How can the charging infrastructure match the rapid growth of new energy vehicle production and sales? When will new energy vehicle owners achieve "charging freedom"?

A few days ago, the State Council Information Office held a State Council policy briefing to introduce the situation of promoting the high-quality development of the new energy vehicle industry, the issue of new energy vehicle charging became the focus of attention in this briefing.

　　The world's most extensive charging infrastructure system has been completed.


　　"From January to May this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles completed 3.005 million and 2.94 million units respectively, up 45.1% and 46.8% year-on-year, with new energy vehicle sales accounting for 27.7% of total new vehicle sales, continuing to maintain a good momentum of development." Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, introduced at the conference.

　　Xin Guobin mentioned that in the past two years, China's new energy vehicle market has achieved rapid growth, with annual sales increasing from 1.367 million units in 2020 to 6.887 million units in 2022, a fourfold increase between the two years, and new energy vehicles have accounted for more than a quarter of the total number of new vehicles.

　　Behind the pleasing production and sales figures is the huge demand for charging pile facilities.

　　Science and Technology Daily reporter learned from the conference that China has now built the world's largest number, widest range of services and most complete variety of charging infrastructure system.

　　"From 2015 to 2022, China's charging infrastructure holdings grew from less than 100,000 units to 5.21 million units, with an average annual growth of more than 700,000 units." Ou Hong, deputy secretary-general of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that especially since 2021, vehicles and piles have been growing in a synchronous explosive manner. By the end of May this year, the scale of charging infrastructure has reached 6.356 million units.

　　Ou Hong introduced that at present, domestic public charging piles account for about 33% and private charging piles account for about 67%. In the charging mode, fast and slow are combined, with AC low-power charging piles as the main and DC high-power charging piles as a supplement. From the layout point of view, the coverage rate of public charging pile facilities in the central cities of first-tier cities is over 80%, and the service radius is comparable to that of gas stations. 65% of the country's highway service areas are equipped with charging conditions, and the initial formation of "ten vertical and ten horizontal and two ring" highway fast charging network. In terms of technical level, the technical development lines of AC slow charging and DC fast charging have been formed, the level of vehicle-pile compatibility has been gradually improved, and the technical levels of charging efficiency, intelligent control and safety monitoring are internationally leading.

　　"Charging infrastructure provides charging and swapping services for electric vehicles and is an important transportation and energy integration type of infrastructure. Strengthening the construction of charging infrastructure will help to further release the consumption potential of new energy vehicles, better support the development of new energy vehicle industry and strongly guarantee the construction of modern industrial system." Ou Hong said.

　　Basic construction of high-quality charging infrastructure system by 2030

　　Although the development of charging infrastructure has been "catching up" in recent years, for many new energy vehicle owners, they may still encounter the problems of difficulty in finding charging piles, difficulty in getting charging piles into the community, and difficulty in charging on the highway. How to crack these problems?

　　As early as 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Guidance on Accelerating the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure", proposing the general requirements of building a moderately advanced, car-pile-along, intelligent and efficient charging infrastructure system. Since then, the relevant departments have issued a series of policy documents to promote the rapid development of charging infrastructure.

　　The General Office of the State Council recently issued the "Guidance on Further Construction of High-Quality Charging Infrastructure System" (hereinafter referred to as "Guidance") pointed out that, with an eye on the future trend of rapid growth of new energy vehicles, especially electric vehicles, charging infrastructure is still not perfect in layout, structure is not reasonable enough, service is not balanced enough, operation is not standardized enough and other issues.

　　Ou Hong introduced that the Guiding Opinions put forward the overall goal of China's charging infrastructure development, that is, by 2030, to basically build a high-quality charging infrastructure system with wide coverage, moderate scale, reasonable structure and perfect function, to strongly support the development of the new energy vehicle industry and effectively meet the people's travel charging needs.

　　In addition, the Guiding Opinions make top-level design for further building a high-quality charging infrastructure system with wide coverage, moderate scale, reasonable structure and perfect function in the new development stage, and clearly put forward five tasks such as optimizing and improving the network layout, accelerating the construction of key areas, improving the operation service level, strengthening the leading of science and technology innovation, and increasing the support and guarantee.

　　Ou Hong said, for the most strongly reflected problems such as "charging pile into the community is difficult" and "road charging is difficult", the Guidance Opinions have put forward targeted measures to solve.

　　For the "charging pile into the community is difficult", he introduced, the "guiding opinions" specifically proposed to actively promote the construction of charging infrastructure in residential areas. For example, in the installation of facilities, it is required to speed up the installation of charging infrastructure in fixed parking spaces in existing residential areas; new residential areas strictly implement the requirements for the construction of charging infrastructure and ensure that 100% of fixed parking spaces are built with charging infrastructure or reserved for installation according to regulations.

　　In response to the "difficult road charging", the "Guiding Opinions" propose to build a convenient and efficient inter-city charging network, speed up to make up for the shortcomings of the charging infrastructure of the road network between key cities, and effectively meet the demand for medium and long distance travel of electric vehicles; expand the coverage of the charging infrastructure of the national highway network, encrypt and optimize the layout of the facilities; promote To promote the scientific deployment of charging infrastructure in the service areas and service stations of ordinary national and provincial trunk highways with conditions according to local conditions, etc.