By Yu Wei in San Francisco (China Daily)
...Xuan, who is from China's Sichuan province, (click here) said he would never consider buying an electric car in China because of the lack of charging stations there. "Unlike in the US where people can charge their cars in their garages, most people in China live in high-density apartments, where it is impossible to install a charger."
Tesla started formal pre-order bookings for the Model S on the Chinese mainland last month. The country's increasingly wealthy middle class, the government's new push for clean energy, and 300-plus orders in Hong Kong have all given the Palo Alto-based manufacturer high hopes about its prospects there.
According to Bloomberg News, China's government is targeting cumulative sales of 5 million electric vehicles by 2020, even though just 12,791 were sold there last year. And there are only 168 public charging stations nationwide, which seems to justify Xuan's worries.
Leping Huang, an analyst at Nomura in Hong Kong, said the lack of charging infrastructure is a bottleneck for EV popularity not only in China, but in the entire world...
