On the one hand, it is a hot spot driven by policy, and the state has continuously introduced various planning and guidelines on the charging infrastructure industry since 2015. On the other hand, in 5 years, 50% of the industry enterprises shut down.

Is the charging infrastructure industry under the new infrastructure a tuyere? What kind of industry is this?

policy-pulling

In April this year, the national new infrastructure policy was released, and the charging infrastructure industry was included in one of the seven major areas of new infrastructure, which will complete an investment of about 10 billion yuan in 2020, with about 200,000 new public charging piles, more than 400,000 private charging piles and 48,000 public charging stations. The charging infrastructure industry, which has been quiet for several years, has been pushed into the tuyere. 2015 is known as the first year of the construction of China’s charging infrastructure: This year, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the “Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Development Guide (2015-2020)”, which clearly stated that “by 2020, more than 12,000 new centralized charging stations and more than 4.8 million decentralized charging piles will be added.”

If this plan is followed, this year’s charging infrastructure construction task will obviously be difficult to complete: according to the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance (hereinafter referred to as the charging Alliance) data, as of May 2020, China’s charging pile ownership is 1.3 million units, of which the public charging pile ownership is more than 550,000 units, private charging pile ownership is more than 750,000 units. This means that the number of existing charging piles has only completed nearly one-third of the original plan.

The promulgation of the new infrastructure policy has given the industry, which is still exploring, a glimpse of light and hope.

Xu Yanhua has been the Secretary-General of the Charging Alliance since its establishment in 2015. Over the past five years, her contacts have ranged from national ministries to local governments, from car companies to pile companies, from operators to car owners, and she has accumulated rich industry experience. For the charging infrastructure industry, she is a firm forerunner. In an interview with China Industry News, Xu Yanhua said, “Now the total number of cars in China is 260 million, and it is expected to reach 300 million or even 350 million in the future, and the number of electric vehicles will exceed 100 million in 2030 or 2035.” How do you charge 100 million electric cars? We are doing research on that right now.”

Interior view of NIO house, Ideal International Building, Haidian District, Beijing

The reason why new energy vehicles will reach 100 million after ten years is because there are policy endorsements.

In early December 2019, the Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “New Energy Automobile Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)” (draft for comment), proposing that by 2025, the proportion of new energy vehicle sales will reach about 25%. According to this one-quarter ratio, based on the car ownership in 2030, it is not difficult to calculate the total number of new energy vehicles in the year to reach 100 million.

You got a car, you got a pile. According to the “Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Development Guide (2015-2020)” plan, “by 2020, more than 4.8 million new decentralized charging piles will be added to meet the charging demand of 5 million electric vehicles in the country.” From this planning content, the ratio of car piles is close to 1:1.

Although there is debate in the industry as to whether the ratio of piles should reach 1:1, even if we step back to 2:1, the number of piles will still reach 50 million. Dr. Li Gang, director and researcher of the Market Economy Research Center of Peking University, echoed this view in an interview with China Industry News: In 2030, China’s electric vehicle ownership may be no less than 40 million, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued last year, the next 10 years, China’s charging pile construction gap is about 63 million, even conservative estimates should be about 25 million to 35 million, the market will form a trillion yuan scale.

Yu Dexiang, chairman of Special Call New Energy Co., LTD., also gave an optimistic estimate: Now China’s annual charging capacity of electric vehicles is 8 billion kilowatts, and it will reach trillion kilowatts in the future. As a leading enterprise in China’s current charging industry, with a market share of 40% of the special calls, it is in this prediction for the layout of the additional code. “We plan to build another 30 to 50 charging stations in Beijing this year, building thousands of large, fast charging terminals,” Li Jianbo, general manager of BAIqi Special Call (Beijing) New Energy Technology Co., told China Industry News.