China doubled its EV chargers in 2022 alone, over 5.2 million units in operation currently
Arvind · Mar 6, 2023 09:00 AM
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Approximately 2.6 million new EV charger were installed in 2022. Image
The epicentre of battery EVs (BEV), China, has nearly doubled its number of EV chargers in just one year. Buoyed by increasing demand for EVs, approximately 2.6 million new EV chargers were installed in 2022 alone, with even more to come in 2023.
According to China Daily, charging infrastructure saw nearly 100 percent year-on-year growth in 2022, bringing the total number to 5.2 million units up from the 2.6 million operational chargers, as of Feb 2022, citing data from China’s National Energy Administration (NEA).
China now boasts a whopping 5.2 million EV chargers - consisting 1.8 million public and 3.4 million private charging facilities.
In 2022 alone 650,000 public and 1.9 million private charging facilities were installed, according to NEA.
According to China’s Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance – the current ratio totals 1 charger for every 2.6 EVs. As of end-2022, there are an estimated 13.1 million EVs in China with another 8.4 million forecasted to be sold in 2023.
Having the largest EV charging network in the world, Liang Changxin, spokesman of the NEA said “The charging market in China is showing a diversified development trend, with over 3,000 companies operating charging piles. The volume of electricity charged for electric vehicles has continued to grow, with the total amount exceeding 40 billion kWh in 2022, a year-on-year increase of over 85 percent,"
However, Liang told China Daily that despite having many EV chargers, the country is still grappling with certain challenges: non-strategic layout of public charging facilities, difficulty in building charging piles in some residential areas, irregular operation of the charging market and inadequate facility maintenance.
A poignant example of all of the above factors was seen last year. During a heatwave in several provinces of China, the EV charging infrastructure buckled under increased energy usage (for cooling during the heatwave) leading to reduced charging output and extremely long queues that lasted up to 12 hours in certain areas due to charger shutdowns and downtime.
To improve this, the NEA has also sought to introduce standards for EV charging facilities, of which some 31 national standards and 26 industry standards have since been finalised.
Arvind can't remember a time when he didn't wheel around a HotWheels car. This love evolved into an interest in Tamiya and RC cars and finally the real deal 1:1 scale stuff. Passion finally lead to formal training in Mechanical Engineering. Instead of the bigger picture, he obsesses with the final drive ratio and spring rates of cars and spends the weekends wondering why a Perodua Myvi is so fast.
