Flash charging and fast charging have entered a minute-level replenishment stage, mainstream battery swap stations complete one swap in just minutes, and in the first eight months of this year about 11,000 high-power charging facilities were newly added at service areas.
Chen Lihui from Shenzhen, Guangdong, spent the National Day holiday in Hunan. Early on October 7, he drove a new energy vehicle back from Changsha. Around 10 am, the vehicle showed less than 30% battery remaining, so Chen pulled into the Chenzhou service area, parked in a supercharging spot, opened a mini-program on his phone, plugged in the gun, scanned the code and started charging. In only 10 minutes, the battery reached 85%. "It was basically charged in the time it took to visit the restroom," Chen said.
During the National Day return peak, traffic flowed continuously on the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macau Expressway toward Beijing. At the Hebi service area in Henan, there are six charging and battery swap stations and 80 charging guns operated by companies including Henan Transport Investment New Energy, State Grid and NIO Inc.. A flash charging station newly added in September this year has a maximum single-gun power of 1,500 kilowatts. "Extra staff were assigned during the holiday to guide vehicles, and we basically achieved immediate charging on arrival and departure after charging, with no long queues," said Wang Yulei, manager of the Hebi service area.
By the end of June this year, China's new energy vehicle fleet had reached 48.97 million units, and new energy vehicles accounted for nearly half of new registrations in the first half of the year. During the National Day holiday, owners showed strong enthusiasm for driving new energy vehicles, which also raised higher requirements for charging and replenishment services. In the first three days of the holiday, nationwide highway new energy vehicle charging sessions totaled 2.9686 million, averaging 989,500 per day, up 48.41% from the same period last year; charging volume reached 71.6193 million kilowatt-hours, averaging 23.8731 million kWh per day, up 49.39% year on year. Among that, on October 1, nationwide highway charging volume reached 28.0469 million kWh, up 60.4% from the first day of last year's National Day holiday and a record high for a single holiday day.
A major pain point that once troubled new energy vehicle owners was vehicle range. Judging from this holiday's situation, "range anxiety" has eased somewhat. The latest data show that during the National Day holiday, while new energy vehicle traffic rose 35% year on year, the number of service areas with especially busy daily charging fell 17% year on year. The change of one increase and one decrease is closely related to improved vehicle functions and performance and the accelerated construction of China's charging network.
China's new energy vehicle product performance is increasingly optimized, with the average range of pure electric passenger vehicles reaching 500 kilometers and fast charging technology applied at scale. Jian Xiaorong, director of fiscal, tax and financial policy research at the China Automotive Strategy and Policy Research Center, analyzed that at the technical level, China's flash charging, fast charging, battery swapping and other rapid replenishment technologies have achieved large-scale implementation. Flash charging and fast charging have entered a minute-level replenishment stage, leading companies' flash charging technology can replenish hundreds of kilometers in several minutes, and mainstream battery swap stations complete one swap in just minutes.
It is understood that BYD has cumulatively built more than 11,500 flash charging stations, with deployments in Lhasa, Tibet and Shangri-La, Yunnan; from October 1 to 5, a total of 902,300 person-times charged through Xpeng's charging platform; on October 5, NIO Inc.'s single-day battery swaps exceeded 183,600, setting a new high. At the same time, charging network construction continues to accelerate. By the end of August, China's total electric vehicle charging infrastructure (guns) had exceeded 24 million, building the world's largest electric vehicle charging network. In the first eight months of this year, about 11,000 high-power charging facilities were newly added in service areas, equivalent to the total cumulative number before that.
"We have put 38 fully liquid-cooled supercharging stations into operation in highway service areas across the province, with maximum single-gun output power reaching 600 kilowatts. Charging efficiency is several times that of conventional high-power fast charging interfaces, basically achieving '1 kilometer of range per second' of charging," said Hu Wanyong, resident operations supervisor of Hunan Expressway New Energy Technology Co., Ltd.
Facing large travel demand released in a concentrated period, the holiday charging "tidal" problem remains a real test. During this year's National Day holiday, some netizens also reported long charging waits at highway service areas. "The essence of the problem is the tidal mismatch between supply and demand unique to holidays," Jian Xiaorong said. National Day holiday travel is highly concentrated on a few popular corridors and peak periods, and instantaneous charging demand far exceeds stations' ordinary design capacity. At the same time, charging equipment built earlier in some service areas is old and cannot output full power, and some stations still have faulty piles, reducing the number of actually usable piles.
As charging technology improves, service guarantees should also keep up. During the National Day holiday, localities deployed in advance and automakers acted actively, providing convenience for new energy vehicle owners' travel through measures such as upgrading supercharging piles, adding mobile charging vehicles and strengthening operation and maintenance inspections. China Southern Power Grid's "Shunyichong" platform reviewed highway service area traffic simulation data daily and, combined with station heat dynamics, dynamically allocated mobile charging vehicles and mobile energy storage charging devices to replenish new energy vehicles at service areas along the Daguang Expressway, Guanglian Expressway and others; Hunan Expressway Group deployed 26 mobile emergency charging vehicles (cabins) and 6 intelligent mobile charging robots, flexibly allocating them to high-traffic service areas on key sections according to changes in charging traffic; Hebei Lufa Group added staff at service areas for on-site guidance and opened underpasses to divert traffic.
"Before the holiday we added batteries and dynamically allocated batteries for battery swap stations on key highways. At the same time, through algorithms we predicted traffic peaks and brought fully charged batteries from adjacent stations in advance," said Yuan Zhao, head of NIO Inc.'s Anhui region. During the holiday, NIO Inc. also arranged dedicated staff and deployed mobile service points in traffic-intensive locations such as highway service areas to guide owners in completing battery swaps efficiently.
Jian Xiaorong suggested that in the face of the holiday "big test," relevant departments and units should further strengthen dispatch monitoring, release information in a timely manner, improve charging pile turnover efficiency, add operation and maintenance personnel, and continue to do a good job in guaranteeing new energy vehicle travel; owners can choose off-peak replenishment, plan routes flexibly, and go to places near highway entrances or exit nearby to charge in urban areas. According to plans, by 2030 China's charging infrastructure will exceed 40 million units, with about 300,000 high-power charging facilities; performance levels such as power battery safety, charging rate, low-temperature applicability and cycle life will continue to improve. In the medium and long term, old charging piles should be upgraded and renovated in a timely manner, replenishment points along scenic areas, national and provincial trunk lines, and counties and townships should be improved, and new technology applications such as integrated photovoltaic-storage-charging-swap stations should be actively explored.