[Shenzhen, China, January 9, 2025] Today, Huawei released the Top 10 Trends of Charging Network Industry 2025 with the theme of "Jointly Charging the Road Ahead." Wang Zhiwu, President of Huawei Smart Charging Network Domain, comprehensively interprets the top 10 trends of the charging network industry for 2025 from the perspectives of industry development directions and technology development path.
He states that electric vehicles (EVs) have developed better than expectations again. It is estimated that the number of global EVs will reach 480 million within 10 years globally. We are already in the era of comprehensive electrification. Huawei has always been committed to leading technological innovation in the industry, increasing R&D investment, and working with the ecosystem for shared success. Huawei has accelerated the construction of ubiquitous fast and ultra-fast charging networks, with the aspiration for jointly charging the road ahead.
Wang Zhiwu, President of Huawei Smart Charging Network Domain
Trend 1: High-Quality Development
High-quality development of charging networks has become an industry trend. At the country level, testing on charging equipment has evolved from type tests to mandatory certification, and one-size-fits-all subsidies have been replaced by subsidies for high-quality products. The entire industry will undergo profound changes centering on high-quality development. Technologies will be iterated rapidly, and core charger enterprises will encounter a sharp decrease.
Trend 2: Comprehensive Ultra-fast Charging
"Ultra-fast charging" is a buzzword of 2024 for the industry. Multiple cities in China have started to deploy ultra-fast charging facilities, boosting the explosive growth of the number of EV models that support ultra-fast charging. It is estimated that all typical EV models will support ultra-fast charging in all scenarios by 2028. 70% of the existing integrated chargers will be phased out.
Trend 3: Optimal Experience
With an increasing proportion of passenger EVs, the existing charging networks can no longer meet users' requirement of optimal experience. Mature technologies of intelligent head units, intelligent driving, and intelligent chargers promote the charging experience to be digital, intelligent, and automatic, driving the advent of the era of digitalized charging experience.
Trend 4: Electrified Logistics
To achieve the goal of replacing oil with electricity for heavy goods vehicles, charging is the core obstacle. Ultra-fast charging technologies will completely overcome industry hurdles. Compared with battery swapping, ultra-fast charging has advantages such as low construction capital expenditure (CAPEX), high charging compatibility, easy device maintenance, and small station footprint, promoting to achieve electrified logistics for the industry.
Trend 5: Grid Friendliness
As the power grids gradually struggle to satisfy charging loads, the industry players and governments are actively exploring to expand the scale of V2G pilots. In the future, power grid interaction will transit from passive to active response, and from one-way to multiple-way interaction to ensure power grid safety.
Trend 6: Multi-level Power Pooling
With increasing compatible EV models and wider power ranges, commercial EVs will even support megawatt-level charging. Facing ever-changing requirements, the power pooling technology will evolve from split-type charger application to multi-level power pooling, and extend to power grids and EVs. This evolution reduces electricity dependency on power grids, supports evolution with EV models, and meets EV requirements to the maximum extent.
Trend 7: Fully Liquid-Cooled Charging
Charging scenarios are increasingly diverse, especially including more extreme environments. Charging stations are deployed from cities to counties and towns, which means the distance between stations are expanding, making maintenance more difficult. From highways to logistics ports, the environments are more complex, and the reliability challenge is intensified. Therefore, the industry is accelerating the deployment of high-power liquid-cooled charging equipment. Liquid-cooled power unit + liquid-cooled charging dispenser will become the best combination.
Trend 8: PV+ESS+Charger Integration
PV parity and development of the energy storage system (ESS) facilitate low power generation costs and high charging benefits, accelerating business viability. The traditional solution of "stacking PV, ESS, and charging cabinets" has disadvantages such as uneven performance and lack of unified management. It will gradually evolve to the solution of "intelligent integration" that will improve the benefits throughout the lifecycle, be friendly to power grids, and ensure safety of the charging station.
Trend 9: Low-Power DC Charging
Campus will be the core scenario for future V2G development. As low-power DC charging is becoming popular, compared with traditional AC chargers, it has more digital functions such as bonus point calculation, centralized deployment, easy management and control, and V2G evolution.
Trend 10: Electrical Safety
As charging scenarios are expanding to densely populated environments, electrical safety requirements will shift from single-point control to unified control for people, EVs, chargers, and ESSs. Industry partners need to work together to ensure efficient collaboration in terms of charging station construction specifications, technical architecture, product design, and AI applications, preventing EVs from catching fire, EV owners from electric shocks, and risks from spreading.
In 2025, Huawei will work with partners and customers to accelerate ultra-fast charging coverage in all scenarios. In the tide of vehicle electrification, we are dedicated to making EV owners drive at will, from cities to counties and towns, from highways to national roads, and from China to the world, and achieving the vision of jointly charging the road ahead.
