Recently, it was announced at a press conference on construction of charging facilities along highways that a total of 229 charging piles have been installed along Yichang highways, including 73 fast-charging stations (60KW) and 156 slow-charging stations (7KW), with a total power of 6912KW.

　　To meet the public’s needs of vehicle charging and contribute to building Yichang into a model city of the Yangtze River protection, Yichang has formulated the Three-year Implementation Plan for the Construction of Charging Infrastructure along Highways (2023-2025). The plan follows the principles of “priority of charging piles installation, promotion of demand through supply, extension of coverage, and moderate oversupply” with a three-step goal outlined as achieving full coverage of charging facilities in service areas, parking areas, and highway maintenance stations along national and provincial highways by 2023 and along the main roads network and important rural roads by 2024 and optimizing and densifying charging facilities along national and provincial highways by 2025, ensuring that the maximum inter-facility distance does not exceed 50 kilometers.

　　In the next phase, newly built service areas and parking areas along highways will be expected to install charging facilities or reserve installation conditions for not less than 15% of their parking spaces and keep improving the users’ experience of roadside charging services with higher charging speed, sooner facility location and more time-saving charging. Based on demand, the existing charging facilities will be gradually upgraded and expanded, mobile charging infrastructure deployed to meet the higher charging demand on weekends and holidays with better mobilization of the charging infrastructure, and a public service system established to provide services of real-time information query and reservation through Amap and Baidu Apps on the basis of internet map public service platforms, thereby raising the overall qualities of public services. (Reporter/He Guanying, Correspondent/Zhang Wanling)