The government of Hainan Province, an island municipality in southern China, is significantly expanding its electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure network to as part of a larger push for EV adoption across the territory.
Why it matters: Hainan is pushing aggressively into EVs in response to a central government call to grow the total number of electric cars in China to 7 million units by 2025. Developing electric car technology, among other new vehicle innovations, is an major component of a government plan to achieve global leadership in core technologies.
- Hainan is leading the way among provincial-level governments with a radical plan to completely ban the sales of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2030.
- The charging network expansion plan follows an announcement earlier this month of a joint venture between ride-hailing giant Didi, China Southern Power Grid, and an investment arm of the local government to lease and sell electric vehicles, as well as manage charging infrastructure.
Details: The Hainan government on Thursday announced that it was constructing 2,221 charging piles in an investment deal worth RMB 144 million (around $21 million), according to a Chinese media report.
- All of the charging piles will be located in Haikou, the province’s capital city, and will be completed by the end of the year. The new units have an expected total output of up to 56,000 kW.
- Hainan’s government is planning a total of 28,000 charging piles across the island by the end of next year, around six fold the number it had last year.
Context: China leads globally in vehicle-to-charging pile ratio, and is looking to further invest in EV infrastructure. The central government stated in its Made in China 2025 initiative that the fuel consumption of passenger vehicles will be decline to about four liters for every 100 kilometers (around one gallon per 60 miles) by that time, and new energy vehicles should account for 80% of annual output.
- Beijing’s municipal government will grow the total number of piles in the city 20-fold to 435,000 by the end of next year.
- Shanghai is following suit, with plans to build 210,000 piles over the same period, a 10-fold increase from the current number.
- China had about 1 million charging facilities for public and private use as of end-June, and averaged seven EVs per charger in 2018 compared with about 20 for every pile in the US.