BMW and Chinese power company State Grid on Wednesday announced a massive charging network expansion that would roughly double the number of charging piles for the carmaker’s vehicles in the country as it seeks to resolve a critical bottleneck in electric car adoption.
Why it matters: BMW’s plan follows Beijing’s doubling down on EV power services as a part of its “new infrastructure” initiative to boost domestic spending, including auto consumption.
Details: BMW and State Grid EV Service, a subsidiary of China’s biggest utility company, will jointly provide more than 270,000 charging piles to car owners by year-end, including 80,000 direct current fast chargers, the two companies said on Wednesday.
Context: BMW is not the only major global automaker accelerating its push into electric cars in the world’s largest auto market, as the government continues its policy support.