China's EV sector in urgent need of a jump-start
After spending two years on Beijing's monthly ballot for car license plates, seen as the best way of curbing traffic congestion in the capital, my neighbor Jiao Wen finally decided to go electric to avoid what was starting to look like long odds.
But Jiao, who is 35, had to rethink again, after learning that it's also far from straightforward to go down the greener-car route.
It appears that the building of electric vehicle charging stations in her neighborhood of Chaoyang district is yet to be approved.
"It's certainly not convenient to charge at home. And unless there's a charging station within five minutes' drive, having an electric car might be a problem. So I started to go off the idea," she said, adding that the reliability and durability of the batteries of domestic EV brands also gave her second thoughts.
Her concerns are common, leaving many without much option but to take their chances in the ballot, despite the obvious perks and privileges now being offered to buyers by the country's fledgling EV industry.
To fight against growing levels of air pollution and reduce the country's reliance on imported oil, China has introduced a series of measures, including subsidies for the purchase of new electric vehicles, and the licence lottery for conventional vehicles from which electric cars or hybrids are exempt, to limit the number of new cars on roads, and cut emissions.
Earlier this year officials in Beijing also said they were considering cheaper or free parking for electric car drivers.
But the incentives are yet to drive more people to buy.
Official data show the country has targeted having 500,000 EVs on its roads by 2015, and 5 million by 2020, but the total hit just 120,000 at the end of 2014, and has largely stayed in neutral so far this year.
And as Jiao herself found out, the electric car industry is likely to struggle until something is done to install a more comprehensive charging infrastructure.
"Most of the companies that manage residential areas do not allow the installation of charging poles due to safety concerns," Jiao said, as she tried to look into the facilities available.
"They also say that the poles' high voltages (380-500 volt) will affect the 220-volt circuit already installed in many neighborhoods, and they require a lot of work, just to get wired up."
Owners without parking spaces have also complained it is difficult to find a convenient spot to recharge their battery at home.
And it is not only the management firms who object.
Thousands of charging points have already been built along the Beijing-Shanghai expressway, spaced out every 50 kilometers, but many are not in use, according to reports, because the State Grid Corp is still trying to sort who pays for them due to the different payment systems in place along the route.
A glimmer of good news for Beijingers is that the local authorities have just announced specific charging policies for electricity usage and service fees for its network of public charging stations for electric vehicles, which took effect on June 1.
Under this new scheme, the upper-limit for electricity charges per kilowatt hour has been set at 15 percent of the maximum retail price per liter of No 92 gasoline in Beijing.
Electric car charging companies or stations can fix their respective price standards within this range.
The average cost to operate an electric car is estimated to be about 50 to 60 percent of the fuel cost of an equivalent non-electric vehicle, experts say, and there are reports that Beijing now plans to complete the construction of 2,000 public electric car charging poles within the sixth-ring road by the end of 2015.
Some suggest more should be done to take lessons from more well-established electric vehicle markets such as the United States and Europe.
In the US city of Pasadena in California, for example, which has a high percentage of EVs in use, every public parking lot has a recharging station where vehicles can recharge free for 90 minutes. In some cities where EVs are widely used, the ratio of charging points is more than 1:1.
The effect of Beijing's new electricity charging policy on EV sales is still too early to measure, but it still appears unlikely that the Chinese EV sector can come anywhere close to fulfilling its ambitions anytime soon.
It appears that the building of electric vehicle charging stations in her neighborhood of Chaoyang district is yet to be approved.
"It's certainly not convenient to charge at home. And unless there's a charging station within five minutes' drive, having an electric car might be a problem. So I started to go off the idea," she said, adding that the reliability and durability of the batteries of domestic EV brands also gave her second thoughts.
Her concerns are common, leaving many without much option but to take their chances in the ballot, despite the obvious perks and privileges now being offered to buyers by the country's fledgling EV industry.
To fight against growing levels of air pollution and reduce the country's reliance on imported oil, China has introduced a series of measures, including subsidies for the purchase of new electric vehicles, and the licence lottery for conventional vehicles from which electric cars or hybrids are exempt, to limit the number of new cars on roads, and cut emissions.
Earlier this year officials in Beijing also said they were considering cheaper or free parking for electric car drivers.
But the incentives are yet to drive more people to buy.
Official data show the country has targeted having 500,000 EVs on its roads by 2015, and 5 million by 2020, but the total hit just 120,000 at the end of 2014, and has largely stayed in neutral so far this year.
And as Jiao herself found out, the electric car industry is likely to struggle until something is done to install a more comprehensive charging infrastructure.
"Most of the companies that manage residential areas do not allow the installation of charging poles due to safety concerns," Jiao said, as she tried to look into the facilities available.
"They also say that the poles' high voltages (380-500 volt) will affect the 220-volt circuit already installed in many neighborhoods, and they require a lot of work, just to get wired up."
Owners without parking spaces have also complained it is difficult to find a convenient spot to recharge their battery at home.
And it is not only the management firms who object.
Thousands of charging points have already been built along the Beijing-Shanghai expressway, spaced out every 50 kilometers, but many are not in use, according to reports, because the State Grid Corp is still trying to sort who pays for them due to the different payment systems in place along the route.
A glimmer of good news for Beijingers is that the local authorities have just announced specific charging policies for electricity usage and service fees for its network of public charging stations for electric vehicles, which took effect on June 1.
Under this new scheme, the upper-limit for electricity charges per kilowatt hour has been set at 15 percent of the maximum retail price per liter of No 92 gasoline in Beijing.
Electric car charging companies or stations can fix their respective price standards within this range.
The average cost to operate an electric car is estimated to be about 50 to 60 percent of the fuel cost of an equivalent non-electric vehicle, experts say, and there are reports that Beijing now plans to complete the construction of 2,000 public electric car charging poles within the sixth-ring road by the end of 2015.
Some suggest more should be done to take lessons from more well-established electric vehicle markets such as the United States and Europe.
In the US city of Pasadena in California, for example, which has a high percentage of EVs in use, every public parking lot has a recharging station where vehicles can recharge free for 90 minutes. In some cities where EVs are widely used, the ratio of charging points is more than 1:1.
The effect of Beijing's new electricity charging policy on EV sales is still too early to measure, but it still appears unlikely that the Chinese EV sector can come anywhere close to fulfilling its ambitions anytime soon.
