Over 80% of EV Charging Operators in the Red as Tech Upgrades and Price Wars Deepen Profit Crisis

As of the end of February 2026, China had a total of 21.01 million charging facilities, up 47.8% year-on-year, comprising 4.834 million public chargers and 16.176 million private chargers, bringing the vehicle-to-charger ratio close to 1:1. In some regions, there are now more chargers than electric vehicles (EVs), leading to persistently declining overall utilization rates for public chargers—particularly for older, low-power units, whose utilization rates fall below 10%. Over 80% of charging station operators are operating at a loss. After accounting for costs such as equipment depreciation, site rental, and labor for operations and maintenance, leading companies earn a net profit of only about RMB 0.04 per kilowatt-hour. Rapid industry expansion combined with low utilization rates has further intensified profitability pressures. Automakers and battery manufacturers are accelerating their entry into the charging and battery-swapping sector. Companies like BYD, NIO, and CATL are integrating charging and swapping services as complementary offerings to vehicle sales, rather than aiming primarily to profit from charging itself. As of April 2026, NIO had invested over RMB 20 billion in charging and swapping infrastructure, building 8,751 stations and diverting core customers away from third-party operators. Accelerated technological iteration has rendered early-generation, low-power chargers obsolete before they could recoup their investment, turning them into inefficient assets and heightening investment risks for operators. Meanwhile, charging service fees—the primary revenue source—are constrained by high user price sensitivity and low brand loyalty, making it difficult for operators to raise prices. Consequently, they resort to cutthroat price competition to attract customers. Moreover, declining mass-production costs for equipment, the gradual phasing out of local government subsidies for charging infrastructure, and continuously rising site rental and operational expenses have made the industry’s long-standing reliance on low-price operations unsustainable, leaving most operators mired in losses.