In recent years, China's new energy vehicle industry has been developing rapidly under the combined effect of various factors, and the consumption of new energy vehicles has been growing rapidly. 2012-2022, the compound annual growth rate of new energy vehicle sales reached 87.2%, with production and sales ranking first in the world for eight consecutive years. By the end of 2022, the number of new energy vehicles in China was about 13.1 million, more than half of the global total.

    In the first four months of this year, China's production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 2.291 million and 2.222 million respectively, both up 42.8% year-on-year. From the monthly trend, the growth rate of China's new energy vehicle production and sales showed a low start and accelerated; the production and sales of new energy vehicles grew by 16.3% and 20.8% respectively in the first two months of this year, and by 44.8% and 34.8% respectively in March, and by 1.1 times in April, continuing the overall rapid growth trend.

    With huge new energy vehicle ownership and a faster growth rate, the charging pile and other related infrastructure construction have put forward higher requirements. "At present, China's public charging facilities are mainly concentrated in the central areas of first-tier cities, and the layout of second-and third-tier cities, county and rural areas, as well as peripheral areas of cities and highways, is relatively insufficient." Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association of Passenger Transport, said.

    It is worth mentioning that rural areas have become a huge incremental market for new energy vehicles. Accelerating the construction of charging infrastructure in rural areas is conducive to promoting the purchase and use of new energy vehicles and releasing rural consumption potential, as well as developing new industries such as rural tourism and adding new momentum to rural revitalization.

    The State Council executive meeting held on May 5 deployed to speed up the construction of charging infrastructure to better support new energy vehicles to the countryside and rural revitalization. The meeting stressed the need to focus on the outstanding bottlenecks that restrict the development of new energy vehicles in rural areas, to build charging infrastructure moderately in advance, and to innovate the mode of construction, operation and maintenance of charging infrastructure to ensure that it is "built by someone, managed by someone and sustainable".

    On May 17, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of Charging Infrastructure to Better Support the Rural Development of New Energy Vehicles and the Revitalization of the Countryside", which explicitly supports local governments to carry out the planning of public charging networks in counties and rural areas in conjunction with the actual situation and do a good job of connecting with the spatial planning of the country and the distribution grid planning, so as to accelerate the realization of charging stations in areas suitable for the use of new energy vehicles. "In addition, it will reasonably promote centralized public charging networks.

    In addition, it is reasonable to promote the construction of centralized public charging stations, giving priority to the configuration of public charging facilities in the county and rural enterprises and institutions, commercial buildings, transportation hubs (stations), service areas (stations) along highways and other places, and extending them to centralized resettlement areas for easy relocation and key villages for rural tourism, and accelerating the construction of charging piles along highways and at gas stations and other places with conditions in conjunction with the development of rural self-driving tours.

    Recently, some places have also introduced policy measures to accelerate the improvement of the on board charger layout and make up for the shortcomings.

    Enterprise vigorous layout

    At present, in the policy and market and other factors comprehensive help, charging pile and other infrastructure construction efforts continue to increase. 17 May, the national development and reform commission spokesman Meng Wei said at a press conference, China has built the world's largest number, radiation area, the most complete service vehicles charging infrastructure system, for the rapid development of new energy vehicles to provide a strong guarantee.

    Since this year, the construction of charging piles has continued to maintain a fast pace. China Charging Union recently released data showing that from January to April this year, China's charging infrastructure increment was 882,000 units, of which the increment of public charging piles rose 167.7% year-on-year; the increment of private charging piles built with cars continued to rise, up 60.8% year-on-year.

    Some car companies have increased the layout of charging and switching facilities. Information released by Azure shows that as of 15 May this year, Azure has laid out 1,403 exchange stations across the country, including 374 high-speed exchange stations, 2,580 charging stations, 15,312 charging piles and access to over 700,000 third-party charging piles nationwide, providing users with an energy service experience that can be charged, exchanged and upgraded.