Unicorn think tanks judge that next year's 10,000 cars are a turning point for the industry's explosive growth.
Text | Peng Suping
The pace of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is accelerating, and companies in the industrial chain have also ushered in a new stage of development.
At the 2021 Hydrogen Energy Industry High-quality Development Forum held on December 14, Weishi Energy announced the completion of the A round of financing, with a total financing amount of 900 million yuan, and the post-investment valuation exceeded the 4 billion mark - this round of financing is the first round of market-oriented equity financing of Weishi Energy, jointly led by SDIC Investment and PICC Capital, refreshing the two records of the A round of financing scale and valuation level of China's hydrogen fuel cell enterprises.
Weishi Energy is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of hydrogen fuel cell products, which was incubated by the Great Wall Holding Group in 2016 and officially established in April 2019. During this period, the hydrogen fuel cell project of Great Wall Group acquired Shanghai Fuel Cell Vehicle Power System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shang-Burning Power"), which was established in 2001 and launched with the national "863" electric vehicle plan, and successfully developed the "Beyond" series of fuel cell cars, creating a precedent for China's fuel cell vehicle industry.
In fact, China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry started very early, in the early 21st century, it took the lead in trial operation at home and abroad, but since 2010, this market has not achieved the expected rapid development, and the "pioneers" such as Shangqi Power are also facing no small market challenges. Zhang Tianyu, chairman of Weishi Energy, introduced that after the Great Wall acquired Shangxin Power, the two sides jointly cooperated in all aspects of the industrial chain to better explore the construction of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry chain and promote faster application of the industry.
Ten years later, hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicles are ushering in new development opportunities, and under the guidance of the "double carbon" goal, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are starting again. Industry data show that in the first 11 months of this year, the cumulative sales of domestic new energy heavy-duty trucks were 7442, an increase of 222% year-on-year, of which hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty trucks accounted for 7.83%, compared with only 0.74% last year.
The approaching Beijing Winter Olympics have also given hydrogen fuel cell vehicles a stage to "show their fists again". It is understood that the Winter Olympics will demonstrate the operation of more than 1,000 fuel cell vehicles, in addition to Toyota's first large-scale use of FCEV in China "second-generation MIRAI", "Costa hydrogen engine" and other models, Yutong Group, State Power Investment Hydrogen Energy Company cooperation to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will also be held in Yanqing District to help the event smoothly.
At the 2021 hydrogen energy industry high-quality development forum, Lu Bingbing, general manager of Jet Hydrogen Technology (a subsidiary of SAIC Motor Group planning to spin off and list), said that now is the best moment for the development of hydrogen energy, the government, enterprises, and capital are investing resources in the industry, and the application is also starting, which is equivalent to "just dawn", and from a broader industry perspective, lithium batteries have been well demonstrated in front, and the industry hopes that fuel cells can reproduce the glory of lithium batteries and reach the world's leading level, which he believes is "completely possible" 。
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles ushered in a turning point
As a senior "player" of the hydrogen fuel cell power system platform, on the special day of the 20th anniversary of its establishment, Shangyan Power released a series of new products such as the fourth generation of fuel cell engines, and jointly explored the application of hydrogen energy with various partners, such as exploring zero-carbon logistics and transportation systems with Meijin Energy and Ant Logistics, and jointly developing "China's first hydrogen fuel cell yacht" with Wuxi Lihu Group and Dalian Maritime University.
With energy advantages such as high energy efficiency and zero emissions, hydrogen fuel cells will become the core incremental application of hydrogen energy in the field of transportation. Under the background of "carbon peaking" and "carbon neutrality", hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will help transportation achieve deep decarbonization, and will take the lead in being applied in the field of commercial vehicles, especially heavy trucks, and achieve differentiated scene layout with pure electric.
Gan Yong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in his speech at the 2021 Hydrogen Energy Industry High-quality Development Forum that the current focus of hydrogen energy utilization is hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks. Because the pollution of diesel vehicles is quite serious, it is the key to reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector, and it is difficult to install an equally huge lithium battery on a 49-ton diesel vehicle, so hydrogen fuel cells with higher energy density are the ideal solution.
In fact, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been developing in China for two decades. In 2001, the national "863" electric vehicle plan was launched, and the three major technical routes of pure electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell were born, and the innovative enterprises represented by the above combustion power took the lead in investing in the research and development of fuel cell vehicles. In the past two decades, these enterprises in China have accumulated certain fuel cell vehicle technology and initially formed a fuel cell vehicle industry chain, but due to factors such as high cost, insufficient infrastructure construction, and low market acceptance, fuel cell vehicles have not really developed.
However, since last year, the policy guidance on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has been more detailed, and the industry believes that this may become a turning point in the development of the industry.
In September 2020, the five ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out fuel cell vehicle demonstration applications", the introduction of this policy will cancel the previous subsidy model of "national subsidy + local subsidy", and instead the central government will issue policy incentives to the local governments where the urban demonstration groups are located, and the local government will independently formulate and implement industrial development incentive policies, develop the hydrogen fuel cell industry according to local conditions, avoid the previous "flood irrigation" subsidies, and the new policy will promote upstream technological breakthroughs, drive downstream applications and infrastructure development. Truly benefit the upstream and downstream players of the industrial chain. From the perspective of policy implementation goals, the plan strives to establish a hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry chain in about four years, and make breakthroughs in key core technologies.
Will it exceed 10,000 vehicles next year?
Under the heat of policies, industries and capital, hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks may soon usher in key nodes of development. A few days ago, the unicorn think tank pointed out at the hydrogen energy and fuel cell conference call that in the past few years, the installed capacity of hydrogen fuel cells has basically been maintained at 1,000 units, and this year will reach the order of 2,000 or 3,000 units, and they predict that next year's installed capacity will probably exceed 10,000.
The think tank judged that next year's 10,000 vehicles is a turning point in the industry's explosive growth. "With the increase in the scale of the fuel cell industry, the infrastructure will become more and more perfect, and the marginal cost will be lower than that of lithium batteries." Because lithium batteries are relatively simple in the early days, charging piles are easier than hydrogen refueling stations, but after more follow-up cars, the impact on the power grid and battery recycling may become more and more difficult. Therefore, after the fuel cell industry starts in the first ten thousand units, the subsequent development will be much faster than before. Its analysis.
In addition, from the perspective of reducing carbon emissions, the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will also be higher, which means that follow-up policies may continue to increase and further accelerate the pace of industrial development. "10,000 heavy-duty trucks is equivalent to the emissions of 500,000-800,000 cars, and if there are 30,000 heavy-duty trucks, it is basically equivalent to 2 million cars from the perspective of emission reduction."
However, the think tank's prediction is relatively optimistic. According to the forecast of Guolian Securities, the annual sales scale of hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles is expected to reach the level of 10,000 units in 2025. It believes that in the next ten years, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will go through two stages of development: 2020-2025 is the starting period of development, the hydrogen energy vehicle market is mainly policy-driven, and the direction focuses on the development of medium and heavy trucks; 2025-2030 With the popularization of infrastructure, technological innovation and cost reduction, the industry will enter a period of development acceleration, and the annual sales scale is expected to reach 100,000 units by 2030.
Cost remains the biggest limiting factor for hydrogen vehicles. Guolian Securities predicts that by 2030, the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of hydrogen heavy-duty trucks will achieve parity with diesel heavy-duty trucks. The unicorn think tank believes that the purchase cost of fuel cells in 2025 is expected to be lower than that of fuel vehicles. "The cost of the fuel cell industry is falling very quickly, in 2017, it was 20 yuan per watt, and now it is 4 or 5 yuan, and we predict that it can be reduced to 1 or 2 yuan around 2025, at that time, if other costs are considered, a fuel cell heavy truck is not much different from a fuel vehicle." The think tank also said that it is also necessary to superimpose other factors such as carbon taxes, such as a 49-ton heavy truck, and the carbon tax of the whole life cycle is about 40,000 or 50,000, which means that if the carbon tax is levied in the next few years, the cost of oil vehicles in the field of heavy trucks will be higher.
Lu Bingbing, general manager of Jet Hydrogen Technology, also believes that the first wave of inflection point should be around 2025, the hydrogen refueling station is more complete, the cost of hydrogenation is lower, and all the parts and vehicles are cheaper, which means that in many scenarios, fuel cell TOC and fuel vehicles are almost the same; the next inflection point is 2028-2030, when the fuel cell hardware technology level is higher, the performance is better, the cost is lower, and the hydrogen energy is more convenient to obtain, in a sense, it can compete with the cost of pure electric family cars.