XPeng Motors’ 30 supercharger stations were in operation in five cities across China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan.
March 18th, 2019 /EqualOcean/ - XPeng Motors’ 30 supercharger stations were in operation in five cities across China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan.
Each station is equipped with 4 to 10 “supercharging piles” on average to cope with charging demands during peak hours. (Supercharging piles functions similar to oil dispenser). Plus, users can enjoy free parking for up to 2 hours and fast WiFi. XPeng strives to enable customers to complete an OTA (Over-the-Air Technology) upgrade and use its other functions during the charging time.
After putting its first supercharging station into operation in Guangzhou on Mar 12, 2018, XPeng Motors installed more in the following months. This is the first batch built by China's vehicle brand, signifying that XPeng's first mass-produced vehicle model would hit the market and be delivered soon. The supercharging station consists of six split-type charging piles and three power mainframes, which can ensure simultaneous charging for six EVs.
Up till now, XPeng Motors has signed agreements for 100 supercharging stations in more than 10 tier-1 and tier-2 cities in China. It plans to put approximately 200 stations in around 30 cities by the end of 2019 and deploy up to 1,000 charging stations in the next three years.
XPeng Motors was founded by Chinese entrepreneur He Xiaopeng, who is also an engineer. According to the company, it has hired several former Tesla staffers to develop its own charging network. Tesla has set up more than 400 stations with over 3,200 supercharging piles across 23 European countries and officially deployed over 10,000 stations around the world to date.
Tesla is gearing up to produce cars in China, setting up its first wholly owned subsidiary in Shanghai. The demand for electric cars in China is huge. It’s currently the world’s largest market and demand continue to surge with half of the world’s electric vehicles sold there already.
According to Xinhuanet, China’s State Gird, a Chinese outlet, plans to establish an electric vehicle (EV) network of 120,000 public charging piles for electric cars by 2020. Perhaps this will become a race between Tesla and XPeng to see who can succeed in becoming the number 1 electric car manufacturer in China.