New energy vehicle travel peaks during China’s National Day holiday, causing chaos in highway charging

China is celebrating the National Day holiday, and there are a lot of people traveling. There are also "charging chaos" of new energy vehicles in highway service areas. Some car owners said they waited for more than five hours at most, and some owners said that because of the crowds, they had to leave after charging to 80%. According to official statistics, in the three days before the National Day holiday, a total of nearly 3 million charging times were performed, an annual increase of 48%.

According to reports from Chinese media such as The Paper and Red Star News, many car owners said that from September 30 to the early morning of October 1, most charging piles in the expressway service area had to queue up. Mr. Li, a car owner in Chengdu, said that he had to charge twice during a 1,000-kilometer journey. One time he queued for 4 and a half hours, and the other time took more than an hour. Mr. Liu got the No. 99 at the Lingjiang service area and waited for more than 5 hours before charging.

In addition, a car owner surnamed Huang said that because of the large number of people on National Day, the machine automatically set a current limit and could only charge to 80%. She also found that the power was limited that day and the charging speed was slower than usual.

In addition, some netizens said that a new energy vehicle in the Dazhou North Service Area of ​​the Bao-Mao Expressway broke down with only 1% of the battery remaining. When it was pushed to the charging pile, it still had to queue for more than 10 people. Some car owners also posted pictures of charging and picking up numbers in the service area and asked, "How long does it take to wait for more than 100 numbers in the charging queue?" The photo showed that he got the number 140, but when the number plate was issued, the staff said that the number was only charged to the 29th.

According to the National Energy Administration of China, from the 1st to the 3rd, through statistical analysis of 62,700 highway charging facilities (guns) included in the national charging facility monitoring service platform, the number of new energy vehicle charging times on highways nationwide in the three days before the National Day holiday this year totaled 2.9686 million times, an increase of 48.41% compared with the same period during the National Day holiday last year; the charging capacity reached 71.6193 million kilowatt hours, an increase of 49.39% compared with the same period during the National Day holiday last year.