Shanghai Aims to Meet Charging Demand of Over 1.25 Million EVs by 2025

The Shanghai Municipal People’s Government issued a document on Thursday regarding its promotion of vehicle charging and battery swapping infrastructure in the city. The municipal government proposed to form a moderately advanced urban charging network to meet the demand of more than 1.25 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2025. In addition, the ratio of vehicles to charging piles in the whole city will not be higher than 2:1. The measures stated in the document are scheduled to come into force on March 1, 2022.

The document emphasizes that vehicle charging should be given priority, and supplemented by battery swapping infrastructure, which should be applied especially to taxis. More charging piles should be erected for private use, although still supplemented by public piles. In the future, more fast charging piles will be built, with slow destination charging mainly equipped in communities. The proportion of fast charging facilities in public areas will be higher.

In addition, the government will accelerate the promotion of smart charging piles, and fully use the municipal platform for public data collection and monitoring of charging and battery swapping facilities in Shanghai. The city will include the construction and upgrading of charging piles in residential areas, and ensure automobile manufacturers take responsibility for the construction of supporting facilities.

Meanwhile, the document also puts forward requirements for the power grids. Shanghai will promote the use of new energy to charge EVs. It will support power grid enterprises, municipal platforms and charging enterprises to play the role of large-scale and decentralized EV charging and discharging resources in regulating the peaks and valleys of the power system. The city is striving to form an orderly charging capacity of 500,000 vehicles and 500,000 kilowatts during the country’s official 14th Five-Year Plan period.

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According to data released by the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion (EVCIPA), by the end of 2020, the number of new energy vehicles and charging piles in China was 4.92 million and 1.681 million, respectively. The ratio of vehicles to piles is about 2.9:1. The latest data from October 2021 show that the number of new energy vehicles in China reached 6.78 million, and the cumulative number of charging infrastructure sites in China released by EVCIPA was 2.253 million. The overall ratio of vehicles to piles was still stable at 3:1, which is the highest in the world.