China to launch nationwide charging service platform for electric cars
CGTN
VCG Photo

VCG Photo

China's electric car owners will soon be able to use an app on their smartphones to find some 400,000 charging stations across the country and charge their vehicles, as a unified national charging service platform is almost complete. 

The State Grid Corporation of China, the country's largest electric utility company, told CCTV that after the completion of the network, one simple app would allow new energy vehicle (NEV) owners to search for and navigate to the charging stations distributed all over the country, charge their cars and make payments easily.  

Data from the company showed that 85 percent of all the charging stations nationwide have been connected into the network, which has covered 284 cities and over 50,000 kilometers of high ways. 

The network is currently under field test, during which eight pure electric vehicles started from Southwest China's Chengdu city and Southeast China's Guangzhou city to travel 5,000 kilometers in seven days to the country's capital Beijing in the north. 

They are evaluating the operational conditions of the charging stations along the route, as well as the feasibility of long-distance travel of electric vehicles across provinces and the convenience of the charging services. 

China has been the world's largest and fastest growing electric car market, with 3.44 million NEVs recorded as of June this year.