Tesla hits bump in road with charging facilities

A car buyer receives key from Tesla CEO Elon Musk (Central, Left). [Photo/Beijing Youth Daily]

(ECNS) – Tesla has decided to bypass the China State Grid and build an independent charging network after months of fruitless negotiations with the state-owned power monopoly.

China's Hanergy Solar Group announced Wednesday that it had begun construction of charging networks and superchargers in Beijing and Shanghai, the first localization move by Tesla.

However, industry experts have been curbing the enthusiasm, calling the plan unfeasible.

In the United States, Tesla has built a national charging network that covers 80 percent of populated areas, and a coast-to-coast supercharging corridor from Los Angeles to New York. It has also finished construction of 14 charging stations in Europe. By the end of this year, Tesla will have expanded Germany's supercharging network to cover all of its populated areas.

Negotiations deadlocked

Tesla CEO Elon Musk once said that the biggest challenge in China would be to build car charging and service facilities as soon as possible.

The company set up a team dedicated to the construction of those facilities immediately after entering the Chinese market.

In January, Tesla got in touch with the State Grid. Since then, it has been in talks with NARI Technology, a company under the Grid that would help build chargers if the talks were successful.

Collaborating with the State Grid is particularly important for Tesla. In Tuesday's interview with the Chinese media, Musk said that Tesla wants to build a charging station that creates more power than needed. Therefore, if there's any remaining power, Tesla could sell it to the State Grid to cut costs.

But the negotiation doesn't appear to have been very successful, and Musk remains ambiguous about the results.

Feasibility questioned

With negotiations bearing no fruit, Tesla had to turn to an independent charging network on the eve of the first handover of Tesla cars to Chinese consumers.

Musk said it's possible to build a network with only solar power, and that it plans to build seven supercharging systems and batteries to provide nonstop electricity. The solar panels would be manufactured by Chinese companies.

Hanergy's deputy director Zhang Qingliang said Hanergy has been cooperating with domestic and international automakers in research and development of energy storage, power generation and supporting technologies.

Hanergy has built two moveable photovoltaic charging stations in Beijing, and plans to build China's first supercharging station in Shanghai.

However, experts say that even though building such a network doesn't require approval from the State Grid, there will probably be many obstacles and restrictions in the process.

By Qian Ruisha