BEIJING - The number of charging piles for electric vehicles (EVs) in China reached over 18.64 million as of the end of October this year, marking an increase of 54 percent from a year ago, official data showed on Wednesday.

Among them, around 4.53 million were public charging facilities while over 14.11 million were private, up 39.5 percent and 59.4 percent, respectively, data from the National Energy Administration showed.

The combined rated power of public EV charging facilities was approximately 203 million kilowatts at the end of October, or 44.69 kilowatts on average, according to the data.

Earlier last month, China unveiled a three-year action plan to improve the country's EV charging infrastructure, aiming to establish a nationwide network of 28 million charging facilities, with public charging capacity surpassing 300 million kilowatts by the end of 2027.