(The Beijing News/Hou Shaoqing)

Beijing has formed a five-kilometer-radius charging network for electric vehicles within the Sixth Ring Road, The Beijing News reported on Aug. 10.

The capital city plans to build 3,000 new public charging facilities this year, and the average radius of charging circles in major areas including the subsidiary administrative center of Tongzhou District and the new airport will be less than one kilometer by 2020.

Nan Bin, an official with the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration said the city has already set up 92,300 charging facilities, of which 65,000 are private ones. About 17,000 are located in public parking areas, including at commercial centers, transportation hubs, office buildings, expressway service areas, parks, and gas stations.

There are about 40 charging facility enterprises in operation in Beijing, which makes coordination crucial. The public charging facility service management platform eChargeNet has launched an app to help solve the problem. Drivers can search for nearby charging facilities and pay from the app.

According to Shan Guozhang, head of the company, its software monitors 34 charging facility operations in real time, and has more than 80,000 registered users.

As of June, Beijing had a total of 135,400 new energy vehicles on the road, of which 95,300 are private or company-owned ones. In the future, Beijing will build more charging facilities based on demand. For now, the main work lies in the promotion of deploying charging facilities in government and residential areas, said Nan.