Poor facilities pulling the plug on electric cars

An employee of Beijing Automotive Industry Group inspects the battery of a new-energy car. In recent years, favorable policies and greater awareness of environmental issues have resulted in "green" vehicles becoming more popular in China. [Wang Zhen / for China Daily]

Growing popularity

Despite the dearth of charging facilities, more than 74,000 new-energy vehicles were sold in China last year, a rise of 320 percent from 2013, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The country is now the world's largest market for green vehicles.

Meanwhile, data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology show that Chinese production hit a record high of 6,599 vehicles in January, a fivefold rise year-on-year.

Automakers and industry experts attribute the surge in popularity to a raft of favorable government policies, such as the waiving of purchase taxes on electric cars until Dec 2017, and central and local government subsidies, ranging from 35,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan per vehicle, that were introduced in September. The ministry said 39,400 electric vehicles were sold between September and December.

Karsten Engel, head of China operations at BMW Group, said amendments to local policies and the adoption of German charging standards have boosted sales of both Chinese-made and imported new-energy vehicles. Also, since January, BMW and the Shanghai municipal government have been offering free license plates to purchasers of the company's alternative-fuel range.

Growing public acceptance of new-energy vehicles, along with the favorable policies and higher awareness of environmental issues, has fueled optimism about future sales. At a recent conference on the development of green motoring, Ouyang Minggao, a professor at the Department of Automotive Engineering at Tsinghua University, estimated that Chinese sales could overtake the US this year, arguing that the recent fall in the price of crude oil and the knock-on effect at gas stations are likely to see sales of green vehicles slump in the US.

The growing popularity of alternative-energy cars has prompted China to construct more charging facilities, and as of Dec 31, there were 723 charging stations and 28,000 charging poles across the country, according to the ministry.

However, there are still far too few charging facilities, and some industry observers are concerned that the shortfall will hamper wider adoption of new-energy vehicles. Tang Jie, who manages the new-energy vehicle department at Beijing Yinjian Car Rental Co, one the capital's biggest cabs companies, said drivers of the company's first batch of 500 new-energy taxis have been complaining about the difficulty of finding charging stations since the fleet started operating in December.

"The period spent charging the car leaves taxi drivers less time to make money, and the scarcity of charging poles limits the scope of their business, because they need to stay within range of the existing pole network," he said.

For Pang Lei, CEO of Tellus Power, it's a "chicken-and-egg problem" - the lack of charging poles has hampered the development of new-energy vehicles, and that slow rate of development has made investors increasingly reluctant to finance the construction of charging stations.

Yu said the 100 poles the company fitted in the Huamao Center cost 13 million yuan to install, "but we need to break the ice by building more charging facilities". He added that by the end of the year, there will be 3,500 charging poles in Beijing, and by the end of 2107, the number will have risen to 19,000, which should satisfy demand.