China starts building its largest electric car solar charging...

China starts building its largest electric car solar charging complex

Beijing has started construction of the country's largest solar charging station, capable of charging 80 electric cars per day.

The official Xinhua agency said (link in Chinese) Beijing has put 15 million yuan (US$2.36 million) toward building the complex, which is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

It will have 30 fast-charge points, capable of charging a car to full power within 40 minutes, and 20 slow-charge points that will charge a car in two hours.

The complex, located at Shijingshan District, is a joint venture between Shougang Corporation, one of China's largest steel companies, and Tellus Power, which manufactures electric vehicle charging stations.

However, with inconsistent standards for electric vehicles, not every make is compatible with the new stations. Reports say only cars from Chinese makers and the two domestic joint ventures with Japanese and European makers qualify.

As with the cars supported in the recent Shanghai-Beijing project, we expect these refer to cars from Chinese makers BAIC Motor and BYD; German firm Daimler and BYD's joint venture, Denza; and those from Japan's Nissan and China's Dongfeng joint venture.

The Shanghai-Beijing project was completed in January this year, which saw China line the 1,260 km (783 mile) route between Beijing and Shanghai with 50 fast-charging stations.

Support for domestic vehicles leaves companies like Tesla out of the picture.

Tesla chief Elon Musk said in April 2014 at the start of Tesla shipping its cars to China that he was bullish about the market there, and had partnered with Chinese power company Hanenergy to start building supercharger stations in Beijing and Shanghai.

But by January this year Musk admitted that sales were not as great as he had hoped. One of those problems was charging compatibility — Tesla requires car owners to install Tesla's charging units, and some properties don't allow people to install these, forcing some to cancel their Tesla orders.

German maker BMW also started building electric stations in Shanghai last year, to accommodate its electric cars in the country.

China has made large investments in solar power and electric vehicles, as it tries to combat emissions on the road and its heavy reliance on coal-based power.

In July, it started constructing its largest solar power plant in the Gobi desertacross 6,301 acres, capable of supplying power to 1 million households.





A solar farm in the Zhejiang province.





Chinese workers install solar panels at a power station in Jiangsu, in east China.

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