Hello, everyone!
Today is the fourth day of the Lunar New Year
There are still a few hours
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is about to open
What does this sport event have to do with cars? Toyota, the vehicle partner of this Winter Olympic Games, has provided a service fleet of 2,000+ units for the Winter Olympic Games. Of these, 140 Toyota Mirais are different: they are driven not by oil, not electricity, but by hydrogen.
Toyota Mirai serving the Winter Olympics
In addition to Mirai, nearly a thousand domestic hydrogen fuel buses will be served throughout the Winter Olympics.
Hydrogen fuel bus serving the Winter Olympics
When it comes to the drawbacks of electric vehicles, hydrogen energy is always seen as the real future energy source. Today we will take a look at, how exactly is the hydrogen energy vehicle? Can hydrogen replace electricity?
How do cars use hydrogen?
Hydrogen + oxygen reaction can generate water, this basic scientific principle should not be used to popularize science. The energy generated in this process can drive the vehicle in two different forms:
Direct point! Hydrogen internal combustion engine
Since hydrogen is a combustible gas, it can naturally be used by combustion by an internal combustion engine. Switching to hydrogen in an internal combustion engine is not a difficult task, any engine can be slightly modified and adjusted, and the principle is no different from that of a taxi with natural gas. As early as 2005, BMW produced a batch of hydrogen internal combustion engine 7 series - Hydrogen 7.
Hydrogen-fired Hydrogen 7 directly
Last year, Akio Toyoda personally tested the Corolla hydrogen fuel racing car, which is also a car that uses a hydrogen internal combustion engine.
This car has already competed
The advantages of hydrogen directly used for combustion are not just environmental protection. Hydrogen has an extremely high calorific value, even three times higher than gasoline. The combustion temperature is also much higher than that of gasoline, and the thermal efficiency is naturally higher. But now, the hydrogen internal combustion engine is not the mainstream of the application of hydrogen, and the prospect is only in the field of automobile racing. The reason behind it: directly pointing hydrogen is more or less dangerous, hydrogen is too expensive to burn...
Turn to electricity! Hydrogen fuel cells
Hydrogen fuel cells are the main form of hydrogen energy applications today. The principle we will not introduce in depth, that is, through a series of processes, the use of hydrogen fuel cells to combine hydrogen and oxygen into water, in this process to produce electrical energy. At present, the most mature and widely used is the solid polymer fuel cell.
After generating electrical energy through hydrogen fuel cells, it is natural to drive the vehicle through electric motors. Essentially, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is also an electric vehicle. At present, many hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can also be directly charged and used as pure electric vehicles.
Compared with the hydrogen internal combustion engine, the fuel cell that does not need to be ignited is naturally safer, and the utilization efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cell is also higher than that of direct combustion of hydrogen. More importantly, compared with pure electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells do not need to be charged for a long time, and even for large buses, it only takes about 10 minutes to refuel.
Hydrogen energy
Not far from us
overseas
Hydrogen passenger cars are already on the market
The use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has entered the market. Toyota Mirai, which serves the Winter Olympics, is already the second generation of the series and has been sold in Japan, the United States and other places. In the United States, Mirai can sell 2,000+ units in 2021, mainly to the West Coast with California as the core.
The Mirai is a large and medium-sized sedan that resembles a crown and an Asian dragon. The Mirai XLE version, which is now mainly sold in the U.S. market, costs about 320,000 yuan and can travel about 650 kilometers with a single refueling. In addition to Toyota, Honda's hydrogen fuel vehicle Clarality Fuel Cell can also be purchased in the local market in the United States.
In addition to Japanese manufacturers, South Korea's Hyundai is also moving fast in the field of hydrogen energy. Hyundai's hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are mainly sold to the Korean and European markets, and the main product NEXO is a medium-sized SUV, and the cumulative sales volume worldwide has exceeded 10,000 units.
domestic
Hydrogen commercial vehicles are widely used
Domestically, the application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is also more extensive than imagined. The application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has always been a key area of national development in recent years. By the end of 2021, nearly 10,000 hydrogen energy vehicles have been licensed.
Domestic hydrogen fuel vehicles are mainly used in commercial fields. In recent years, it has been mainly applied in the form of buses, public service vehicles, and long-distance freight vehicles. In Beijing, companies such as Mizuki Tongda have emerged that use hydrogen energy buses to provide bus services such as commuting and tourism.
Most of the hydrogen vehicles put into use during the Winter Olympics are buses that operate daily in Beijing, Zhangjiakou and other places, and the cost of experiencing hydrogen energy vehicles is only 1 yuan.
Some domestic car companies, as well as some mature hydrogen fuel passenger cars, are ready to enter the market. For example, GAC Trumpchi's hydrogen-fueled version of the Aion LX has been put into operation in Guangzhou. Independent brands such as the Great Wall will also clearly put into production hydrogen fuel vehicles.
Although the prospects seem promising, hydrogen fuel is still far away from us.
It's also a bit far away
The technical bottleneck of hydrogen energy
Hydrogen is difficult to store. The combustion efficiency of hydrogen is based on the unit mass, and if calculated by volume, hydrogen is very slaggy. At room temperature, hydrogen exists as a gas with a very low density, and it requires extremely high pressure and extremely low temperature to exist in a liquid state. This leads to hydrogen fuel vehicles need to carry huge gas tanks, without increasing the size of the vehicle, it needs to occupy a lot of space in the car.
For example, the roof of a hydrogen-fueled bus is high, and the inside is a hydrogen storage tank
Huge gas tank of the BMW 7 Series hydrogen fuel vehicle
Hydrogen is also dangerous. Hydrogen has a high combustion efficiency and is also more prone to deflagration. Hydrogen has an extremely low density and must be stored under pressure, meaning it is more susceptible to leakage. At the same time, hydrogen will penetrate into the metal, causing the metal to be brittle, so that the strength of the metal is reduced. The combination of these three reasons puts forward higher safety requirements for the application of hydrogen.
Hydrogen filling port
The two points above, the end result is that hydrogen energy vehicles are expensive. They are all luxury cars and commercial vehicles that are less cost sensitive. Behind the seemingly reasonable price of the Mirai, Toyota bears a large loss per car. The price of a hydrogen energy bus is more than three times that of an electric bus.
As shown in the figure, the price of a hydrogen fuel bus can still reach 3 million yuan after subsidies
Not only that, but hydrogen itself is also expensive:
Hydrogen is still expensive. In the past, the 7 series hydrogen fuel version promoted by BMW cost 4-5 yuan per kilometer. The price is about 5 times that of gasoline and dozens of times that of electric vehicles.
Even now, the price of hydrogen is still high. Zhangjiakou City, which promotes more hydrogen energy buses, has repeatedly faced the situation that the cost of hydrogen refueling is too high, resulting in the reduction of the operation of the bus system. Because of the high price of hydrogen, many cities that use hydrogen energy buses do not even hydrogenate, relying only on direct charging as a pure electric bus.
Bottlenecks outside of technology
Behind the high cost of hydrogen use, there are many links in the hydrogen industry chain, which are facing technical bottlenecks:
Hydrogen preparation is inefficient and costly. Conventional hydrogen production consumes a lot of electricity and is only a by-product of the oxygen industry. Today, it is possible to produce hydrogen from relatively cheap green electricity such as wind power, but the cost of preparation remains high.
Hydrogen transportation is inefficient and costly. As mentioned above, the low density of hydrogen will also affect the transport of hydrogen. The use of vehicles to transport hydrogen, if the transport vehicle also uses hydrogen, may not be enough for its own use. If the pipeline is used, the high risk of hydrogen makes the pipeline very expensive.
The cost of hydrogen refueling is also very high. Although the process of hydrogenation is no different from refueling, the construction and operating costs of hydrogen refueling stations are much higher than those of gas stations. The requirements for the operator during the hydrogenation process are also much higher than those of gas stations. The cost of building hydrogen refueling stations on a large scale is also astronomical.
The above points of industry and upstream factors are huge obstacles to the promotion and popularization of hydrogen today.
Can hydrogen replace electricity?
From the current stage, hydrogen energy is still a long way from mature commercial applications. Nowadays, hydrogen energy also faces similar problems with pure electric drives: supporting facilities cannot keep up, vehicle technology is not mature, and the winter endurance is short. From the current application effect, short-distance, small-car hydrogen energy vehicles have no advantage over electric vehicles. Long-distance heavy-duty heavy vehicles are the areas where hydrogen energy has obvious advantages over electric vehicles.
In fact, pure electricity is still the most suitable form of new energy application for us. The high efficiency of the motor is beyond doubt, and what restricts the electric drive is the battery and charging efficiency. Who is the future of hydrogen and electricity depends on battery technology and hydrogen application which ushers in a breakthrough first.
The future must be new energy, there is no doubt about it. However, new energy is not equal to pure electric. In fact, biofuels, hydrogen fuels, and even solar energy and nuclear energy may all be the driving forms of future vehicles. The future application of new energy is bound to be multi-level. Just like the fossil fuels we use now, there are gasoline, diesel, heavy oil, and kerosene. Hydrogen energy may be used in different fields along with pure electric power.