While America’s new infrastructure bill is paving the way for more EV purchases, it still has a long way to go to get more people on board with electric transportation. However, China has commitmented to installing charging stations in as many places as possible. One of its largest provinces has three times as many stations as the entire United States. What province is it, and just how many stations do they have?

Availability of charging stations

With the rise of fuel prices comes the rise of people who are tired of spending their paychecks on a tank of gas. So, naturally, many people turn to EVs as their primary mode of transportation. But there’s still a good number of drivers out there who are not sure they want to plunge into the electric vehicle world due to range anxiety. 

Charging stations are popping up all over the U.S., but only in certain areas. Some places, like the western portion of the country, see a considerable gap between charger stops due to large stretches of sparsely populated areas. If an average EV can go 250 miles on a single charge, it can be challenging to find a place to recharge when you need it.

While a few models on the market can go up to 400 miles on a single charge, there aren’t that many. Technology is advancing, and more EVs will have this ability in the future, but we’ll have to settle for the 250 to 300-mile range. 

China’s largest EV charging structure

According to Jalopnik, Guangdong province is what China considers the country’s economic hub. Located just North of Hong Kong, this area houses approximately 126 million people, all living in about 69,400 square feet, equating to a third of Texas. However, the whole Lone Star state only has around 29 million or so. 

Regarding charging up an EV, Guangdong has around 372,000 stations in this area alone. That’s about 3X as many EV charging stations in all of the U.S, which only has about 112,900. While you can find some Tesla and a few battery swap Nio-built stations in the large Chinese province, most of what the area has are from small utility operations. 

So far, Guangdong has tons of public, large community, and shared private charging stations accommodating big groups of EVs all at once, so there’s no need for waiting. Range anxiety in this area is not a thing. However, they still have the issue of charging times.

Why China offers many EV charging stations for its drivers

China’s electric vehicle charging objectives are at a much grander scale than those of U.S. officials. The Asian country aims to have more than enough chargers to handle approximately 20 million electric vehicles by 2025. Even with America’s recent signing of the Infrastructure bill, the U.S. plans far less to be up and running by 2030. 

In the last year alone, China added a jaw-dropping 592,000 chargers, which is a huge step toward their goal for 2025. Other countries taking the charging infrastructure seriously are Japan, Norway, and South Korea.

You might be surprised if you think that having that many chargers are overkill. China’s EV sales in 2022 jumped significantly to 151 percent in the first half. Plus, with tons more chargers available at around every corner practically, there are zero reasons for anyone there to have range anxiety. 

China is well on its way to providing as many EV charging stations as needed to ensure drivers can access them wherever they need them without worrying about getting stranded somewhere with no juice in the battery. While the U.S. plans to do the same, we have a long way to go to be in the same position as China with its well-stocked electric infrastructures.