China supports the two development models of new energy vehicles, charging and battery swap, to create a favorable environment for the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a reply letter to a proposal by a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Charging and battery swap infrastructure construction is an important guarantee to promote the development of new energy vehicles, as well as a concrete measure to implement the energy consumption revolution, the letter said.

According to preliminary statistics, by the end of June 2020, China had built a total of 1.321 million charging piles, up 31.9 percent from the same period last year.

Among them, 558,000 public charging piles, 763,000 charging piles for residents, 449 battery swap stations.

On the whole, China's charging and battery swap infrastructure basically support the development of new energy vehicles, but still faces the foundation is not strong, unbalanced and inadequate development and other problems, need to increase construction efforts, the letter said.

To further promote the development of charging and battery swap infrastructure for new energy vehicles, China issued an action plan in November 2018, clearly setting out the industry's key tasks, improving safeguard policies and measures, and striving to optimize the development environment and industrial landscape over a three-year period.

In the next step, the Energy Bureau will increase its efforts to solve common issues such as land for the construction of charging and battery swap infrastructure projects, and support the two development models of "charging" and "battery swap" in parallel for the New energy vehicles create a favorable environment for the promotion of applications, the letter said.

Last month, the Shanghai Securities News reported that the MIIT is encouraging companies to develop a battery swap model based on usage scenarios.

According to the report, the MIIT will also encourage local governments to formulate relevant policies to promote the development of the battery swap industry in the form of pilot programs to support and encourage companies to develop and manufacture products based on battery swap models.

In China, Nio is the most high-profile promoter of the battery swap model. Last month, the EV maker released its highly expected BaaS (Battery as a Service) battery rental service in China and generated high interest in China's auto and technology circles.

According to the Shanghai Securities News, MIIT researcher Bai Hua said at an internal seminar that MIIT, as the leading department of the joint ministerial meeting on energy efficiency and new energy vehicle industry development, will remain steadfast in developing new energy vehicles.

For the car body and battery separation mode, Bai Hua said, new energy vehicles are still in the early stages of industrial development, MIIT will maintain an open attitude on different technology routes including charging and battery swap.