In the first three days of China's National Day (“Golden Week”) holiday — from midnight on October 1 to the end of October 3 — nationwide demand for highway EV charging set new records. According to data from facilities registered on the National Charging Infrastructure Monitoring and Service Platform, highway EV charging sessions across the country totaled 2.9686 million over the three days, averaging 989,500 per day, up 48.41% from the same period last year. Total charging volume reached 71.6193 million kilowatt-hours, up 49.39% year-on-year, with an average of about 24.12 kWh per session.

On the first day of this year's holiday, national highway traffic volume was expected to reach roughly 71 million vehicle-trips, with new-energy-vehicle traffic peaking at about 17.8 million vehicle-trips — around 1.8 times normal levels — showing that EVs have become a major choice for long-distance self-drive travel. Multiple media outlets reported that the concentrated surge in travel demand led to queuing and strained power supply at some highway service stations during peak hours, with a few stations even experiencing a scramble for available chargers. Authorities rushed mobile emergency charging vehicles (commonly called “mobile charging guns”) to key routes to ease the pressure.

Data previously released by China's National Energy Administration show that as of the end of June this year, the country's total electric-vehicle charging infrastructure reached 23.057 million units, up 43.2% year-on-year, comprising 5.009 million public charging facilities and 18.048 million private ones. By the end of August, that figure had risen further to 24.223 million units, up 39.6% year-on-year. As of the end of June, more than 180,000 high-power charging guns had been built nationwide, and the county-level coverage rate for charging facilities had risen to 98.61%, with the network increasingly extending into townships.

Highway charging facilities registered on the national monitoring platform currently total 62,700, while service areas along the nation's highways have built roughly 89,000 charging facilities in all, providing a relatively solid base of support for travel peaks such as the National Day holiday. Even so, compared with this year's May Day holiday — when highway charging sessions nationwide totaled 3.9784 million and charging volume reached 94.9314 million kWh, a daily average of 18.9863 million kWh, 14.09% higher than during the Spring Festival holiday — it is clear that highway charging demand during holidays keeps trending upward, and whether infrastructure build-out can keep pace with travel peaks remains an ongoing test.

Industry observers say the nearly 50% year-on-year jump in both charging sessions and charging volume closely tracks the continued rise in China's EV ownership and market penetration. Industry forecasts put China's 2026 new-energy-vehicle sales at roughly 19 million units, keeping the country at the forefront globally. As more consumers choose EVs for family road trips, the “stress test” that highway charging faces during major holidays is increasingly shifting from an occasional phenomenon into a routine infrastructure-management challenge.

To cope with holiday charging peaks, China's Ministry of Transport and the National Energy Administration have in recent years continued to push for expanded and upgraded charging facilities at highway service areas, including adding high-power charging posts, deploying mobile energy-storage charging vehicles, and optimizing charging reservation and traffic-diversion systems. During this year's National Day holiday, highway management authorities in multiple regions used real-time monitoring of charger usage and dynamic updates on service-area queues to help guide drivers to recharge during off-peak windows, which eased queuing pressure at some popular routes to a degree.

Still, on-the-ground reporting shows that even as officials stress that charging infrastructure “ran smoothly overall” and met the surge in holiday travel demand, multiple media accounts from service stations noted queuing and chargers in short supply during peak hours at some locations. Uneven geographic distribution of charging facilities, and a buildout pace that has not fully kept up with the growth in EV ownership, remain issues — particularly pronounced at service areas along certain major highway trunk routes.

Overall, the charging data from the first three days of this year's National Day holiday again confirm the rapid momentum of China's new-energy-vehicle industry, while offering lessons for infrastructure preparedness ahead of future holiday travel peaks. As the charging network continues to densify, high-power fast-charging technology spreads further, and flexible supplementary options such as mobile emergency charging become routine, highway EV charging capacity is likely to keep improving — though precisely matching supply with demand during peak travel hours remains an area the relevant authorities will need to keep refining.

Behind the surge in charging demand lies an overall travel scale that also hit new records this National Day holiday. China's Ministry of Transport forecast that cross-regional passenger movements nationwide would total about 2.13 billion trips over the seven-day holiday, averaging more than 300 million trips a day; over the first three days (October 1-3) alone, cross-regional movements reached 329 million, 306 million and 304 million trips respectively. Over the same period, national railways were expected to carry 284 million passenger-trips in total, with October 1 alone setting a single-day record of 25.204 million passenger-trips; October 3 was expected to see 18.9 million passenger-trips, with 910 extra trains added. In civil aviation, the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day travel period was expected to see 219,000 passenger flights operated, with domestic airlines expected to carry 31.023 million passenger-trips in total. The rapid growth in highway EV charging volumes thus occurred amid this unprecedented, nationwide surge in travel pressure.

At the policy level, the continued rise in charging demand is also closely tied to adjustments in China's 2026 support policies for EV purchases and trade-ins. This year, the preferential purchase tax on new-energy vehicles began to be phased down, shifting from a full exemption to a halved rate of 5%. At the same time, Beijing has continued its vehicle trade-in subsidy program: trading in an old car for a new EV earns a subsidy worth 12% of the new vehicle's invoice price, capped at 20,000 yuan per vehicle, while a standard replacement earns an 8% subsidy capped at 15,000 yuan, with the program running through the end of December this year. Against the backdrop of a narrower purchase-tax break, the trade-in subsidy has continued to support EV purchases and replacements to some degree, indirectly fueling the growth in holiday self-drive travel.

Overall, the simultaneous rise in charging sessions, charging volume and cross-regional travel traces the deepening shift in China's EV industry from a “car-buying boom” to a “car-using boom”: this not only tests automakers' product reliability and range performance, but also demands greater density of coverage and dispatch efficiency from the charging network along highways. Going forward, as high-power fast charging, battery swapping, and mobile emergency charging become more widespread in various forms, the ability of highway service areas to support charging during major holidays is expected to keep improving.

To cope with the charging peak, the State Grid Corporation of China deployed a cumulative 599 emergency charging guns at highway service areas during the National Day holiday, and placed 32 mobile emergency charging vehicles at service areas where charging demand was concentrated but transformer capacity still had headroom, dynamically reinforcing stations with severe queuing. According to reports, the service areas that saw particularly heavy charging demand this holiday included the Laoting and Tanghai service areas on the Hebei section of the Qinhuangdao-Binzhou Expressway, the Pengcheng service area on the Jiangsu section of the Lianyungang-Huoerguosi Expressway, the Yundan rest stop on the Fujian section of the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway, the Xiucun service area on the Fujian section of the Shaxian-Xiamen Expressway, the Luohe service area on the Henan section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway, the Wangwushan service area on the Henan section of the Heze-Baoji Expressway, the Qiaotouhe service area on the Hunan section of the Changsha-Zhijiang Expressway, and the Xin'an service area in Sichuan and Chengcheng service area in Shaanxi on the Beijing-Kunming Expressway. State Grid said relevant departments use its “State Grid Smart EV Platform” to forecast how busy each service area will be each day, dynamically deploying emergency charging equipment accordingly, and advise drivers to move their vehicles once charged to about 80% to improve charger turnover and ease queuing pressure.