Public consultation on the safety of electric bicycle charging stations is underway
Introduction: Currently, mandatory national standards have been established for electric bicycles as a whole, chargers, and lithium batteries. Electric bicycle charging stations also need to formulate corresponding mandatory national standards to be compatible with them. By providing unified technical guidelines and clearly defining technical thresholds, it can restrain the production and sales behaviors of relevant enterprises, eliminate inferior products, and reduce potential safety hazards of related products at the source.
According to the information released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on January 8th, the mandatory national standard "Safety Technical Specifications for Electric Bicycle Charging Stations" (draft for approval) compiled by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has now been completed. It will be open for public comments starting from January 8th, 2026. The public consultation period is from January 8th to January 14th, 2026.
China is a major producer and consumer of electric bicycles. The country has approximately 380 million electric bicycles in use, and they have become an important means of transportation for the general public for short-distance travel. We are actively promoting the comprehensive rectification of potential safety hazards in electric bicycles across the country. Regarding the key points of the rectification efforts, such as "focusing on solving the problems of insufficient facilities and illegal parking and charging", various regions have lacked unified guidelines and technical guidance when carrying out the construction of charging facilities for electric bicycles.
At present, mandatory national standards have been formulated for electric bicycles as a whole, chargers, and lithium batteries. Electric bicycle charging stations also need to establish corresponding mandatory national standards to be compatible with them. By providing unified technical guidelines and clearly defining technical thresholds, these standards can restrain the production and sales behaviors of relevant enterprises, eliminate inferior products, and reduce potential safety hazards of related products at the source.
This standard is applicable to AC/DC charging stations used for charging electric bicycles and their batteries that comply with GB 17761.
The draft standard for approval stipulates the definitions of terms related to electric bicycle charging stations, test conditions, general requirements, and safety protection functions, and also specifies the special requirements for DC charging stations.
Among them, in terms of safety protection functions, it is clearly stated that electric bicycle charging stations should have protection measures such as short circuit, overcurrent, input overvoltage, no-load, power-off upon full charge, maximum charging time, and over-temperature. Specific requirements and testing methods are also provided.
Electric bicycle charging stations, as public products, need to be considered as such because improper installation of the products may lead to safety issues. The draft for approval of the standards lists some safety requirements that should be taken into account during the installation of these products, including the installation location and the installation facilities.
The standard approval draft also stipulates specific requirements for DC charging stations, detailing the interfaces, mutual recognition coordination, and polarity identification functions of DC charging stations and providing testing methods.
