Shell Recharge in Shenzhen, China wins 2025 ‘Best EV Hub in the World’ competition
In a fast-evolving energy landscape, Shell’s EV super hub at Shenzhen Bao’an Airport has been crowned “Best EV Hub in the World 2025,” a title earned not just for its scale, but for its extraordinary customer-centric design. As featured in the latest episode of The Future of Convenience Podcast, this award signals a major milestone for Shell and sets a new bar for EV infrastructure around the globe.
Our annual Best EV Hub competition is a global benchmark for excellence in electric vehicle charging. This year’s entries came from 18 sites across 14 countries and multiple continents, but Shell’s facility stood out for its sheer ambition and flawless execution.
According to Chuan Hu, Shell’s VP Mobility and Convenience China, Shell began its EV infrastructure expansion in China in 2018, with just a few chargers. That journey has led to the Bao’an site, now the largest in Shell’s China portfolio, with 258 fast chargers and six integrated service offers, including food, beverage, and vehicle services—all designed for professional drivers, who make up over 80% of the site’s users.
“It’s a great example of when we are customer centric,” Hu shared. “When customers give us feedback and we pilot and innovate, everything can turn out to be really, really big and really, really great.”
The Best EV Hub in the World competition is not only a celebration of innovation but also a deep research exercise that evaluates customer experience, site execution, and strategic foresight. According to judge and podcast co-host Dan Munford, “The level was elevated this year… if you looked at the top ten, it was very impressive.”
Elaine Kanak, Chief Marketing Officer of Vontier, a key sponsor of this year’s competition, was equally enthusiastic. “We have over 500,000 c-stores worldwide running our technologies and over 110,000 EV charging points under management… We do fundamentally believe that c-stores have the right to win when it comes to electric charging,” said Kanak. “These three winners, and in fact, all the entries, it was really exciting to see how they’re delivering a really elevated consumer experience that’s really seamless across both traditional fuel and electric charging, as well as a wide range of amenities and services that make them a real destination.”
Maintaining uptime is no small feat. “We build an in-house event center that helps us monitor the performance of each nozzle, each charger by minute,” Hu explained. “So whenever there is a problem, we can quickly identify the problem and improve the performance both on site and digitally on the cloud.”
As for what’s next, Shell is taking lessons from Bao’an and looking to scale them across its network. “The next thing for us is not only to have this big mega flagship site, but we really trying to bring convenience for the network perspective,” said Hu. “Everything is exciting for us at this stage.”
We’re looking forward to our visit to Shenzhen this September, where we’ll explore the city’s remarkable embrace of new energy vehicles, now making up over 60% of the car park in China’s third-largest city.
A very successful competition in 2025
Many thanks to the sponsors of the Best EV Hub in the World 2025 competition, Vontier and Visa. These global companies are vital in supporting our industry through the mobility transition.
In second place in the competition, our congratulations go to Westmorland Gloucester Services, UK—seamlessly incorporating EV charging into this iconic roadside retail destination, where people and the community are at the heart of everything they do.
And in third place, Circle K Järna—Sweden’s largest ultra-fast charging station at 30,000 sqm— providing ultra-fast charging with capacities of 400 kW. This brand-new site, located along the E4 highway approximately 50 km south of Stockholm, stands out as a premier charging destination in the highly developed Nordics.
See all the entries and read all about the competition here.
Thank you to our Future of Convenience Podcast Sponsors!
