China's Electric Vehicle Charging Posts Surpassed 1 Million in June

With China all in with electric vehicles, the number of charging posts around the country have been exploding. 

According to the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance as of the end of June, the number of charging posts has surpassed 1 million. According to Xinhua, the official state-run press agency of the People's Republic of China the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance said charging posts have seen year-over-year growth of 69.3%. 

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Of the charging posts, the alliance said 412,000 are public while 590,000 are private.  China added 140,000 new public charging posts during the last year with amounts to about 11,700 new posts introduced each month.  According to reports, the top ten areas for public charging posts include Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang, Hebei, Anhui and Hubei. 

The increase in charging stations come at the same time that China is dealing with a decline in sales of new vehicles. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, overall vehicle production in June reached 1.895 million units which were down 2.5% month-over-month and 17.3% compared to June of last year. Year-to-date, the country produced 12.132 million units, marking a 13.7% decline from the same period a year ago.  

Electric Vehicles a Bright Spot for China

The one bright spot was in new energy vehicles or the ones that would need the charging posts. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufactures production hit 134,000 units in June, marking a 56.3% year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, sales reached 152,000 units which were up 80% compared to a year ago. Among the new energy vehicles battery electric vehicles saw a 106.7% increase in June compared to a year-ago while plug-in hybrid vehicle sales increased 2.2% and fuel cell vehicle production, while small, saw a 14.6 times year-over-year increase. 

While the world is in a race to become the leader in electric vehicles, China is emerging as the dominant market thanks to the desires of Chinese citizens to purchase electric cars. According to reports from earlier this year, Chinese people purchased roughly 35% of all the electric vehicles that are sold across the globe. By the end of this year, its forecast that there will be one million electric vehicles sold in the country. 

It doesn't hurt that the government of China is all in when it comes to electric vehicles, offering incentives to manufacturers that produce electric vehicles and deals to consumers who purchase them.