SAIC / Great Wall / GAC huddled together to push the hydrogen fuel cell technology of heavy-duty models has been greatly improved.

Published: Sep 18, 2020 09:28

SMM News: as we all know, hydrogen fuel has many advantages, such as diversified fuel sources, renewable energy zero emission, high efficiency and so on, so it has been regarded as an important technology direction for the development of new energy vehicles in the industry. By the end of 2019, a total of 24000 fuel cell vehicles have been promoted worldwide and 432 hydrogenation stations have been built. From 2015 to 2019, the number of global hydrogenation stations increased by 135%; the hydrogen fuel cell industry is about to enter a period of explosive development.

According to the forecast of the research institute, by 2030, the global number of fuel cell passenger vehicles is expected to reach 1 million-1.5 million. By 2050, hydrogen will be able to meet 18% of the global terminal energy needs, and the global number of hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles will reach 400 million, accounting for 1% of the total.

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Nowadays, many car companies are increasing the pace of research and development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. A few days ago, SAIC officially released the company's "hydrogen strategy", which is also the first hydrogen strategy in China's automobile industry. SAIC plans to launch at least 10 fuel cell products by 2025. SAIC's SAIC Jet hydrogen Technology has reached a market capitalization of 10 billion, forming a production and sales scale of 10,000 fuel cell vehicles, with a market share of more than 10%.

It is understood that, as the earliest car company in China to carry out research and development of fuel cell technology, SAIC has invested more than 3 billion yuan in research and development in this field. Wang Xiaoqiu, president of SAIC, said that the cumulative sales of fuel cell systems independently developed by SAIC will exceed 30,000 units in 2025, and SAIC will become a fuel cell manufacturer with complete independent intellectual property rights and global competitiveness by 2030.

In addition, GAC announced on July 28th that the Aion LX Fuel Cell, the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, plans to be put into demonstration operation by the end of this year. On July 20, Great Wall officially launched the "Lemon" technology brand. After matching the second-generation hydrogen fuel cell power system, the "lemon" platform model will have a driving range of up to 1100 kilometers. Great Wall's first hydrogen-fueled vehicle platform will be launched this year, with a small hydrogen fleet in 2022 and a mature fuel cell passenger car model in 2023.

The release of the Great Wall model comes a day after BYD signed a cooperation agreement with Shudu bus on July 19 to lay out hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and build BYD's southwest commercial vehicle headquarters. Prior to this, on June 5, FAW, Dongfeng, BAIC and Guangzhou Automobile Group, as well as Beijing Yihuatong and Toyota Motor established Joint fuel Cell system Research and Development (Beijing) Co., Ltd.

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As an important way to promote energy conservation and emission reduction and achieve energy transformation, hydrogen industry has become a consensus from all walks of life, and its development is inseparable from policy support. Prior to this, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly put forward the goal of "realizing commercial application of fuel cell vehicles" in the "Development Plan of New Energy vehicle Industry". It is pointed out that pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles are taken as the "three columns" of new energy vehicle R & D layout, and it is clearly proposed to promote the construction of hydrogen fuel supply system in an orderly manner, improve the economy of hydrogen fuel storage and transportation, and promote the construction of hydrogenation infrastructure.

In addition, the "Technology Roadmap for Energy Saving and New Energy vehicles" formulated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposes that by 2030, the number of fuel cell vehicles in China will reach one million, and more than 1000 hydrogenation stations will be built.

In fact, the hydrogen fuel cell industry in China has developed rapidly in recent years. It is understood that by July this year, China had promoted more than 7200 fuel cell vehicles and built about 80 hydrogenation stations. Especially in the past year, China's hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry has developed very fast with the joint efforts of local governments and enterprises. The single stack power density, minimum cold start-up temperature life and maximum efficiency of fuel cell stack have been greatly improved.

At present, fuel cell vehicles in China have entered the initial stage of commercialization. By the end of July 2020, 172 models have been announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Before 2019, the announced models are mainly medium and light buses, buses and medium and light logistics vehicles. After 2019, due to the continuous improvement of fuel cell engine technology, intercity buses, inter-city dregs, port transport vehicles, mine dump trucks, sanitation vehicles, cold chain logistics vehicles and other models suitable for a variety of scenarios are also launched. Generally speaking, fuel cell vehicles are developing towards high-power, long-distance and heavy-duty models.

"at present, China already has the production capacity of 1000-class power system and complete vehicles, the industrial chain of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has also been gradually improved, and the independent industrial ecosystem has been basically established." Zhang Guoqiang, chairman of Beijing Yihuatong, said that fuel cell systems, stacks and air compressors have been basically localized, and hydrogen circulating pumps and humidifiers are expected to be supplied in small quantities by the end of 2020.

At the same time, the performance and environmental adaptability of fuel cell engines independently developed in China have been continuously improved in recent years. According to Zhang Guoqiang, the power of Yihuatong system has exceeded 100kW, and the power density of the system has reached 500W/ kilograms, realizing cold start at minus 37 ℃. At the beginning of this year, at the Hailar Winter Automobile proving ground, the bus equipped with Yihuatong engine system successfully completed the extremely cold environment test and became the hydrogen fuel cell bus that passed the extremely cold field test for the first time.

However, compared with the advanced countries in the world, there is still a big gap in the technical level of hydrogen fuel cell in our country. On the one hand, the related technology is still in the stage of engineering development, and there is still a big gap in the main technical indicators such as reliability, cold start, power characteristics and so on compared with benchmark products such as Japan; on the other hand, although China has a relatively rich number of patents, it involves relatively few core technologies.

Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that for hydrogen-fueled vehicles to really usher in a period of growth, the way out lies in innovation and application, and pointed out that after localization and technological innovation in the next five years, the cost of core components such as proton exchange membranes is expected to be halved again. He said it should be noted that the cost of hydrogen storage is falling more slowly than that of fuel cells, and he hopes that energy companies will join in to solve the problem. At the same time, he also called for strengthening the construction of hydrogen fuel infrastructure, including hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and so on.

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SAIC / Great Wall / GAC huddled together to push the hydrogen fuel cell technology of heavy-duty models has been greatly improved. - Shanghai Metals Market (SMM)