China's state-owned electric utility has opened Beijing's largest ultra-fast charging station, with 25 chargers at 360kW and five chargers at 90kW. The facility has capacity for servicing up to 30 urban transit buses simultaneously.

The Xiaoying Public Transit Bus Terminal, located in Chaoyang district, charges vehicles for up to a dozen major city bus routes. The buses take 10-15 minutes to recharge their lithium-titanate battery in a process that is repeated two to three times per day during driver breaks. The buses are able to complete several route loops between each charge.

Buses take 10-15 minutes to recharge their lithium-titanate battery. Image credit: Microvast.The plug-in technology represents an operational advance over Beijing's earlier experiment to charge transit vehicles via battery swapping. That method required storage space for the extra batteries and incurred high costs associated with a robotic battery pack swapping infrastructure.

State Grid Corp. of China plans to expand the Xiaoying terminal's charging infrastructure over the next five years to accommodate additional bus routes.

China's EV charging infrastructure has grown in recent years as the country grapples with urban smog. According to Reportbuyer.com, in 2010-2014 the number of Chinese charging stations rose almost tenfold, from 76 to 723, while the number of charging piles increased from 1,122 to 28,000.