“During the May Day and November holidays, I traveled by tram. The problem of energy replenishment is actually not a problem, as long as you don’t turn on the iron and charge it when you need to recharge. ”
“Well, because I have a private pile at home, I use the ‘pure electric mode’ for daily commuting, so I cut to the ‘super hybrid mode’ one or two days a week to ensure the engine working condition. But when I go far away, I basically don’t think about the issue of energy replenishment here, and after reaching the point, I use oil when there is a pile and no pile. ”
As an automotive media that works around the theme of “cars”, the core keyword of the daily communication of the Commune Editorial Office is automobiles.
The above conversation was at the editorial meeting a week ago, when the author communicated with Mr. Cui Liwen of the commune, and each expounded their attitude towards the use of pure electric and hybrid vehicles.
That’s right, Mr. Cui drives a pure electric car, NIO’s Ledao L60. As for the author himself, some friends may have read the articles pushed before, remembering that it was Lynk & Co 08.
Picture丨The photo of the car change at the end of June last year commemorates the oil truck on the left that has served for more than seven years
Standing at this point in mid-2025,New energyWhether or not is no longer a question. But in some minutiae, controversy continues. Such as the question of “which new energy”.
This article selects two first-hand cases, Mr. Cui and the author, to look at the problem from the perspective of the car owner with a very subjective attitude. It’s not just to point out something or even summarize something, it’s just to talk about feelings.
01Pure electric travel is no longer special
Although it is similar to “Who should pick up the pot of charging for one hour and four hours of queuing”, “On the eve of Chinese New Year’s Eve, I was trapped in the service area waiting to charge”, “National Day holiday, youCharging pilesDid you win the “grab”? The scenes described in these articles are as vivid as memories of the past few months or last winter. However, if you calculate carefully, it has been nineteen months since the most recent one.
As of the end of May 2025, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure nationwide exceeded 14.4 million units, an increase of 45.1% year-on-year. Specific to the most important highway service system for cross-regional self-driving travel, among the 7,692 high-speed service areas (including temporary parking areas with only refueling facilities) in a broad sense across the country, the number of charging facilities has been built is 5,929, and about 35,000 charging piles have been built.
Picture丨Do you have a feeling that such a picture of chickens and dogs jumping seems to have decreased since last year?
From the perspective of the Yangtze River Delta region in the core of East China, there are at least 8 Guodian fast charging piles in any high-speed rest area. Of course, Mr. Cui’s car also has a “special” ability – changing the battery.
“I feel that when traveling in the Yangtze River Delta, there is no need to plan for ‘trams’, because there are too many charging piles in the high-speed service area.”
What’s more, Mr. Cui’s car has one more function – battery swapping: “Now (NIO battery swap station) the Yangtze River Delta Expressway service area is basically covered in place.” ”
Picture丨Actually, the battery swap station will also queue up, and even wait for the battery to charge. The author has seen it more than once. It can be seen that nothing can withstand the sudden increase
According to official data, as of June 22, a week ago, NIO has built more than 8,000 charging and swapping facilities across the country, including 3,371 battery swap stations. In mid-April this year, the “Xinmin Evening News” reported that NIO has deployed 187 battery swap stations in Shanghai alone, and the cumulative number of battery swap stations built in the entire “Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai regions” is 1,044.
In the current era of online communication dominated by extreme emotional expression, the brand of NIO belongs to the category of “when to send” in the expression system of a considerable number of netizens. Judging from the current market conditions, NIO’s situation is indeed not optimistic, but aside from these parts that you don’t have to worry about when driving out, its characteristics of supporting fast charging and battery swapping at the same time obviously have considerable merits.
Of course, in this era when 800 volts have become popular and 900 volts and even megawatt charging has appeared, if someone has a different opinion on the above and thinks that the value of battery swapping is getting lower and lower, then he can also stick to his own view.
After all, domesticNew energy vehiclesAfter five years of rapid development, in addition to the 35,000 charging piles that have been deployed on the domestic highway system, there are also more than 13.7 million public and private piles (according to data from the Chinese government website on April 28, 2025) under the highway.
Figure丨According to the current car habits/experience and the growth rate of energy replenishment facilities, the problem of charging for a few hours during peak periods has basically disappeared. In severe cases, the waiting time for charging is only 1 hour
Such a huge scale, even if considering the 60% appropriateness rate, in fact, in more than 90% of the year, except for a very few hot spots, the vacancy rate of charging piles is obviously extremely high.
And even during the remaining less than 20 days of long vacation and annual leave peak period, driving pureElectric vehiclePay proper attention to congestion and remaining power when traveling, in fact, there is no complete chaos like a few years ago.
More importantly, after 21 years of reckless hitting the road and lying on the road in the last half, 22~23 years of each of them took it for granted that they tried to be clever, but finally found that there were people as “smart” as themselves everywhere, the mentality of the car owners was tempered, and gradually and truly adapted to the many characteristics of the new thing of pure electric vehicles.
Picture丨A cross-provincial destination is arbitrarily set up, which shows that the current function has been very perfect, and it will be more complete in the future and the data will be more accurate
In particular, various navigation software also kept up with the situation in a timely manner. At present, both AutoNavi and Baidu will provide special new energy vehicle options, and after several years of optimization, they truly match the needs of car owners.
In the field of domestic Internet of Things and automotive big data travel, the unseen but tangible development is also constantly eliminating the blind spots on your way.
02The value that engines bring
“When you need to go far away, drive like a gas truck.” In the exchange that day, when the author explained why he chose a hybrid model a year ago, this sentence can be used as a final summary, and it also reflects the mentality of daily car use –
Since my home and work are just at both ends of the north-south axis of Shanghai, the author’s daily commute mileage is more than 70 kilometers. If you want to take a slight detour to send your wife to work, the daily mileage will exceed 80 kilometers. Therefore, how to reduce the commuting cost of driving every day is a key issue.
At that time, it was not that I did not consider buying another “small tram”, but it also meant an additional car insurance, as well as parking fees for multiple units and communities.
Picture丨Although there are plenty of parking spaces in the community where I live, the basic plan to have two cars is to wait until the children become adults. However, the words cannot be full, after all, there are always more changes in life than planned
So after weighing the pros and cons, I chose a hybrid model with a medium battery capacity that suited my family’s situation. Yesterday, after changing the car for a whole year, the first annual maintenance was completed, and the final cost of using the car in a year was also calculated.
From the beginning of July last year (2024) to yesterday (June 29, 2025), the total electricity consumption was slightly less than 4,800kW/h, and the total electricity bill was less than 1,600 yuan.
Of course, the above is the cost of using personal charging piles, plus the basic choice of valley electricity period. But there is one thing that is not accurate – because from July last year to June this year, the situation of stepped electricity prices was not fully considered. But even if you count it, the cost increase is very small.
During the period, a total of four boxes of No. 92 were added, and the total cost was calculated according to 1,600 yuan, and the total energy consumption of the vehicle was 3,200 yuan. The first warranty that has just been completed is given with the purchase of the car, and the difference is usually about 1,000 yuan according to the replacement parts.
Of course, the total mileage of the car was almost forgotten – just under 26,000 kilometers.
Figure丨In terms of vehicle usage frequency and average mileage, the author should be among the top domestic office workers
When I used to use oil cars (hatchback A-class cars), the monthly fuel cost was between 1000~1200 yuan. Then every 7,500 kilometers of maintenance, it can be completed directly in the nearest car repair shop, with a single cost of about 450 yuan.
Basically, the current cost of using a car is about a fraction of the previous one, and it is not enough. Of course, from the A-class to the mid-size SUV, the increase in interior space is also obvious. All in all, the current assessment can be said to be fully in line with initial expectations.
But here there must be friends who can’t help but ask: Teacher Cui talked about the problem of long-distance tram driving, why are you here to evaluate the cost of using hybrid vehicles? And this is the next point I want to talk about – I care about commuting costs, but when I go out…… See the first sentence of this section.
Figure丨Energy replenishment is no longer a big problem is certainly a huge improvement, but what if this problem does not exist at all?
Two of the four and a half boxes of oil added so far were used up in the week of last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival family trip, during which they departed from Shanghai and entered northern Zhejiang, “stroked” along Zhejiang Province, and ran more than 1,300 kilometers. During this period, I chose a place with beautiful mountains and rivers to park and rest more than once, during which it was naturally indispensable to arrange and carry mobile air conditioners, barbecue grills, etc.
In short, as mentioned above, from my own point of view, the author’s mentality is: I count carefully on weekdays, and I still worry so much all day after taking a vacation.
That’s right, with the blessing of navigation and the brand’s supporting mobile APP, many times the matter of finding piles and swapping batteries cannot reach the level of “planning” or even “worrying”. But I still want to say that when your car can increase the range by 600 kilometers in two minutes, and the queue is up to 10 minutes when “charging”, “energy replenishment” will never become a “problem” in the slightest.
Picture丨A photo taken by the author during his trip during the Spring Festival last year. Sometimes, it is often the one who drowns
In short, the reason why I chose hybrid is because I want to take advantage of the benefits of oil cars and trams. The “same price of oil and electricity” since the beginning of last year also means that there will be no need to pay additional costs for this.
“You said a lot, but it didn’t convince me.”
A few days ago, when the author and a few friends chatted with most of the views and contents elaborated in this article, more than one person said so. But the crux of the matter is that I am not trying to “convince” anyone.
In this era of rapid popularization of automobiles in China, in this trend of rapid growth and growth of Chinese car companies with the advantage of new energy, every car owner has the right to choose a certain type of car, a certain car, and a certain car. Both the car itself and the social support system are improving at a speed that was unimaginable before.
Standing at the time node in 2025, anyone can uphold their own demands when it comes to buying a car, whether it is pure electric or hybrid, the optimal solution is the solution that everyone expects.
In the roadmap of future automotive power trends launched in previous years, pure electric vehicles will inevitably dominate the market in the medium and long term. However, its process and trend cannot be accurateforecastwith the planned.
This is like the classic case of hot tea cooling in Chaos Theory – we know that a cup of hot tea at 60°C resting on the table will inevitably cool to room temperature in a relatively fixed period of time, but it is impossible to restore this process with a formulaic mathematical model.
A sudden new solution, an emotionally driven market trend, or a process or technology that seems smooth sailing but suddenly gets stuck will have an impact on the process of change.
Picture丨So what? If you drive a car you need, whatever others say. This is true for pure points, hybrids, and even fuel vehicles
In May last year, NIO’s Li Bin used a “pacifier” to compare the hybrid model that was highly popular at the time after an event. While stating that NIO does not intend to engage in it, it reiterates its transitional nature.
I basically agree with this, so I chose a hybrid when changing cars.
It’s really not a bar, because what is basically certain is that the transition period is still quite long.