unique characteristics because the precondition, history and development models are quite different.

Why EV-Carsharing was called as 'EV-Time Sharing' in China
Chinese EV-Carsharing is a kind of carsharing with the flowing characteristics.  Drive by renters, no driver provided. This distinguishes it from Taxi or Uber car rental.  EVs used for business are all purchased by operating companies or obtained from OEMs or car rental companies with legal rights to operate. No private cars are used for business. This distinguishes it from P2P carsharing which use private cars and is prohibited in most cities as illegal operation.
 Rental time is shorter than traditional car rental like Avis and Hertz. Each rent can be short as 10 minutes and most of its charge is calculated by minutes but rather days.  Better for short distance in a city, such as 2-50kms one trip rather than long distance or intercity trip.  Membership system: need to register to become a member, a one-time authentication.  Intelligent full self-service, all stations unguarded. EV-Carsharing was called as 'EV-Timesharing' officially in China from 2013. The main reason is that car rental developed rapidly from 2012, the word Carsharing was used with fuzzy boundaries among different car rental model, including some illegal carsharing business, such as P2P car rental. As stated above, EV-Carsharing mentioned in this report does not allow any private EVs used for rental business and is supported by Chinese Central Governments and cities officially. Based on the clear statement above, this report will still use EV-Carsharing to refer the current name 'Chinese EV-Timesharing'.  EV-Carsharing operating companies will generally also operate ICEVs and number of ICEVs is more than EVs, similar to Car2go. EV used is generally pure EV, and PHEV will basically not be used, mainly because it is more complex to monitor and control both of its electric quantity and fuel capacity.  Business model mostly used is O2O (Online to Offline), and in order to improve the efficiency of EV use and increase revenue, most operating companies will take a modes combining short-time and long-term lease. For example, during the day time, use mainly short-term lease of time sharing charged according to rental minutes or combining mileage. At night, night package segment long-term lease billing model will be used. Users rent EV from office to home after work and drop the car off at carsharing station when going to work in the next morning.  Business types include B2G (Business to Government), B2B (Business to Business), and B2C (Business to Customer). With the official use of carsharing business grows steadily, many carsharing companies have launched special programs and charging standards for business travel demand. One operating company will often carry out a business portfolio combined with B2G, B2B or B2C at the same time.

EV Car-sharing process
Although business models of Chinese EV-Carsharing operating companies vary, basic rent process is similar, including registration to be a member, reservation, pick-up and usage, return of EV and payment. Registration process can be accomplished via smartphone APP or website. ID card and driver's license must be uploaded to verify identity, while some operating companies also require fingerprint verification. Reserve and pick-up an EV can be finished via smartphone APP by LBS. EV can be unlocked via a membership card or smartphone while some companies provide a function to unlock EV via ID card or Bank card. Customers can pay via online payment.

Business moduels
Mainly including: EV model selection, purchase or obtain EVs from partners, network construction combined charging poles with parking space for charging, pick-up and returning EV, customers' mobile terminals, on board equipment and terminals, monitoring and dispatching platform, call-center, repair and maintenance, insurance, finance, charge and payment, emergency rescue, etc.

Latest development of EV-Carsharing in China
EV-Carsharing has been encouraged by national and local governments' increasing support together with showing a very quick development. Various enterprises have poured into EV-Carsharing business while more EV models are available for carsharing usage and technology of software and hardware as business models developed rapidly.

Local cities accelerate development of EV-Carsharing
Besides cities which launched EV-Carsharing already, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, more and more cities have been preparing or planning to develop EV-Carsharing, including Chengdu, Qingdao, Changsha, Wuhan, Jinhua, Hefei, Tianjin, Yancheng, Changzhou, etc. Xiamen and other 8 cities in Fujian province are under the way to operate EV-Carsharing as a group taking unified action. Same EVs, operating technology and platform, business model, service price will be adopted in the 9 cities in Fujian. On January 8, 2015, Chongqing became the first city in Asia to launch Car2Go. Chongqing City signed a contract with Daimler to introduce Car2Go's Carsharing in China. 600 gasoline Smartfor2 will be operated in Chongqing in 2015 first before EV-Smartfor2 used for Carsharing service. Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission listed EV-Carsharing as key projects in 2015 and offer 1,500 licenses for EV-Carsharing business while car rental license is

Academic research is strengthening
Automotive studies in Tongji University set a team and EV-Carsharing lab to research commercial application and impact on urban mobility of car networking technology when taking the lead in the implementation of '2011 National-level Project of Collaborative Innovation Center' for Intelligent New Energy Vehicle. The lab will conduct special research on business models, operating models and consumers' preference, etc. on EV-Carsharing.

Various type of enterprises are actively involved in EV-Carsharing
Most of operating companies of EV-Carsharing in China currently are IT or Internet enterprise. They started EV-Carsharing business based on their strong development ability on system and multiple-terminals. From 2014, various enterprises are aggressively involved in. Several major EV makers, such as SAICMOTOR, Beijing Electric Vehicle Co. Ltd., and Chongqing Changan New Energy Automobile Co. Ltd., etc., all announced their plan to establish EV-Carsharing company and start business operation using their own EV productions. Some domestic traditional car rental giant, such as 'Yihai Auto Rental', ordered more than 1,000 EVs to prepare Carsharing business. Some lithium battery enterprises, like the listing corporation, Shenzhen xingwangda has been finishing test process for EV-Carsharing cooperated with a car networking technology enterprise. In Wuhan, EV-Carsharing will be started by a specially established company, Wuhan Electric Vehicle Demonstration Operation Co. Ltd. In Chongqing, a logistics enterprise took the lead of EV-Car sharing service for EMS industry Founded in May, 2013 in Beijing, Yiduo company, now renamed the 'one point car rental', is one of the earliest and leading carsharing companies in China who developed a set of carsharing solution including most advanced RFID multi-card recognition and accurate mileage monitoring technology domestically. By end of 2014, its business had been extended to 10 cities with more than 800 station and 15,000 ICEVs serving 200,000 registered members. This leading ICEV-Carsharing company will also enter EV-Carsharing market via cooperating with the Wuhan company. Stgcon New EnergyTechnology Co. Ltd is a provider of EV Charging station construction and service who built the first intelligent photovoltaic charging station in Beijing core shopping district. It signed a strategic cooperation agreement with an EV maker in January 2015 to launch EV-Carsharing deploying its charging network.

Best practice cases of Chinese EV-Carsharing
Some typical cases of Chinese EV-Carsharing representing different operating or business models for different service objects under different preconditions deserves attention and study for the whole industry.

GREENGO EV-Carsharing for official trip
An EV-Carsharing station of GREENGO, which located besides the office building of Ministry  Furthermore, as one of the Four Chinese National Ministries that lead and guide the project of Chinese EV Pilot City, Ministry of Science & Technology not only adopts GREENGO service for official trip but also encourage officers to purchase and pay it for private use.

Comprehensive business and operating model of EV-Carsharing -Hangzhou 'Chefenxiang'
'Chefenxiang' is a membership-based car rental platform that provides hourly billing car rental services to its members. It is developed and operated by Hangzhou EVnet Technology Co., Ltd. which is China's first company to develop and operate carsharing system. Currently 'Chefenxiang' mainly operates ICEV sharing by mode with vehicle purchased by themselves, system developed by themselves and fleet operated and managed by themselves. In the future it will cooperate with other car rental companies who provide vehicles and focus on output support on technology, equipment, business models and operation management. Therefore, it can expand fleet size and cities' coverage. The company began system development in 2010 in Hangzhou and formally launched the system in the end of 2011 through test preparation, becoming the first domestic integrated provider of carsharing technology. [4]

Eyueche EV-Carsharing
Since 2014, Eyueche has taken business mode that provides governments or companies with technology of EV-sharing platform, in order to help transaction of currently existing fleets from traditional mode to carsharing mode. Eyueche also runs its own EV-Carsharing platform. Car rental service providers can be allied companies with Eyueche, when they include their EV cars into the platform. With the joint venture, car rental and charge of EV will be much more convenient and intelligent, in addition, regional and city EV-Carsharing platform can thus be built up. [5]  In 2015, Eyueche will develop and promote the v1.0 Edition, build up O2O business mode, extend its service to at least 5 cities. In addition, Eyueche will be involved in reform of official fleets. In 2018, Eyueche will update its system to v3.0, extend its service to 300 cities throughout China, set up 50,000 stations, develop 2 billion users. In 2019, Eyueche will make efforts to list itself on the stock market.

Shanghai EVCard
Shanghai EVCARD is a typical case of EV-Carsharning jointly promoted by government, industry, academic institution. This EV-Carsharning service is operated by Shanghai International Automobile City Operation Service Company, and has functions of undertaking promotion and application task of Shanghai EV pilot city, building Shanghai International EV Demonstration Zone and improving traffic of shanghai, etc. Therefore, it gets strong support from Shanghai Municipal Government and Jiading District where Shanghai International EV Demonstration Zone is located. SAIC and Tongji University cooperate to conduct vehicle-mounted R&D, operational testing, etc. EVCARD started trial operation at the end of 2013 at Tongji University. By January, 2015, 50 lease hotspots in total have been enabled in Shanghai, including districts such as Jiading, Songjiang, Yangpu and Pudong, etc., and 350 EVs have been put into operation with a membership of more than 3,000. [6]

Other case of EV-Carsharing: 'E-Micro Public Transportation' in Hangzhou and Logistical EV-Carsharing in Chongqing
In addition to EV-Carsharing practice mentioned above, there is 'E-Micro Public Transportation club' in Hanghzhou and Ruikang Logistical EV-Carsharing in Chonqing. Both are in large scale and deeply impacted in China currently. Though the rental process is not as intelligent as other cases, such as Eduo in Beijing, CheFenXiang in Hangzhou or EVCard in Shanghai, both of them will promote management system and operation model in the near future. [7]

'E-Micro Public Transportation' in Hangzhou
The 'E-Micro Public Transportation' in Hangzhou is dedicated to make car rental process as economic and convenient as bicycle rental. As a revolutionary way of transportation, it is considered as an important supplement to the public transit system, so it is named as 'E-Micro Transportation'. Since July 2013, nearly 10,000 EVs have been put into service in Hangzhou. And 4 integrated rental position and 17 stops were set up. Furthermore, it extends the service to other cities, such as Chengdu, Changsha, Shanghai, etc. The logistical service of Ruikang has its own characteristics, such as fixed logistical distribution routine, short mileage of single trip, building charging station based on distribution routine, intensive distribution aiming at low-carbon of domestic initiation, etc. Till now, nearly 120 EVcars of the EV mode 'DongFeng Xiaokang' has been put in service, delivering express among university campus and huge residential community.

Challenges and suggestions
Although EV-Carsharing is in explosive growth driven by national and local governments' political will and leadership as well as various enterprises' business effort, progress is slower than expected or planned. There are few stations and small size EV-Carsharing fleets with general less than 100 EVs in a city. The economy of operating companies is poor while it is not convenient to rent EVs from fewer stations thus customers' acceptance is very low so far. Main challenges and suggestions are pointed out and proposed as follows.
 As a new urban travel-mode, EV-Casharing was not recognized its characteristics of public service to a certain degree officially but just a general car rental business. Besides operating licenses are difficult to obtain and layout of stations lacks of support from governments, the biggest obstacle is that chaos and confusion appeared on commercial operation, asset categories, traffic rule such as whether it is required to limit line as usual, tax management in some cities without clear classification of EV-Carsharing. Central and local governments should give a clear classification for EV-Carsharing. In addition, local governments should integrate EV-Carsharing into cities' development planning, land use planning and transport planning for sustainable urban mobility based on regarding EV-Carsharing's public characteristics.  Usage of EV-Casharing in Governments and public institutions is not much. Governments should actively take the lead of deploying EV-Carsharing as official fleets and purchase the service for private trip to play an exemplary role.  The majority of local governments would like to support the use of local EV, which is not conducive to EV-Carsharing companies using more appropriate EV models. Local government should open local market to form fair competition.