BEIJING -- Beijing is planning to build thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles this year.

Another 14 large charging facilities will be opened in expressway service stations and 5,880 smaller ones in urban areas, said the Beijing Electric Power Company on Tuesday. They will all feature sockets to charge multiple vehicles simultaneously.

The new facilities are desperately needed if authorities are to persuade drivers to rely on greener, electric vehicles. There are currently only seven Beijing expressway service stations with charging stations, and three of them have not been put into use yet.

Nevertheless, the 172 charging facilities in Beijing as of the end of the 2015 had performed over two million charges, according to the Beijing Electric Power Company.