China is an important market for every car maker simply because it is the world’s largest new car market. Any company that wants to be successful on a global scale must incorporate China into its plans including Tesla when it comes to conforming to the Chinese government’s electric vehicle charging standards.
Despite efforts by Tesla to continue on a wide scale expansion of its Supercharger network across China, the sheer size of the country combined with charging incompatibility with local networks has led to fears over range anxiety.
Tesla is addressing that problem by providing converters that will allow Model S and Model X owners to connect their vehicles to Chinese government sponsored charging stations. The converters will give Chinese Tesla owners a much greater choice of charging locations, one of the most important factors holding people back from purchasing an electric car. According to Bloomberg, Tom Zhu, Tesla’s country manager in China said during the recent Guangzhou Auto Show, “The converters will help our sales by reducing preliminary concerns in China. It marks an important milestone in Tesla’s development in China.”
It’s unclear what this converter will be but likely something similar to Tesla’s CHAdeMO fast charging adapter. Zhu also indicated that Tesla would equip its cars for the Chinese market with charging ports that are compatible with Chinese charging equipment once China settles on a final specification for EV chargers. At present, there are different standards in different parts of the country.
It goes without saying that having a global technical standard for charging equipment would go a long way toward moving the electric car revolution forward. That may be why Tesla has joined the Combined Charging System (CCS) group composed of most European and North American manufacturers of electric and plug-in vehicles.
