Tesla will ramp up the construction of its Supercharger network in northern China next year, Grace Tao, Tesla's vice president of external affairs, said in a Weibo reply to another user on Saturday.

Mickeyworks, a well-known YouTube blogger, said in a Weibo post yesterday that he is concerned about the construction of Tesla's charging stations in China, and that it is necessary to increase the construction in northern China because the environmental problems are more prominent and the electric car range in winter is worse than in southern cities.

He also mentioned that the number of Supercharger stations shown on the map is far from enough in his hometown of Shanxi.

Tao replied to him by saying that the supercharging network planning in Shanxi is in the plan now and that it will increase its layout in the whole northern region, including Shanxi, next year.

Tesla has previously said that by the end of 2020, it expects to have built nearly 650 Supercharging stations in China, with about 5,000 DC charging piles covering more than 250 cities. By then, the total number of Superchargers and destination charging piles will reach 7,000.

Earlier yesterday, the Tesla China team announced the opening of a total of five new Supercharging stations in five cities, including Beijing, Hangzhou, Zhoukou, Kunming and Foshan. Among them, this Tesla Supercharger station in Beijing is the 50th in Beijing and the 600th in China.

Earlier this month, Tao said in an online communication event held by Tesla that the Tesla charging piles can only charge Tesla's own cars at present, and Tesla will not rule out the possibility of opening the charging piles to other brands of electric cars in the future.

Tao stressed at the time that the prerequisite for Tesla to open the charging pile is that the cars using Tesla's charging pile should be verified by Tesla's technology to ensure safety and charging experience.