The Difficulty of One Electric Pile on Site

Mr. Wang, a citizen, told reporters that the Tianhong Apartment Community he lives in is located in Lane 99, Lane 677, Wuzhong Road, Hongqiao Town, Minhang District. Last year, he purchased a new energy vehicle and wanted to install a self charging pile in the underground rental parking space of the community. However, after communicating with the property management and neighborhood committee of the community, it was found that the property rights of the underground parking spaces in the community are still in the hands of the developer. Currently, the developer has no plans to authorize the installation of charging piles, so they are powerless.

The reporter visited the scene and found that the community is divided into above ground and underground parking spaces. Among them, there are 51 above ground parking spaces, which are temporary public parking spaces, and the underground parking spaces are fixed long-term rental parking spaces, totaling more than 300 parking spaces. The reporter found that none of the parking spaces in the community have installed new energy charging piles. During the interview, many residents in the community complained, 'It's really inconvenient. There's no place in their community where they can charge their cars. Nowadays, residents with new energy vehicles can only drive out of the community and find other places to charge their cars.'

Ms. Xu, a resident, revealed that the property management of the community has conducted relevant inquiries and collected residents' demands for the installation of charging piles, which have been ongoing for three years. The number of registrations exceeds 150, and personal information is densely packed on 5 pages, but there has been no progress so far.

The reporter contacted the Jinhong Neighborhood Committee and Minghuan Property Company in the community, and the staff responded that they have been trying to communicate with the developer about the installation of charging piles. However, since all the property rights of the underground garage in the community belong to the developer, the developer has no plans to invest in the costs incurred by the project, so the problem has reached a deadlock.

Mr. Gu, a resident of Pengfengyuan Community, Lane 152, Pengyue Road, Pudong New Area, has been very distressed recently. Due to the long commuting distance, he purchased a new energy vehicle. He thought it could save fuel costs, but wasted a lot of time queuing up for charging. He is troubled by 'mileage anxiety' and has to queue up at public charging stations every day after work to charge his car, which is both time-consuming and laborious. He urgently wants to achieve 'charging freedom' in the community.

But when he applied to the property management of the community to install charging stations, he was refused. One is that his parking space is a rental rather than a property owned space, which does not meet the conditions; The second issue is insufficient capacitance in the community, and the installation of charging stations requires expansion.

Mr. Gu is very puzzled and emphasizes that there are about four to five hundred parking spaces above and underground in the community, but there are no fixed ownership parking spaces. All of them are public parking spaces, and car owners cannot purchase or rent parking spaces for a long time. So currently, all electric vehicle owners in the community are in an awkward situation where 'the car has been purchased, but the charging station cannot be installed'.

The reporter called the Pengqi Neighborhood Committee of the community, and the staff gave feedback that there are no property rights parking spaces in the community. If all car owners need to install private charging stations, they need to discuss and discuss with all the owners of the community. Previously, the property committee did not pass relevant resolutions, and the installation of private charging stations is not an absolute private issue, which requires a certain balance of public interests. At the same time, if a charging station is installed, it is necessary to expand the capacity of the community's capacitors, which will involve related costs. It is also an unavoidable question who will bear this cost. So, the community is currently introducing third-party operating companies to actively promote the construction of public charging stations, and the expansion costs will also be borne by third parties. But when it comes to using public charging stations, some residents have expressed different opinions: 'Public charging stations are all fast charging, which will increase the loss of vehicle batteries.'

And a similar scene appeared in Yangyuan New Village, Gaodong Town, Pudong. When residents apply for the installation of charging stations, the installation cannot proceed due to insufficient capacitance in the old residential area. Helpless, he could only find the power company and clarify the entire process of applying for expansion. With the intervention of 'Xinmin Helping Farmers', the property management and neighborhood committee and other departments inspected the underground garage, determined the need to add distribution boxes to solve the problem of adding piles, and submitted an expansion application. Currently, the expansion plan is progressing according to the process.

Mr. Xia, who lives in Fengjingyuan Community, Xinkai City, Songjiang, is facing another dilemma: although all the public rental parking spaces in the community are available, some owners have already installed private charging stations, but his application was rejected. Later, the property introduced a public charging post, which not only needs to grab the position, but also costs several times more than the private charging post, which is a bit 'painful' to use.

Mr. Xia said that their community is a large one with both ground and underground parking lots, and a relatively abundant number of parking spaces. However, they are all rental parking spaces and do not have property rights. Residents pay a fee of 1500 yuan per year on a first come, first served basis for parking. With the increasing number of new energy vehicles in the community, he discovered that some residents had installed charging stations. Therefore, he recently purchased a new energy vehicle, but encountered obstacles when planning to install charging stations. 'The property management stated that they have uniformly introduced public charging stations and will no longer agree to private installations.'

However, in actual charging, Mr. Xia often faces the embarrassment of not being able to charge. Sometimes when I come back from work and prepare to use a public charging station for charging, either other vehicles are already charging, or the space is occupied by a gasoline truck. What's even more frustrating for Mr. Xia is that the electricity cost of using a public charging station is much higher than that of a private charging station. 'Public piles charge 1 yuan per kilowatt hour of electricity all day, while private piles charge 60 cents during the day and 30 cents after 10 pm at night, which is quite a difference.'

The reporter communicated with the property management and neighborhood committee of Fengjing Garden in Xinkai City, and the other party explained that there are a total of 768 parking spaces on the ground and underground in the community, and parking is not usually tight. At the beginning, the installation of private charging stations was also opened to meet the charging needs of the owners. The owners also signed a commitment letter, promising that the parking space would only be used for charging and not as a fixed parking space. Afterwards, the property management signed an agreement with a third party to introduce public charging piles that can be used by all residents of the community. Currently, a total of 48 public charging piles have been installed, which will be further increased in the future. For the phenomenon of occupying space, the property management will strengthen inspections and promptly notify owners to move their vehicles and make way for it; For the issue of high costs, as the community property committee has not yet been established, discussions can be held with third parties after the establishment of the community property committee.

Can the construction of pile channels be barrier free? Due to the lack of property rights parking spaces, it is difficult to install charging stations smoothly in old residential areas, which is the first challenge faced by residents.

The newly implemented 'Management Measures for the Construction of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities in Residential Communities in Shanghai' (hereinafter referred to as the 'Measures') since June last year have stipulated the construction process of self built piles in residential communities: Before constructing and installing self built piles, residents should inform property service enterprises in writing. If self built piles are constructed in self owned parking spaces or leased parking spaces with the consent of the property owner (with a valid lease period of one year or more), the property service enterprise shall cooperate with the power department to conduct on-site inspections after receiving written notification from residents, determine the installation location of relevant distribution boxes and meter boxes, and assist in providing relevant drawings, materials, cable channels, and other access conditions. If self built piles are built on a parking space shared by all owners (with a valid lease period of one year or more), they must be approved and confirmed by the owners' meeting or the authorized property committee of the owners' meeting before implementation.

That is to say, even in the rental parking space, the owner has the right to install charging piles, but in the specific implementation, it often faces obstacles from developers, property management, and property committees, which often leads to conflicts. For this reason, citizens call on all relevant parties to implement the specific requirements of the 'method' and make the channels for applying for the installation of charging piles 'barrier free'?

Can power expansion be clearer? Due to the insufficient total capacity of the original design, it is necessary to expand the capacity when introducing new energy charging piles, which is also a common problem that old residential areas need to face.

For the 'power expansion' of residential areas, the 'method' stipulates that under the intelligent and orderly charging method, if the power transformation and distribution capacity of the residential area still cannot meet the construction requirements, the charging operator can apply to the power department to increase the capacity of the residential area transformer. After being approved and confirmed by the owners' meeting or the authorized owners' committee, the property service enterprise shall cooperate in providing the installation location of power transformation and distribution equipment, cable channels (bridges), meter box positions and other power access conditions required for capacity expansion.

However, there is no clear regulation on who should bear the cost of increasing the power capacity in the community, and how to allocate the new capacity. In practical operation, disputes often arise, ultimately leading to the installation of charging piles being put on hold.

Citizens believe that as the installation of charging piles has become one of the 'must-have' requirements in many residential areas, can detailed rules be formulated as soon as possible in terms of power expansion to make the entire process clearer and clearer?

Can the charging cost be more beneficial to the people? At present, many residential areas have introduced public charging stations to solve the problem of difficult charging for residents. In fact, the 'method' also encourages charging operators to entrust property service enterprises to participate in the daily management of open sharing of community charging piles through market-oriented means, and each participating party shall agree on the distribution method of charging service fee income on their own.

However, in practical operation, the higher charging costs of public charging stations compared to private charging stations have been criticized by residents. A reporter's investigation found that many residential areas that introduce public charging stations generally charge prices within the range of 1 yuan to 1.5 yuan per kilowatt hour, which is several times higher than private charging stations that charge 3 to 6 yuan per kilowatt hour. The third-party operating company also admitted that the fees charged by public charging stations are actually composed of two parts: 'electricity fee+service fee'. The electricity price is based on the average electricity price level of residents, and the extra part is actually 'service fee'. The construction management, operation and maintenance, and safety responsibility of the 'public charging station' are all the responsibility of the operator, which requires costs.

Citizens hope that it is appropriate for the operator to charge a certain service fee, but since it is a public charging station introduced into residential areas, it should focus more on public welfare and inclusiveness, so that residents in the community can enjoy convenience while also benefiting more.