“The network will cover the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei-Shandong and Yangtze River Delta cities, as well as major cities in other regions. We want to make intercity travel smoother for electric vehicles in China, with 3 million charging piles connected to its intelligent-vehicle online platform,” Jiang Bing, chairman of the State Grid Corporation of China, told Xinhua.

“Starting 2020, electric cars are likely to go beyond their nature as vehicles, and become a basic unit of the energy system,” Jiang added.

Electric vehicles have been welcomed by Chinese public as a clean form of transportation that can reduce the country’s heavy air pollution. China’s southeastern city of Shenzhen has become the first city in the world that possesses an all-electric public transportation system, with over 16,000 electro-buses in use.

China has the world’s largest new energy auto industry. According to Xinhua, the country sold more than 490,000 new energy cars in the first 11 months of 2017, and the sales are expected to exceed 577,000 units in the whole year.