"While there is a dispute over charging stations in Europe, the industry is developing innovative alternatives at Beijing's behest to meet the demand for charging options.
In the middle of the year, for the first time, more New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) - the term in China for pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids - were sold than combustion engine cars. By the end of 2024, around 30 million NEVs will be on China's streets.
Despite all efforts, the charging infrastructure cannot keep up with this pace. At the end of June, 10.2 million charging stations were in operation in China, where the batteries of electric cars can be recharged.
In the first half of 2024 alone, 1.6 million new charging stations were added. Nevertheless, there are still not enough. This is why discontent is spreading among e-car drivers in China about waiting times at charging stations that are too long. According to a survey, 70 percent of NEV drivers be dissatisfied. Car and electricity companies, but also start-ups, are trying to counteract this discontent with innovative solutions.
Supercharging stations
The state-owned electricity giant State Grid has just put two so-called supercharging stations into operation in Beijing.
In the city districts of Daxing and Fengtai there are now charging stations with a maximum output of 600 kilowatts. They can supply up to 700 cars with the necessary electricity every day.
In the second half of the year, State Grid plans to install another nine such stations in the capital. However, the Chinese model city for fast charging stations is the high-tech metropolis of Shenzhen in the south of the country. The city, which is also home to the largest electric car manufacturer, BYD, sees itself as a global pioneer in supercharging infrastructure.
Charging robots instead of charging stations
A new trend is the use of so-called charging robots. "Are charging stations a thing of the past?" asks Henrik Bork, a consultant living in Beijing, in an article in the trade magazine "Kfz-Betrieb".
In it, he describes the ingenious basic idea of charging robots: cars no longer drive to charging stations, but rather the stations come to the cars in the form of a charging robot.
40 Chinese manufacturers are already building such mobile chargers. Car companies and electricity companies are getting involved, as are start-ups such as Zhongmu Technology. The Shanghai-based company, which is already listed on the Nasdaq, is building the Flashbot, an autonomous charging robot. It is called via an app on the cell phone and drives itself to the parked electric car. These charging robots are preferably used in parking lots of shopping malls, supermarkets and motorway service stations.
The Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio relies on battery swapping. The driver drives to a swap station that is not much bigger than a garage. There, the battery is replaced within a few minutes. Nio now has around 2,500 such stations in operation in China. However, most of them are not yet profitable. The stations would only be profitable if 60 batteries were exchanged per day, said Nio founder William Li to the press at the end of August.
Currently, only one in five stations would reach this break-even point. Nevertheless, Li is continuing to rely on the battery exchange model. By the end of 2025, such stations are to be in place in 27 of the 34 Chinese provinces. To accelerate this expansion, Li wants to build a factory in Wuhan that will produce at least 1,000 exchange stations annually. Nio increasingly wants to open its exchange stations to other car brands." [1]
1. In China kommen schon die Ladesäulen zum Auto. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Sep 5, 2024. Von Wolfgang Hirn
Komentarų nėra:
Rašyti komentarą