Gasgoo Munich- September 2026 saw the utilization rate of public charging piles across China hit just 6.51%, falling short of the industry's estimated break-even threshold of 8% to 10%. Industry surveys show more than 80% of charging operators are in the red, with top-tier stations scraping by on a net profit of just 4 fen per kilowatt-hour after accounting for equipment depreciation, rent, and maintenance costs.
Yet on the flip side, leading domestic automakers are in a headlong rush to expand both scale and speed. BYD has already commissioned its 10,000th flash-charging station, with a year-end target of 20,000. Geely plans to build over 22,000 stations by the end of 2027, including more than 15,000 "Geely Smart Charge" sites. Chery, meanwhile, has scheduled 20,000 "instant charge + V2G" stations for completion by 2029.
In an industry where charging service fees alone can barely recoup costs within a reasonable timeframe, why are automakers not only doubling down on station counts in the tens of thousands but also racing toward megawatt-level speeds and single-digit charging times? What exactly is the calculation behind these unprofitable stations?
Pouring in Hundreds of Billions to Build 10,000 Stations: How Are Mainstream Automakers Mapping Out Their Charging Strategy?
While everyone is expanding in increments of 10,000 stations, the underlying logic varies significantly among major players.
BYD is opting for a "closed-loop" system, Geely is pursuing a "self-built backbone with alliance partnerships," and Chery is transforming its stations into "energy assets."
All three approaches address the same fundamental industry question: If charging fees alone cannot sustain a station, what should these sites rely on to survive?
Image Source: BYD Auto
BYD's strategy hinges on "stations within stations." Of its 20,000-station target, 18,000 will be of this type. To support its megawatt-level "flash charging" technology, BYD isn't acquiring new land or applying for grid capacity increases. Instead, it is installing flash-charging units with built-in energy storage at existing sites—using storage buffers to ease grid pressure and allow kilowatt-level charging to connect quickly to current locations.
Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations department, explained the construction logic bluntly when addressing public skepticism: This model "requires no retrofitting of existing charging stations, no grid capacity expansion, and only three parking spaces to deploy quickly—making it as convenient as 'installing an air conditioner.'"
Skipping land acquisition and grid expansion, and avoiding structural changes to existing sites, drastically compresses the initial cost and timeline for each station. Yet, even with these efficiencies, hitting a target of 20,000 stations remains a heavy-asset game. Li was direct about the economics: for a company of BYD's current scale, investing tens of billions in station construction is "very much worth it."
In BYD's calculation, these tens of billions buy more than just a charging network—they purchase the confidence to deliver its flash-charging vehicles. For site owners, hosting BYD brings equipment and a massive influx of driver traffic, revitalizing idle parking spaces. For BYD, as long as the grid is dense enough that owners can find exclusive flash-charging stations anywhere, the product promise translates directly into sales. The math here isn't about per-station service fees, but the total sales volume of the brand.
Image Source: Haohan Energy
Unlike BYD's "light and fast" approach leveraging existing sites, Geely has chosen an "entrenched" route of heavy-asset self-construction.
As of September 2026, Geely's Haohan Energy had integrated charging maps for ZEEKR, Lynk & Co, and Galaxy, deploying over 2,500 stations and 12,000 charging connectors across 232 cities. According to plans unveiled at the "Geely Smart Charge" launch in September 2026, the company aims to build over 22,000 stations and 100,000 connectors by the end of 2027, with "Smart Charge" stations accounting for more than 15,000.
Geely's confidence in rolling out such a vast proprietary network stems from the synchronized evolution of its "chargers and vehicles." On the charger side, its fifth-generation "Geely Smart Charge" piles peak at 2,250 kilowatts per connector, attempting to build a technical moat with extreme speed. On the vehicle side, models like the Galaxy E5 and Lynk & Co 10/20 have brought 800V platforms and 6C supercharging to the 120,000 to 180,000 yuan price bracket. By pushing power limits at the pile end and democratizing high-voltage platforms at the car end, Geely aims to use the massive sales volume of the mainstream market to fill network demand.
Yet, despite its self-built scale ranking among the industry's top and accelerating vehicle adoption, Geely completed a cross-shareholding deal with NIO on September 28. Geely acquired a 30% stake in NIO Power by swapping 100% equity in Yiyi Interconnect and 640 million yuan in cash, while NIO simultaneously took a 10% stake in Haohan Energy.
"Unity is strength; only by sticking together can we survive," Geely Holding Group CEO An Conghui said at the signing. He explained that charging infrastructure is a classic heavy-asset sector where "the pressure cannot be shouldered by a single enterprise alone." With 2,500 stations and 12,000 connectors currently, the gap to the 2027 goal of 22,000 stations remains in the tens of thousands. Introducing NIO's existing network assets and user traffic appears to be Geely's pragmatic solution to plug that gap quickly and share the expansion burden.
Image Source: Chery Group
Facing similar heavy-asset pressures, Chery is seeking a way out through power trading, turning charging stations into storage nodes. While deploying its "Xunlong Instant Charge" network, it is directly binding the technology to V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid), allowing these high-power stations to not only serve ultra-fast charging but also enable vehicles to discharge power back to the grid, creating additional revenue for users and operators.
According to Chery technical staff, the "Xunlong Instant Charge" network is supported by a full suite of automated equipment, including charging robots, wireless charging, and sliding-rail charging, aimed at bridging the "last mile" of replenishment. Simultaneously, for global V2G deployment, Chery's technology currently supports both Chinese and European standards. "This is technical preparation for going overseas," a staff member noted.
Under the plan, Chery will build 20,000 V2G-capable stations globally by 2029. At the 2026 Global Innovation Conference, Chery Vice President Gu Chunshan did the math for users: "If a user participates in V2G trading for 100 days a year, they could earn an estimated 3,000 yuan annually." Addressing concerns about battery degradation from discharging, Gu stated that Chery employs a 0.1C intelligent discharge strategy, effectively achieving zero battery degradation.
This means Chery's station-side business model is no longer solely reliant on service fees paid by drivers. Given the overall low charging utilization rates, combining ultra-fast charging hardware with V2G transforms stations into storage nodes. The peak-to-valley price arbitrage earned by V2G in the electricity market provides a second revenue stream for the stations.
Whether it is BYD's "storage + flash charging," Geely's "high-voltage cars + superchargers," or Chery's "instant charge + V2G," the models diverge but all push replenishment power to the extreme. As station counts routinely hit the "10,000" mark and charging power races toward megawatt levels—even boasting "single-digit minute" full charges—an unavoidable industry controversy surfaces: Is this pursuit of ultimate speed approaching the limits of battery life and safety?
The "Boundary" Debate Over Ultra-Fast Charging
The industry discourse in 2026 regarding "whether fast charging damages batteries" has not converged into a definitive technical verdict.
Ouyang Minggao, an academician at Tsinghua University, offered a cautious warning at the April 2026 Intelligent Electric Vehicle Development Forum: "Ultra-fast and flash charging are pushing the boundaries of safety and lifespan; one misstep and you cross the safety line." He noted an inherent conflict between fast charging and battery life, safety, and cost, making it impossible to simultaneously achieve ultra-long range, instant replenishment, high safety, and low cost.
Real-world data presents a more complex picture. Data collected by Geotab from 21 vehicle models and 22,700 EVs globally shows that vehicles relying mainly on slow charging see an average annual battery degradation of about 1.5%, while those with fast charging accounting for more than 12% of usage see annual degradation of 2.5%.
Faced with potential battery health concerns from fast charging, the battery swapping route offers an alternative solution. William Li has stated that "no matter how fast ultra-fast charging gets, it can't beat swapping," emphasizing that "solving the battery life issue is the systemic advantage of swapping."
Meanwhile, automakers focused on ultra-fast charging have offered their own technical solutions to the same battery health controversy.
Sun Huajun, CTO of BYD's Battery Business Division, didn't shy away from the heat issue in an interview, instead framing the debate within the context of technological iteration: "High-current charging does generate higher temperatures, but technological progress allows us to break physical limits with each generation of speed improvement."
Image Source: BYD Auto
To back this up, BYD released test data from extreme conditions: simulating a "Haikou to Harbin" long-distance trip using only flash charging, the battery retained 89.2% capacity after 500 cycles. Additionally, BYD raised the warranty capacity retention floor for its second-generation Blade Battery by 2.5 percentage points, attempting to quell doubts with stricter after-sales commitments.
Geely is taking a route of temperature control and algorithmic compensation, using AI to predict internal battery temperature and capping maximum charging temperature at 65°C, supplemented by lithium-ion pulse repair technology to offset fast-charging wear. Geely claims this can boost cycle life by over 20%. Chery, relying on its self-developed "Rhino Battery" and "Xunlong Instant Charge" technology, has extended maximum cycle life to 5,000 times while increasing speed, simultaneously launching a lifetime warranty for the core electric components.
Chery representatives stated that their underlying logic for balancing fast charging and battery life relies on precise Battery Management Systems (BMS) and thermal management technology to ensure batteries remain healthy even under high-power input.
On the regulatory front, authorities are catching up: the new national standard for power batteries implemented in July 2026 added safety testing after fast-charging cycles, requiring fast-charging batteries to pass external short-circuit tests after 300 fast-charge cycles without catching fire or exploding.
While automakers and regulators have responded actively, the controversy has not subsided.
Whether it is the academician's warning, third-party degradation statistics, or the automakers' rigorous tests, the data comes from different sources. For ordinary users, however, there is no neutral channel for personal verification—they cannot run hundreds of cycles on their own cars to confirm if official data applies to their real lives over the next five years. Facing this blind spot they cannot verify themselves, anxiety about long-term vehicle condition and residual value becomes a hard-to-shake concern.
It is precisely for this reason that battery swapping constitutes an alternative solution. Its core advantage isn't necessarily "protecting the battery" better on a technical level, but transferring the financial consequences of battery degradation to the operating system, thereby stripping individual owners of residual value anxiety.
When Charging Becomes "Infrastructure," What Should Automakers Compete On?
If you only look at the operating accounts of individual stations, the current construction drive—expanding scale while racing on speed—hardly looks like a lucrative business. Meager service fees struggle to cover high electricity costs and heavy-asset depreciation, and with industry utilization rates lingering at low levels for long periods, recouping costs solely through charging fees within a reasonable cycle is extremely difficult.
But automakers are not in the business of being independent charging operators. For them, charging stations are "cost centers" serving vehicle sales, while vehicle sales themselves are the true "profit centers."
In 2026, ultra-fast charging is shifting from an exclusive selling point for flagship models to a "delivery prerequisite" for mainstream models. As 800V platforms and fast-charging capabilities trickle down to the 150,000 yuan price bracket and below, a high-quality flash-charging station is no longer just "icing on the cake"—it is "infrastructure" that directly determines whether a car's core selling points can actually be realized in sales.
Image Source: Generated by Doubao
Inevitably, the charging race is destined to be a heavy-asset marathon.
Facing an industry average utilization rate of 6.51%, what determines who can "endure longer" is no longer simple scale accumulation, but the reconstruction and synergy of the charging ecosystem's structure.
First, the customer pool is shifting from "brand-exclusive" to "network-public." Previously, automaker-built stations were often seen as exclusive perks for brand owners, carrying strong exclusivity. But squeezed between heavy assets and low utilization, relying solely on one's own user base makes it hard to support the construction and operation costs of a massive network. Whether it is BYD's "station-in-station" model leveraging third-party sites, or Geely introducing external traffic through capital partnerships alongside its self-built network, the trend points the same way: breaking brand barriers to open the charging network to the industry and using shared traffic to dilute per-station costs.
In the future, a charging network that serves only its own owners will struggle to establish a lasting commercial foothold.
Second is the shift from "single-function charging" to an "energy hub" asset structure. With charging service fees squeezed to mere cents per kilowatt-hour, the simple business of "selling electricity" has hit a profit ceiling. The value of charging stations is being redefined—they are not just terminals for replenishing vehicles, but nodes in the urban microgrid with storage and regulation capabilities. Technologies like V2G, currently being explored, allow massive onboard batteries to sell power back to the grid during idle times, earning peak-to-valley price spreads. This transformation from "heavy asset" to "energy asset" is providing a second survival curve for charging networks.
Finally, there is a return from "competing on specs" to "competing on experience" in service structure. As fast-charging speeds approach physical limits and the safety boundary of battery life sparks debate, industry competition will eventually return to the user's real pain points. The "certainty" of replenishment will replace "speed" as the ultimate measure of a network—owners need not only to charge fast but to find usable stations anytime, anywhere, without anxiety about battery life or residual value.
Conclusion:
From the land grab of station building to carefully calculating the return on every kilowatt-hour, the charging war of 2026 has entered its second half.
The 2026 charging battle is no longer about who builds 10,000 stations first, but who can first transform a closed charging network into an open, shared traffic pool, convert heavy assets into adjustable energy nodes, and ultimately find the equilibrium point that closes the loop on both books between product delivery and user trust.
For automakers, the experience dividend of ultra-fast charging has already been delivered to users; but properly resolving concerns about battery health and residual value still requires the entire industry to find answers through long-term operation.
