'New track, new direction, endless possibilities'

According to official data, China had 42,000 charging stations and 1.42 million charging piles as of September. But the vehicle-to-pile ratio is only 3.1:1(that is, there is only one pile for more than three e-vehicles).

To narrow the gap, the new development plan underlined accelerated construction of NEV infrastructure and "significantly improved convenience of charging facilities" over the next 15 years.

That is important to make China self-sufficient and a potential exporter in some industry segments. For instance, in insulated gate bipolar transistors, or IGBTs, Germany, Japan and the US dominate, accounting for 34.3 percent, 7.2 percent and 24.9 percent market shares, respectively. The image processing chip sector, too, is basically a duopoly of US company Nvidia and Israel-based Mobileye, Intel's autonomous driving unit.

Hence, the new development plan highlighted that China should make significant breakthroughs in key technologies such as power batteries, drive motors and vehicle operating systems over the next few years.

To be sure, China has attracted hundreds of companies from home as well as abroad to the NEV industry, entailing investments of tens of billions of dollars in developing, designing and assembling NEVs.

For instance, it took Tesla Inc only 10 months to complete the first-phase construction of its Gigafactory in Shanghai.

Wang Hao, Tesla China's general manager, said: "A brand-new automotive era－that is, the era of NEVs－will be established. This is a new track, a new direction. It will be driven by user experience, define cars with software, and have sustainable energy as the core. There are endless possibilities in this direction."

In China, foreign NEV giants like Tesla face competition from local companies like Xpeng Motors, Nio Inc and Li Auto Inc, all of whom offer buyers a selection of models. The Xpeng P7 standard model, for instance, can travel on a single charge up to 706 kilometers in the New European Driving Cycle, which is designed to assess exhaust emission levels and fuel economy in passenger cars.

Overseas, Chinese automakers will seek to build on the current momentum. "Over the next five years, we anticipate Chinese players across the EV supply chain to aggressively enter the overseas market. We believe China material costs are lower than in the overseas market. If this advantage can sustain, China could realize a cost advantage over ex-China players," UBS analysts wrote in a note.

That should reassure aspiring e-car buyers such as Shi.