Charging piles to be established in all new Beijing's housing estates

The Beijing government has issued a new paper specifying plans for electric vehicle charging piles. [Photo: VCG]

The Beijing municipal government has issued new regulations requiring office buildings equip at least 25% of their parking spaces with charging piles. All parking spaces in new housing estates are going to be required to have charging piles for electric vehicles.

The call comes amid the growing number of new energy vehicles in Beijing. As of the end of July, there are an estimated 141,400 new energy vehicles in Beijing. There are around 97,500 charging piles across the Chinese capital.

Under the new guidelines, people in Beijing should be able to find a charging post at parking spaces every five kilometers throughout the city by 2020. The broader charging network will be less than 900 meters in key areas of the city, including the new airport.

Beijing's government plans to set up more than 3,000 charging piles this year.

Currently around half of the 40 companies operating charging piles in Beijing are linked to eCharge, an app used to search, monitor and pay for charging services.