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Tesla is modifying its cars to meet China's charging standards

elon musk intense face
Tesla Motors Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk pauses during a news conference in Tokyo September 8, 2014. Toru Hanai/Reuters

Tesla Motors wants to increase the number of electric cars sold in China. So does the Chinese government. But so far, their efforts to build a better charging infrastructure haven't overlapped.

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Until now. 

Tesla spoke out in support of the development of a national Chinese charging standard on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that it would modify its cars to fit with it

The Chinese government is developing a set of national charging standards to promote the use of electric cars and build its charging infrastructure. 

Tesla has struggled to meet its sales estimates in China, selling 2,500 of its electric cars in the nine months following its launch in China in April 2014, and only 120 in January 2015.  

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According to a Quartz report, this could also be because 74% of urbanised Chinese residents live in apartments rather than detached homes, and "park their cars in shared garages where parking operators have deemed [personal] charging stations a fire hazard."  

Tesla has already built more than 50 supercharger stations in China, and plans to build 700 charging stations in 70 Chinese cities. This would give China the second-largest charging infrastructure outside the US. 

Sales of electric cars in China have been hampered by "range anxiety" – the fear of running out of electricity while on the road.

In an attempt to dampen these fears, the Chinese government built 19,000 charging stations in 2013, and the China State Grid, one of the country's two dominant electric utilities, finished installing 50 fast-charging stations along the 780 mile route from Beijing to Shanghai in January. 

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But the country is still well behind its goal, which would see half a million alternative energy vehicles on the road by the end of this year, the Wall Street Journal report adds. Out of the 20 million passenger vehicles sold in the country last year, only 50,000 relied on renewable energy. 

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