At the end of year 2015, the total quantity of public EV charging spots in China reached 49,468 units, according to the statistical data from members companies of EVCIPA (China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance). It is almost 20 times increase than 2014. Comparing with the ownership of new energy vehicles in China is 583,200 units at the end of year 2015. There is a huge requirement exist in China EV charging station industry.
According to China government planning, it is expected that EV sales will reach 2.11 million units in 2020 with EV ownership exceeding 5 million units. China aims to build 12,000 centralized charging/battery swap stations and 4.8 million scattered charging spots across the country by 2020 to meet charging demand of 5 million EVs in principle of 1vehicle to 1 charging spot. So that more than 300 companies have been born within recent two years. Some big internet companies begun to enter the EV charging station market , like LeTV(樂視) invested Dianzhuang（電樁） in 2015. It was forecasted that the segment of China EV charging station would reach 100 billion RMB.
The biggest problem in China EV charging station industry is the shortage of EV charging spots. Nowadays It is impossible to drive an electric car for a long trip like a gasoline car cross provinces and cities around China. All EV charging stations are installed in a few big cities. The ratio of EV charging stations and gas station is less than 1:10. The quantity of gas stations was 94,251 in 2014 comparing that the quantity of public EV charging is round 10,000 in 2015.
The second problem is the EV charging standards aren’t same in the different areas in China. The part of reasons are due to the different physical plugs and sockets of charging equipment. Another one is that different communication protocols cause that EV charging stations can’t receive the command of charging from electric car. Mr.Mei Congyin, the general manager of NCG (Neusoft Consulting Group) said that most EV charging stations built before 2015 will be scrapped for not compatible with new China national EV charging standard which was implemented since Jan 1, 2016.
In the end, there are more than 300 companies in China EV charging industry. Their EV charging equipment aren’t compatible with each other. It is difficult to build a unified network to integrate all EV charging equipment with different brand. Japan has already solved the problem. Toyota, Nissan, Hondaand Mitsubishi jointly established a new company, Nippon Charge Service, LLC,(NCS) at 2014. Their goal was to help build a unified charging network that offers more convenience to drivers in Japan. For EV owners in China, It is still a long way to go.
There are two kind me of EV Charging Networks with the quantity of more than 50 in China. The first one is the dedicated network, which is operated by the EV charger makers. The well-known dedicated networks include Xingxing(星星), Telaidian（特來電） and Lianzhuang（聯樁）. They provide their own mobile phone applications for users booking, checking in, checking out and payment while recharging the electric cars or plug-in cars. The car owners have to register an account before using the charging service. Because that the different charging Apps aren’t compatible,if the user want to charge car in more than one brand spots, He or She has to install at least two Apps in smartphone.
The second one is the general network, which build a platform to collect the information of public charging spots, including address of station, type of charging and service price. The car owner can find easily all charging stations but with different brand near his/ her car. The well-known general networks include Dianzhuang（電樁）, Judian（聚電） and E-Charging（e充網）. The general networks can list some charging stations of the dedicated networks if they had a collaboration agreement. Now there are no perfect general networks in China. All Apps of general network only collect the part of information of public charging station. There are also many mistakes in the information of the Apps of general networks.
The top three networks in China are State Grid,China Potevio and Telaidian（特來電）, according to the report of EVCIPA, by the end of year 2015, the quantity of charging spots for State Grid was 29,631. The second place of China Potevio is 7,576. Telaidian in the third place owned 3,903 charging spots.
Bad user experience, multiple EV charging standards in different areas and EV charging parking lots being occupied by internal-combustion engine cars are main challenges for the development of China EV charging station industry. Actually China gas station industry faced the same problem during 1980’s. There was too much illegal smuggling oil and bad quality gas was full of market. The bad service in small gas station was another problem. The government rectified the market by the acquisition of small gas station. Nowthe main players in China gas station market only are Sinopec , China Petroleum and CNOOC（China National Offshore Oil Corporation）. Nowadays the main big players in China EV charging market are State Grid, South Grid,China Potevio and China Tower. All of them are the state owned enterprises. In future, the government must make another acquisition in EV charging stationindustry like gas station industry. It is forecasted that there are only 50 companies to survive after 5 years, and only left less 20 companies after 10 years.
Author: David Zhang, Ph.D, Independent Automotive Industry Analyst Consultant with more than 10 years working experience in the new energy vehicles industry.
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