SOUTHWEST China’s Guizhou Province plans to bring electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities into every town by the end of this year, becoming the latest Chinese province to accelerate the construction of EV infrastructure in rural areas.

By the end of the year, the mountainous province will have a total of 38,000 EV charging facilities spread across every one of its counties and townships, the Guizhou Energy Administration said.

The ambitious expansion of charging facilities into the countryside will help ease rural EV users’ anxieties over the scarcity of charging piles, according to the administration.

Despite its rugged landscape, Guizhou has seen rapid growth in new energy vehicle (NEV) ownership, which surged to 165,000 at the end of last year.

The province has so far installed EV charging facilities in 85% of its towns and townships, according to the Guizhou branch of the China Southern Power Grid.

A number of Chinese provinces have set ambitious goals to improve rural charging infrastructure, in response to the Central Government’s call to encourage the expansion of NEV use into rural markets.

Zhejiang Province in eastern China earlier this month announced plans to have more than 2.3 million EV charging piles by 2025, including no fewer than 900,000 in rural areas.

China’s NEVs include pure electric, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

In the first half of 2023, China’s NEV sales surged 44.1% year on year to 3.75 million units, compared with a 9.8% rise in total auto sales, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. (Xinhua)