Against the backdrop of strong sales of electric vehicles and a strong commitment by the government to promote the popularity of electric vehicles, the Chinese automotive industry is welcoming a large influx of funds to improve the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. China‘s electric vehicle charging infrastructure promotion alliance data ("Affiliate") shows that as of July 2019, China had a total of 1.05 million public and private charging piles, compared with 777,000 at the end of 2018. About 447,000 of them are located in public places. However, this growth rate is still far behind the government‘s goal of building 4.5 million charging piles by 2020. Currently, the charging pile industry is dominated by a number of Chinese operators. Domestic electric vehicle charging service operators have called New Energy Company to have 130,000 charging pile networks nationwide, followed by state-owned carriers National Grid and fast-growing domestic infrastructure manufacturers.

The special call earnings report shows that in 2018, the company‘s total revenue increased by 13.7% year-on-year to 5.8 billion yuan (about 814 million US dollars). It is worth noting that this is the first time since the company opened in 2014 that it has achieved breakeven and net profit of 200 million yuan. Special calls account for about 40% of the market share in the public charging service; the company attributed its financial performance improvement to the increase in charging pile flow, operational efficiency and the change of government subsidy policy, that is, the government based on the efficiency of charging piles rather than new construction Charge the number of piles to motivate the charging service provider.

Traditional oil and gas companies are also looking for a larger market share in the charging market. According to China Daily, Sinopec, the largest gas station operator in China, announced in August that it has built 40 charging stations at 10 gas stations in Haikou, Sanya, and eight round-the-island high-speed service areas in Hainan Province. . Sinopec will also speed up the construction of integrated energy supply stations to provide users with one-stop services including gas filling, charging and hydrogenation. Foreign companies are also adjusting their pace of entering the Chinese charging market. In late July, BP and Didi Travel established a new joint venture to build an electric vehicle charging infrastructure in China. Prior to this, the two companies opened a pilot site in Guangzhou in May this year, which has 10 fast-charging piles ranging in power from 60 kW to 120 kW. BP said that the future success of the joint venture is critical to achieving its goal of becoming China‘s leading electric vehicle charging service provider.

In 2015, China announced plans to build 4.8 million new charging piles by 2020. Due to the large investment of specialized charging service providers such as electric vehicle manufacturers and special calls, the number of public charging piles in China has been growing rapidly, which is also regarded as a key engine to promote the widespread use of electric vehicles. The growth in sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs) also convinced automakers, service providers and policymakers that the rational deployment of charging infrastructure will help expand the base of Chinese electric vehicle drivers. By the first half of 2019, China‘s new energy vehicles had reached 3.4 million vehicles, including pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. In the next 10 years, sales of pure electric vehicles will continue to grow, and sales this year are expected to exceed 1.1 million units. Despite the surge in the number of electric vehicle charging piles, many public charging piles are poorly managed and the usage rate is relatively low. However, this situation will improve as competition in the industry intensifies.

On September 26, the first super charging station of Xiaopeng Automobile, an electric vehicle startup company, was officially put into operation. The charging station jointly built with the special call company is located in Qingdao. Xiaopeng Automobile will continue to use the expertise of the special call company to realize the plan of deploying 1,000 super charging stations throughout China. Volkswagen also cooperates with Chinese company stars to provide charging services for its electric car users. The new joint venture, jointly established by Volkswagen and Stars, will focus on the development of electric vehicle charging facilities such as home smart charging wall boxes and fast charging stations.

Local governments are also stepping up efforts to strengthen this weak link to accelerate the popularization of electric vehicles. According to China Daily, Beijing became the first city to provide subsidies based on the evaluation of the operating indicators of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Its evaluation criteria include several aspects, including the maintenance and management of facilities, and the frequency of use of these charging facilities on a daily and yearly basis.