China's charging buildout shows no sign of blinking. According to the National Energy Administration, the country had 24.223 million charging guns in service by the end of August 2026 — up 39.6% year-on-year, per the national charging infrastructure monitoring platform.

The split is telling. Private charging keeps doing the heavy lifting: 19.063 million home guns, up 46.3%, with reported grid connection capacity of 163 million kVA. Public infrastructure stands at 5.16 million guns, up a slower 19.5%, with a combined rated output of 262 million kW — averaging about 50.69 kW per gun.

That average is the quiet headline here. With megawatt-class heavy-truck chargers now shipping and 800V passenger platforms going mainstream, a 50 kW fleet average shows how much of the installed base is still older, slower hardware. The pipes are being laid faster than the market grows — the next fight will be upgrading the public network to match the cars.

Editor's Note: 24 million guns and counting — no other country is even in this race. But hardware counts are easy; making public charging profitable still isn't.

— need a chat about China NEV market? mail me @ sheng.ye@ipsos.com