China Inspects Over 145,000 Public Charging Piles in H1, Tightens Oversight of Metering Irregulariti

Gasgoo Munich- In the first half of 2026, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation moved EV chargers to a priority watch list for consumer metering devices. By launching sweeping on-site inspections and prosecuting violations, authorities are targeting persistent industry ills like billing inaccuracies and fraud — a move designed to shield new-energy vehicle owners from unfair charging costs.

The scale of the crackdown is significant. From January through June, authorities inspected 11,164 charging station operators nationwide and sampled 145,829 in-use chargers, identifying 1,783 non-compliant devices. Regulators also opened 282 investigations into various metering violations.

Billing errors and tampering directly drive up costs for drivers, representing a long-standing complaint among new-energy users. Leveraging on-site testing, this regulatory wave classifies and penalizes non-compliant equipment and violating operators alike. It’s a dual-pronged approach designed to rein in market chaos — targeting both hardware flaws and operational misconduct.

Chargers aren’t the only target. The market regulator simultaneously placed optometry equipment, fuel dispensers, residential utility meters, and electronic pricing scales under strict supervision. These instruments directly affect daily consumer spending, where inaccuracies or tampering can steadily erode public interests. By cracking down on common issues like device malfunctions, data falsification, and lax oversight, authorities are looking to standardize business practices across sectors that touch everyday life.

For the EV charging sector, large-scale, routine inspections carry clear industry value. As the installed base of public chargers has surged in recent years, equipment standards and maintenance frequency vary wildly among operators. Aging units that go uncalibrated can naturally drift, while a small number of players have resorted to software tampering to inflate charges — a problem that has historically been difficult for drivers to prove. By rooting out defective units and prosecuting violations, regulators are forcing operators to maintain equipment on schedule and calibrate billing modules, effectively squeezing the room for illicit profits.

The data reveals a failure rate of roughly 1.22% among the inspected chargers — indicating that, overall, equipment compliance is strong. Yet, existing defective units and covert violations cannot be overlooked. If regulators maintain this high-frequency inspection model, the industry will be pushed to pivot from prioritizing “installation volume” to “operational quality,” a shift that would allow compliant, top-tier operators to build a stronger reputation.