A Chinese businessman has spent the equivalent of around $117,600 to build his own network of Tesla charging stations from Beijing to Guangzhou.
Unlike the U.S. and Europe, China doesn't have a series of charging stations for electric cars across the country; only Beijing and Shanghai have spots where a Tesla Model S can be recharged, Mashable reported.
The network includes 20 charging stations in 16 cities, stretching around 3,570 miles between Beijing and Guangzhou. To put together the network, 44-year-old Zong Yi contacted the Tesla Motors executive in charge of Chinese operations, Wu Bixuan, Mashable reported via the Chinese news site Caixin.
"I thought it would be cool if I could build China's first electric-car-charging road," said Zong, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.
Zong was inspired to build the series of charging stations after purchasing a new Tesla Model S, a vehicle that goes about 311 miles on one charge. A catch for the charging system is that the 20 stations are "slow chargers," which take about eight hours to refill a battery, compared with just an hour or less for Tesla's Superchargers.
Tesla is aware of Zong's project and approves of his approach, a spokeswoman told WSJ.
Plagued by pollution in major cities like Beijing, China has been implementing measures to encourage more green transportation. The government's current goal is to have 500,000 gasoline-electric hybrid and all-electric vehicles on Chinese roads by next year, bumping that figure up to five million by 2020.
Zong's decision to take matters into his own hands illustrates the difficulty of maintaining an electric car in a country not yet friendly to green vehicles. China plans to have 400,000 charging pillars ready for next year, but work on the stations has fallen behind schedule.
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