Development of Electric Vehicle Charging Market in China
Under the background of stagflation of China's automobile industry and the decline of fuel vehicles, China's new energy vehicle is a brand-new track. China saw a 9% drop in 2019 auto sales after years of robust growth.
In addition, with the breakthrough of power battery technology and the increase of charging pile density, the travel anxiety of consumers has been alleviated to a certain extent.
Therefore, new energy vehicles are the general trend and one of the important engines to help stimulate China's automobile industry and overall economy. With the construction of the new charging piles, the ratio of the number of electric vehicles and charging piles in China becomes more reasonable.
Although charging infrastructures are improving, there are still some disadvantages compared to the ownership of electric vehicles in China. So, it will continue to grow in the following years. Moreover, According to China’s new policy ‘New Infrastructure’, which is mainly about infrastructure based on technology, a charging pile for EV is going to be added into the ‘new infrastructure’ program, which will lead the EV charging market to a more comprehensive development.
Development History
There are two phases of the EV charging market in China. The first one was the trial phase before 2013, which developed slowly. After 2014, in the second phase, the EV charging market had a huge progress, the market continued to expand because of some new favorable policies. For example, the State Grid announced the introduction of social capital to join the construction of EV charging infrastructure.
In 2015, according to the Development Guide of EV Charging Infrastructure, the government planned to build over 480 million charging piles nationwide in 2020. In addition, since 2016, the central finance department also increased the financial subsidy for the EV charging infrastructure construction and operation.
In 2019, there are over 120 million EV charging infrastructures in China. Based on the above, China’s EV charging market has developed rapidly, and the government policy played an important role.
Looking at the Current State of the EV Charging Market Development & Charging Market Demand
According to the configuration requirements of electric vehicles for charging infrastructure in various application fields, after calculation, the demand for the current EV charging market in China are 3,848 bus charging stations, 2,462 taxi charging stations, 2,438 service vehicle charging stations, and 430 million personal car vehicles charging piles. And 2,397 public charging stations, 500 thousand distributed charging piles are also needed.
Charging Market
The market of Charging piles has bright prospects. China already has a number of players in Blink Chargin, Switchback Energy, Canary Connect, Inc., iSmart Alarm, SimpliSafe, Inc., Butterfleye, Inc., Icontrol Networks, Inc., Notion. Ltd. and Skylinkhome. The market demand will grow with the increasing number of electric vehicles. It's going to be one of the great growth industries of the next decade.
Meanwhile, based on some favorable factors, such as policy and financial subsidy, enterprises will develop the charging market more positively, the charging market will keep expanding. According to statistics, the charging market in China is currently around $3.6 billion in size.
As the expanding of the charging market and the market demand, the market is expected to be over $10 billion in 2025. And different types of charging piles have different markets. The AC (Alternating current) charging pile has the largest market among public charging piles.
The AC charging pile has several advantages, such as low cost, easy to use, and little damage to the battery.
However, there are also some disadvantages, the charging speed is too slow. The AC charging market is almost 100 million in 2020. On the other hand, DC (Direct current) charging piles have faster charging speed than AC charging piles.
As the ownership of electric vehicles increases, the public charging piles should have a faster charging speed for a high effectiveness. This is why the DC charging pile will dominate the market in the future, even though it has a high cost. The DC charging market is almost 2.4 billion in 2019. Also, the private charging pile will increase since the more and more families buy electric vehicles.
Because the government encourages people to buy electric vehicles by providing an allowance and priority (many cities have an ownership limitation policy for traditional vehicles). So according to the scenes of the private charging piles are typically at home, people usually charge overnight and use vehicles during day time.
The charging speed of AC charging piles satisfies people’s demand, which also has a lower cost than BC charging pile. So, AC charging pile becomes a popular choice for private use. In 2019, the private charging pile market is 900 million, and it is expected to be 9.3 billion in 2025.
EV Charging Market Prospects
Under the government policy, electric vehicles have a good development prospect, people tend to buy electric vehicles as personal cars, and public vehicles, such as bus, taxi, transportation vehicle, also replace the traditional vehicle.
The electric vehicle will most likely dominate the mainstream of the vehicle market in China eventually. Based on the above, one should expect the EV charging market to have the same excellent prospects in the future. The Chinese government tends to achieve its goals and has a history of incredible long-term patience, irregardless of outside forces.
Currently, the EV charging market focuses on a few choice international cities in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Chongqing. There is still huge development potential in other areas as the electric vehicle popularizes to medium cities and the rural countryside.
The charging technology is also developing rapidly. The improvement of charging efficiency, safety, practicality contribute to the popularizing electric vehicle which is a positive feedback to EV charging market.
Written by Hancheng Li
Edited by Jimei Shen, Calvin Ma, Jack Argiro & Alexander Fleiss