New-energy cars are charged at Dongjiao State Guest Hotel in Shanghai on Nov.13,2015 after the hotel became one of the latest partners of Star Charge. (Photo/Shanghai Daily)
Star Charge, a crowdfunding project to build electric car charging facilities, aims to install 10,000 electric poles in Shanghai for free by next June in exchange for land to build them, and eventually lift the number to 100,000, the project's initiator has said.
Wan Bang, an auto group from Jiangsu Province, has so far installed 1,000 charging poles in Shanghai. Anyone who owns more than five parking spots and has sufficient electricity support can apply for free charging poles from Wan Bang, which maintains and operates them via an integrated online platform.
"The biggest problem for China's charging infrastructure development is lack of land support, and profitability," said Shao Danwei, chairman of Wan Bang New Energy.
She said the firm believes aggressively building charging poles will spur the public to buy electric cars and is the first step to cracking the chicken-egg dilemma of economy of scale.
Changzhou in Jiangsu Province, where Star Charge originated, is the best selling market for electric cars apart from cities that offer incentives to buyers of green cars in China.
Star Charge intends to target 60 percent of residencies, 30 percent of shopping malls and parks, and 10 percent of work places in Shanghai as partners for the charging facilities. Yesterday, Carrefour (Shanghai) and Dongjiao State Guest Hotel became the latest Star Charge partners in the city.
The project, covering 100 cities in three years, will invest 4.5 billion yuan ($706 million) to install 250,000 charging poles. Vice Premier Ma Kai has recently given government support for this project.
At the end of 2014, the country's 780 charging stations and 31,000 charging poles was a far cry from the goal of 120,000 charging stations and 4.8 million charging poles by 2020.
