SMM: in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, it seems to have formed such a tacit understanding: due to many factors such as policy, technology, cost and business model, China gives priority to the development of hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles, while hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles are regarded as "reserve" routes, which have been lukewarm for many years.
Even though hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars were unveiled in China as early as 12 years ago, they have never been put on the market, and they do not even have a chance to "try and make mistakes". Is there no prospect for hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars in the Chinese market? Not necessarily.
The hydrogen fuel cell car field, which has been silent for a long time, is ushering in a small and exciting part of the industry. In the past two months, a number of vehicle companies, such as Great Wall, Guangzhou Automobile and BMW, have issued plans for hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles one after another. Among them, GAC will carry out demonstration operation in 2020. Over the years, the slow development of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles on the road of commercialization has begun to enter the substantive operation stage.
The "small and best part" of the fuel cell passenger car industry
China's hydrogen fuel cell cars have "earned" some face this time.
Previously, the first-mover advantage of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars seemed to be in foreign companies. In December 2014, Toyota launched its first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car. At that time, Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle development director Yoshihiro Tanaka said that Toyota's introduction of the Mirai to the market at the end of 2014 had something to do with the consensus reached in Japan, Europe, the United States and other countries on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. At the same time, the cost of developing hydrogen-fueled vehicles is 95% lower than in 2008.
Around 2015, Japanese and Korean car companies and European and American car companies continue to announce hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars. Strictly speaking, Hyundai launched the mass-produced Hyundai ix35 FCV as early as December 2013; Honda launched the CLARITY in 2016; and Daimler launched the new hydrogen fuel Shenchi GLC-CELL concept car in 2017.
On the other hand, Chinese car companies have not made as substantial progress as Toyota, Hyundai and Honda. SAIC unveiled the fourth-generation Roewe 950 plug-in fuel cell vehicle with maximum mileage 400km at the 2014 Shanghai Auto Show. In 2016, Chery unveiled an Arize 3 fuel cell extended-range electric vehicle at the National 12th five-year Plan Science and Technology Innovation Achievement Exhibition, which can achieve long-range 350km in extended-range mode. However, this is only a technical demonstration of SAIC and Chery.
With the arrival of 2020, the different actions of Chinese car companies in the field of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars have made people feel the "small and best part" of a wave of industry.
In less than a month, three vehicle companies have issued plans for hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars and put forward plans for the launch of mass-produced models. On July 20, Great Wall released the "Lemon" platform. The "Lemon" platform model will match the second-generation hydrogen fuel cell power system and will have a driving range of up to 1100km. According to the plan, Great Wall's first hydrogen-fueled vehicle platform will be launched this year, showing a small hydrogen fleet in 2022 and a mature fuel cell passenger car model in 2023.
GAC is not far behind. On July 28th, Aion LX Fuel Cell, GAC's first hydrogen fuel cell car, made its debut on GAC Science and Technology Day. And this model is not just a display car, GAC plans to put into demonstration operation by the end of this year.
There is also a cluster of proponents of fuel cell technology in the new power of car building. On August 10, Aichi Automobile held the groundbreaking ceremony of methanol reforming to produce hydrogen fuel cell technology in Gaoping, Shanxi Province, and the construction of its methanol-hydrogen fuel cell power system production base officially began. With an investment of 2 billion yuan, the plant can achieve an annual output of 80, 000 units per set of methanol hydrogen production fuel cell power system.
In addition to the above-mentioned enterprises, preliminary statistics, including seahorse, Yundu, Red Flag, SAIC Chase, Changan and other car companies have begun to layout in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It can be said that, from the perspective of the layout of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles, China has the largest number of car companies at present. Will this be the beginning of the rise of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars in China?
Why do you want to build a fuel cell passenger car?
First of all, answer this question: why do we have to build hydrogen fuel cell cars?
Let's take a look at the energy problems facing our country. There are several sets of data: first, at present, China relies on imports for 70% and more than 40% of oil and natural gas; second, China accounts for 29% of global carbon emissions in 2019; third, China's renewable energy accounts for about 14.86%, and the scale of "three abandonment" (abandoning wind, light and water) is about 51.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Fourth, the efficiency level of coal-fired power generation in China is between 38% and 45%, and the energy consumption of GDP in 2018 is about 0.506 tons of standard coal per 10,000 yuan, which is 1.5 times the world average.
China has promised the world that carbon emissions will peak by 2030. How to fulfill this promise? The development of hydrogen energy industry is an effective way to realize decarbonization. When hydrogen reacts with oxygen, the final product is water, which is carbon-free, colorless and tasteless.
From a strategic point of view, "decarbonization from hydrogen" is an inevitable trend in the future. Of course, when it comes to specific industries, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry with large-scale advantages is essential. Without the lead of the hydrogen fuel cell car industry, China will have to make a discount if it is to live up to its 2030 promise.
And look at the advantages of fuel cell cars. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle ((Fuel Cell Vehicle,FCV), in short, is a new type of electric vehicle driven by the electricity generated by the fuel cell. Compared with traditional cars, FCV has zero pollution to the environment, hydrogenation only takes a few minutes, and the mileage is enough to meet the needs of users. Only from the point of view of the product itself, the advantage of FCV is very outstanding.
In fact, Chinese car companies have never ignored the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Since 2008, Chinese car companies have been investing in the field of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars. SAIC, Chery, FAW, BAIC, Great Wall, Aichi and other car companies have demonstrated fuel cell passenger car products. According to preliminary statistics, more than 20 fuel cell passenger vehicles have appeared in the domestic market since 2008.
It is also an indisputable fact that China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry is concentrated in the field of commercial vehicles. Professor Zhang Tong, director of the fuel Cell vehicle Technology Research Institute of Tongji University, explained that from a technical point of view, when the fuel cell vehicle industry chain technology is not very mature, it is relatively difficult to develop commercial vehicles. Passenger cars require higher technical maturity of related parts and components, and it is more difficult to push.
Another reason is the national policy orientation. The demonstration operation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles focuses on public transport and logistics, so that the state is less difficult to control and easier to operate from the perspective of subsidies. Coupled with the intervention of local government forces, the products with strong regional and public attributes such as buses have become the key objects of support.
Therefore, some people think that China's passenger cars are more suitable for pure electric technology, and it is not necessary to develop hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars.
This view is biased. According to the proportion of commercial and passenger vehicles, as of June 2020, the number of cars in China has reached 270 million, of which only 29.44 million are trucks. Even with the addition of bus vehicles, the proportion of commercial vehicles is not high.
If the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry is only extended to the field of commercial vehicles, then the overall market capacity will be very limited, which is far from enough contribution to energy saving and emission reduction in China. Secondly, the infrastructure utilization rate of hydrogenation stations will be on the low side in the future. Moreover, whether hydrogen fuel cell technology can stand the test must also go deep into the field of private consumption.
From the international experience, the market achievement of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles is also obvious to all. Sales of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles in South Korea have continued to rise since 2018, especially between 2015 and 2019, with year-on-year growth of 509.8% in 2018 and more than 4000 in 2019. After falling in 2017 and 2018, sales of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars in Japan rebounded in 2019 and are expected to pick up steadily in 2020.
Let's take the sales data of Hyundai Nexo hydrogen fuel cell models as an example. Hyundai sold a total of 966 Nexo; vehicles in 2018, 4987 in 2019 and 3292 in the first half of 2020. Hyundai expects to sell more than 10,000 cars in August.
From this point of view, hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars to the market, although not a success for the time being, but also a small achievement, at least one valuable opportunity to stand the market test.
Where is the bottleneck of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars?
Of course, developing hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars is not easy.
Daimler announced not long ago that it would end the development of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars. This means that the project, developed in partnership with Ford and Nissan since 2013, has been stopped. The core reason for Daimler's abandonment of the fuel cell project is that the cost of making hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars is too high.
The first difficulty in hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars is cost. As a product facing consumers directly, the price of passenger cars is an important reason to determine their purchase. Some agencies have conducted preliminary statistics on the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The price of a fuel cell vehicle is 1.5 to 2 times that of a lithium-ion electric vehicle and 3-4 times that of a fuel vehicle. If the cost of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars remains high, it will be difficult to find a market in the future.
Infrastructure is the second obstacle for hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars. If the layout of the hydrogenation station is insufficient in the future, will there be a charging problem similar to that of pure electric vehicles? Up to now, there are 59 hydrogenation stations in operation, 53 hydrogenation stations under construction and 20 hydrogenation stations under construction.
Of course, technical problems can not be ignored. Ma Qiao, an associate professor at the Automotive School of Tongji University, said that from the perspective of the industrial chain, the development of hydrogen fuel cells in China shows that there is little gap between the level of the whole vehicle and system and that of foreign countries, but the weaker the key materials at the bottom are.
For example, the stack accounts for more than 25% of the total cost of the hydrogen fuel cell system, and almost all of its core materials rely on foreign manufacturers; in the field of catalysts, the domestic consumption is 3-5 times that of foreign enterprises, and it mainly comes from foreign enterprises. Only a few domestic enterprises can produce in small batches; in addition, proton exchange membranes and membrane electrodes are mainly supplied by foreign enterprises.
However, we think the hydrogen fuel cell passenger car industry is in the spring. Lin Qi, chairman and CEO of Shanghai reshaping Energy Technology Co., Ltd., divides the global development of fuel cell vehicles into three stages:
The first stage is the development stage of fuel cell passenger vehicles, including fuel cell technology development led by Toyota, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and other passenger vehicle companies, which lays a good foundation for the development of fuel cell technology and achieves breakthroughs in many technical problems.
The second stage is the development stage of fuel cell commercial vehicle. Over the past three or four years, fuel cell commercial vehicles have maintained rapid growth around the world, especially in the Chinese market. Whether it is the whole vehicle enterprises or parts enterprises, we all gradually look at the goal and the future to the direction of long-range, high-load commercial vehicles.
The third stage, that is, from 2020, is the beginning of a new journey for fuel cell vehicles. The development trend of hydrogen energy application in the world is gradually clear, the commercial scene has gradually landed, and in the process of continuous development.
Why is the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles moving towards a new stage? Lin Qi explained from four dimensions: the first dimension is that energy terminal enterprises such as Shell, BP, Sinopec and PetroChina have entered the hydrogen energy industry and started infrastructure construction; the second dimension is from the product side, many mainstream automobile companies and parts companies have also begun to plan their products; the third dimension is that from the perspective of application scenarios, more and more commercial hydrogen energy companies have also entered the game. The fourth dimension comes from government policies and support programs.
To be sure, the development situation of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles in China is improving. In the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles in 2020, "award instead of compensation" is adopted for fuel cell vehicles to reward model cities. As mentioned in the Guangzhou hydrogen Energy Industry Development Plan (2019-2030), fuel cell passenger vehicles in Guangzhou will be launched mainly in taxi, rental and other public travel areas, and plan to reach about 100 by 2022.
In the near future, the demonstration operation of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles, or the promotion in the form of leasing, will be a reasonable choice. In the long run, with the gradual expansion of the demonstration operation scale and further reduction in costs, it is only a matter of time before hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles become ordinary consumers.
Still, it won't happen so soon. According to Zhang Tong's prediction, it will take about five years for hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles to reach a certain scale. In other words, it will take at least five years or so for consumers to buy on a small scale.
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