我省今年将建4万个汽车充电桩 – 海南日报
What happened: Hainan province will install 40,000 electric vehicle charging piles this year, including upgrading bus and government fleets into clean energy vehicles, Hainan Daily reported. A charging service station, which is a location that has multiple charging piles, jointly built by Hainan government and Chinese electric carmaker Nio was deployed before Chinese New Year, which this year fell on Feb. 5. Drivers can replace their vehicles’ depleted batteries at the station in exchange for fully charged ones within three minutes.
Why it’s important: The southern Chinese province of Hainan had more than 4,600 charging piles and four charging service stations as of the end of 2018. The local government there has said it will continue to provide subsidies for electric vehicle purchases in 2019. Such collaboration between government institutions and electric vehicle manufacturers provides necessary technical infrastructure that could help boost EV sales.