Charging A Tesla In China: One Owner's Creative, Dangerous Hookup

It has not been easy going in China thus far for electric-car maker Tesla Motors.

Among the many challenges of selling its cars in that country are a lack of public-charging infrastructure and a Chinese charging standard that differs from any other standard in the world.

Even more challenging, far more affluent Chinese citizens live in apartment buildings than in single-family homes, as in the United States.

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This may require owners to resort to extreme measures to recharge the battery of a Tesla Model S electric car, especially on longer trips, as a recent photo illustrates.

Published in Car News China last month, the image shows a Chinese-registered Model S being recharged via a precarious system of wires illegally connected into the electric grid.

The photo was taken on a road that leads up a mountain near Chengdu in Sichuan Province, the site says, claiming that the charging is clearly illegal.

Like many areas of the country, this is one without Tesla Superchargers, and presumably no convenient public charging stations either.

The problem of charging-station availability is a serious one for Tesla, according to Gloria Shao, who covers automotive issues in China for Blueshift Research.

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Local governments, which have a great deal of power over everyday business transactions in the country, have little incentive to assist Tesla in setting up a proprietary Supercharger network.

As in the States, such a network would be solely for the use of Tesla owners--meaning that drivers of other plug-in electric cars would see no benefit from it.