Global vehicle public charging pile construction is affected by land and grid planning and other factors, coupled with the slowdown in the growth of the new energy vehicle market, the growth rate is estimated to be 30% in 2024, a sharp decline from 60% in 2023. Analyzing the major markets, China still has the most public charging piles in the world, estimated to reach 3.6 million by the end of 2024, accounting for nearly 70% of the world. The number of charging piles in South Korea is expected to increase by 39% this year, the highest growth rate in the world, and is expected to achieve its goal of 500,000 public charging piles by 2025.
In order to improve charging efficiency, countries are actively building direct current (DC) public charging piles, and it is expected that the proportion of DC charging piles in the world will reach 37% in 2024, an increase of 2% over 2023. In addition to the slowdown in the construction of public charging piles, the main market also has the problem of too concentrated distribution. According to the data in October 2024, nearly 20% of the charging piles in the Chinese market are distributed in Guangdong Province. In Europe, the Netherlands, Germany and France together account for 58%, while in the United States, 26% of public charging piles are concentrated in California.
There is a huge gap between the first place and the second place in the number of charging piles. Too centralized charging facilities will limit the freedom of car owners to plan routes, exacerbate "charging anxiety", and affect the penetration rate of new energy vehicles.
Range anxiety impacts the growth of the pure tram market, which is difficult to solve in the short term, and is expected to affect the speed of adding charging facilities. However, because the energy density of batteries has reached the bottleneck, the continued addition of public charging piles is still a more feasible solution for countries to solve mileage anxiety. Therefore, although the growth rate of public charging piles has slowed down, it will still maintain a certain positive growth.
Factors affecting the sharp slowdown in the growth rate of global public charging piles mainly include the following:
① The growth of the new energy vehicle market has slowed down
• Weakening market driving force: With the gradual maturity of the new energy vehicle market, the growth rate has slowed down compared with the initial stage, which directly affects the growth of demand for public charging piles.
• Increased market saturation: The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in some regions has reached a high level, and the incremental demand for public charging piles for new vehicles has decreased.
②Land and power grid planning restrictions
• Shortage of land resources: the construction of public charging piles needs to occupy land, and in many cities, especially developed cities, land resources are increasingly tight, limiting the further construction of charging piles.
• Grid capacity constraints: Grid planning and expansion cannot keep up with the pace of charging pile construction, resulting in insufficient capacity of some regional grids to support the operation of more charging piles.
③ Technical and cost challenges
Technical bottlenecks: Despite the continuous progress of charging technology, there are still bottlenecks in some key technical areas, such as the popularity and application of high-power fast charging technology is still facing challenges.
• Construction and operation costs: The construction and operation costs of public charging piles are high, including equipment purchase, land lease, power grid access, daily maintenance and other costs, which affects the construction speed of charging piles to a certain extent.
④Policy and market factors
• Policy adjustment: The government's subsidy policy for new energy vehicles and charging infrastructure is gradually declining, and the market needs to rely more on its own strength to develop, which affects the growth rate of charging piles to a certain extent.
• Market competition pattern: With the continuous development of the charging pile market, competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and some enterprises may slow down the pace of expansion when facing the pressure of market competition.
In summary, the slowdown in the growth of the new energy vehicle market, land and grid planning constraints, technical and cost challenges, and policy and market factors have combined to lead to a significant slowdown in the growth rate of global public charging piles.