Some time ago, Musk posted "Fuel Cells = Fool Sells" on social media (fuel cell = stupid deal), with Musk's influencer effect, this topic about whether hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are good or bad instantly swept social media.
In the ensuing "friendly exchanges", Musk added: "Fuel cells are a waste in cars, even if they are used in rockets, it is not a good idea, but it is not so absurd." Herbert Dies, CEO of Volkswagen Group, also said in an interview with Fortune: "You will not see any hydrogen-powered passenger cars.
In fact, the use of hydrogen fuel cells in passenger cars has hit a wall everywhere, and the problems of storage and endurance have been unable to solve technical problems. In April 2020, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz Motors officially announced that it had stopped the research and development plan of hydrogen fuel cells for passenger cars. In June 2021, SAIC Motor Group issued an announcement to terminate the research and development of the fuel cell vehicle forward-looking technology project. Japanese car companies such as Honda and Toyota also announced last year that they would stop research and development of hydrogen fuel cells.
The hydrogen energy vehicle industry chain is far longer and more complex than the traditional automobile industry chain. The encounter in passenger cars has accelerated the application of hydrogen energy in the field of commercial vehicles. Hydrogen energy heavy trucks have gradually become the "darling" of the times.
According to Nikola's estimates, the global heavy-duty truck market exceeds $600 billion, and it is expected that more than 50% of heavy-duty trucks will use hydrogen energy by 2030. In 2021, the sales volume of hydrogen energy heavy trucks in mainland China has the fastest growth rate among new energy heavy trucks, with an increase of more than 33 times year-on-year; more than 400 hydrogen energy heavy trucks delivered to customers in the first nine months of 2021, far exceeding the sales volume of 17 units in 2020.
The development of hydrogen passenger cars has repeatedly encountered red lights, so can heavy trucks save hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? All this has to start from the encounter with the development of hydrogen energy in Japan.
Why did Japan abandon hydrogen vehicles?
A Toyota Mirai is hydrogenated at a hydrogen refueling station in La Canada, California. Image courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Lab
The two oil crises of the 1970s brought the U.S. auto industry to a near-halt, and the country's automobiles fell into an embarrassing situation of no oil availability, which caused the Japanese government to fear and think about oil resources.
As one of the world's few major energy consumers, Japan's own energy resources are very scarce, and 94% of its energy supply depends on overseas.
In order to find an alternative energy source for oil, in 1978, Japan implemented the "Moonlight Plan", which integrated the resources of production, government and academia into the field of hydrogen energy, which was a full 24 years ahead of the "hydrogen energy route" of the United States and the "hydrogen energy research and development framework" of the European Union.
With an early foothold and high investment, Japan quickly became at the forefront of hydrogen energy. In 2000, Japan mastered 85% of the world's hydrogen fuel technology patents, sat on the world's largest hydrogen production plant, and its hydrogen storage tanks could resist more than 20,000 collisions, and still work normally at minus forty degrees.
The hydrogen production and hydrogen storage links have been laid out, and the next step is to apply the landing. The application prospects of hydrogen energy are all over the automotive, shipbuilding, aerospace, power generation, chemical and other fields, and the choice in front of Japan is very obvious - its hydrogen energy development itself is to solve the dilemma of oil resources, and 98% of Japan's crude oil consumption is concentrated in the automotive field, of which passenger cars are the largest and the strongest branch of market consumption.
Therefore, when Japan landed hydrogen energy, it bet all its chips on the passenger car field, and the key support companies were the leaders in the passenger car industry.
However, the choice is wrong, step by step.
The first is the wrong industrial policy. Because the subsidy is too obviously tilted towards the head enterprise, Toyota is the dominant one in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In 2017, Toyota accounted for 61% of Japan's hydrogen fuel technology patents and 30% of the world's hydrogen fuel technology patents.
Other manufacturers, represented by Honda and Nissan, can only bypass Toyota's technical barriers to produce hydrogen fuel vehicles by cooperating with Europe and the United States. As a result, the hydrogen passenger car industry is very small and extremely expensive.
In 2020, less than 2,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were sold in Japan. The price of the new Toyota MIRAI FCV is still more than 380,000 yuan, which is 1.5 to 2 times the price of electric vehicles and 3 to 4 times that of ordinary fuel vehicles. As a result, the cost of fixed assets such as R&D investment and production equipment related to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles cannot be amortized through market scale.
At the same time, difficult technical problems have further locked up the development of hydrogen passenger cars in Japan.
Vehicle hydrogen storage technology is a major difficulty for hydrogen fuel cells. Vehicle hydrogen wants to be compressed into a liquid for use, so that hydrogen is stored below -252.8 ° C for a long time, which is a huge consumption, and if it is maintained in a gaseous state, it is necessary to solve the physical problem of "hydrogen embrittlement". All this requires a large and complex hydrogen storage system.
To this end, Toyota has developed a new type of hydrogen storage cylinder with carbon fiber laminated structure, but this hydrogen storage system requires two hydrogen storage cylinders in front and behind, and it is difficult to plug into the small space of the car with too large a volume. As a result, the endurance of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has been criticized.
In terms of supporting facilities, passenger cars also face high hydrogenation costs. The hydrogenation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can only rely on hydrogen refueling stations. The cost of a hydrogen refueling station is more than 500 million yen, which is 4 to 5 times that of a gas station, which leads to a huge investment in the construction of hydrogen refueling station, and the construction of hydrogen refueling station is almost astronomical to meet the convenience of refueling like a fuel truck.
Therefore, even if construction starts 20 years earlier than other countries, but limited by financial resources, in 2021, There are only 142 hydrogen refueling stations in Japan, and there are already 141 hydrogen refueling stations in China in the same period, and the rare hydrogen refueling stations further restrict the use of hydrogen energy passenger cars.
In 2018, Nissan announced plans to suspend the development of fuel cell vehicles; in 2021, Honda announced the termination of production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; Toyota's best-selling hydrogen fuel cell vehicles sold a total of 6,000 units in 6 years on the market, less than a fraction of Toyota's other models. Japan's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle program is largely bankrupt.
If we summarize Japan's failures in hydrogen energy vehicles, it is not difficult to find that Japan has pointed out the wrong technology tree from the beginning. Betting on hydrogen fuel cells on the road of passenger cars, then excessive consumption of resources and difficult technology have almost become the inevitable fate.
Second, hydrogen energy heavy trucks to break the situation
(Image source: screenshot of bp's official website)
The failure of hydrogen fuel cells in Japanese passenger cars did not result in the death penalty for hydrogen vehicles. With the deepening of people's research on hydrogen fuel cells, a more suitable application scenario for hydrogen energy has surfaced - heavy trucks.
The first breakthrough is the resource dilemma, and the investment of hydrogen energy heavy trucks in hydrogen refueling stations is much smaller than that of passenger cars.
Heavy trucks are mainly used for logistics and distribution, and their routes are relatively fixed, mainly highways. The layout of the expressway is node-type, and the supporting hydrogen refueling stations can be established by relying on the transportation hubs in the high-speed network, and the cost is greatly reduced. For example, the hydrogen energy heavy-duty truck demonstration hydrogen refueling station built in Yangquan, Shanxi, on the mainland, can meet the hydrogenation needs of 70 hydrogen heavy trucks on the fixed route in one day.
In contrast, the application scenarios of passenger cars are mainly in cities, and their layout models are diffusion-shaped, requiring multi-point and multi-faceted construction of hydrogen refueling stations. This runs counter to the principles of hydrogen refueling station construction. By the end of 2020, there will be a total of 553 hydrogen refueling stations worldwide, which is still far from meeting the requirements of universal hydrogenation of passenger cars.
Secondly, heavy trucks can greatly alleviate the cost of hydrogen energy. Specifically, the cost of using hydrogen passenger cars cannot compete with electric cars and oil cars, but hydrogen heavy trucks already have the ability to compete with diesel cars and electric vehicles.
In the field of passenger cars, the advantages of rapid hydrogenation of hydrogen vehicles are difficult to play. Passenger car users can tolerate the long charging of electric vehicles, because this part of the time can be consumed during work hours or at night. But for freight, long-distance transportation takes several days, and the battery's charging time of several hours is an unacceptable time cost.
At this time, the advantages of hydrogen refueling time of hydrogen energy heavy trucks can be fully utilized, generally in 3 minutes to 5 minutes, and the endurance is similar to that of fuel vehicles. For example, the hydrogen refueling time of Jiangling Heavy Industries' new hydrogen energy heavy trucks is about 5 minutes, and the maximum mileage after filling up is 400 km to 500 km.
The second is the service life. With the breakthrough of hydrogen fuel cell conversion technology, hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks have got rid of the bulky battery packs of pure electric trucks and are superior to pure electric trucks in terms of cargo carrying capacity. In the laboratory, the general life of fuel cells is 5000h, which is higher than the 3000h of lithium batteries, and the long-term cost of use is lower than that of pure electric trucks.
In addition, the technology of hydrogen heavy trucks is not as complex as that of passenger cars.
The reason is that there is a lot of space outside the body of the heavy truck to mount a huge hydrogen storage system, and there is no need to cram a complex hydrogen storage system into the small car space like a passenger car. For example, Sinotruk's newly developed Yellow River hydrogen fuel heavy truck hangs the storage system behind the front of the car, which can add 29.5kg of hydrogen at a time and provide a cruising range of about 560km.
In terms of resources, technology and cost, the potential of hydrogen heavy trucks is better than that of passenger cars. The answer is obvious - the development of heavy trucks will have a chance to save the hydrogen vehicle market.
Third, only China can support the heavy truck market
Looking at the global application of hydrogen energy, the two leaders of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Japan and South Korea, have been defeated.
Japan because of the beginning of the fork in the road, it is too late to seek the transformation of hydrogen energy passenger cars to commercial heavy vehicles, and South Korea, because of the explosion of hydrogen refueling stations in 19 years and the subsequent explosion of hydrogen storage tanks, a large-scale protest march broke out inside it. Since then, in Ulsan, which has the largest number of hydrogen refueling stations in South Korea, companies operating hydrogen refueling stations have withdrawn. In addition, parts of South Korea have suspended the construction of hydrogen refueling stations.
China has become one of the few countries that can afford to support the development of hydrogen energy vehicles, which is because the development of hydrogen energy heavy trucks is very suitable for China.
First, China has the world's largest heavy-duty truck market. According to relevant statistics, the global production of heavy-duty trucks in 2020 is 4.36 million units, and the output of heavy-duty trucks in the mainland is 2.98 million units, accounting for 68.3% of the world. The heat of online shopping has ignited the demand for heavy trucks in the logistics industry, investment in infrastructure construction has stimulated the development of the economy, and the heavy truck industry has empty prospects. In 2020, the size of China's heavy-duty truck market was more than 1.3 million, while the market size of North America was about 450,000 in the same period, and the market size in Europe was only about 350,000.
In 2018, Gan Yong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that "diesel to hydrogen" is an important direction to promote the application of hydrogen energy, and it is expected that by 2050, more than 50% of heavy trucks will use hydrogen fuel cells as engines. The vast market for hydrogen fuel cells heavy-duty trucks undoubtedly provides a solid foundation for the landing of hydrogen energy.
Secondly, China's expressway network is perfect, and hydrogen refueling stations rely on the construction of transportation hubs and attach a network of service areas. As of June 2021, a total of 141 hydrogen refueling stations on the mainland have been completed, of which 119 are in operation, 22 have been completed, and 73 are under construction. It is estimated that by 2025 and 2035, the number of hydrogen refueling stations on the mainland will reach 1,000 and 5,000 respectively.
In addition, the mainland has achieved a number of important technological breakthroughs.
In terms of battery power, in 2017, the power density of hydrogen fuel cells produced by the mainland was mainly between 30KW-40KW, which was completely unable to meet the pace requirements of its heavy-duty trucks for long-distance transportation. In 2021, the power density of hydrogen fuel cells in mainland China will generally reach 110KW, basically meeting the needs of long-distance transportation;
In terms of fuel cell life, at present, the fuel cell stack developed by domestic enterprises has a life of nearly 10,000 hours during experimental operation, even considering the life decay of fuel cells under vehicle conditions, the actual life of domestic hydrogen heavy truck batteries led by Jiangling Heavy Industries and China National Heavy Duty Truck is also about 5,000 hours, and the life of mainland buses is 3,000-5,000 hours.
China's hydrogen revolution has been going through decades. From vigorously developing photovoltaics to building UHV networks to hydrogen energy transportation applications, an energy grand plan has begun to take shape.
In the layout of the field of hydrogen energy transportation, in September 2020, the five ministries and commissions issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Demonstration Application of Fuel Cell Vehicles", which clearly pointed out that it is necessary to focus on promoting the demonstration application of medium- and long-distance, medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles.
Specifically, it is manifested in two aspects, one is that financial subsidies are inclined to hydrogen energy heavy trucks. The Ministry of Finance will adjust the subsidy for the purchase of fuel cell vehicles to support the demonstration application of urban agglomerations. These demonstration focuses on the commercialization of hydrogen energy heavy trucks. For example, Beijing supports hydrogen energy heavy truck applications, and for high-power and high-energy density batteries, it will provide triple subsidies of 1.2 million yuan for national supplements, municipal supplements and district supplements.
On the other hand, there is the convenience of approval. In the latest release of the Ministry of Communications in the 30th batch of road transport vehicles to meet the standard model table, the proportion of fuel cell heavy-duty truck models increased by 2 percentage points month-on-month, an increase of 8 percentage points over the proportion of 28 batches of announcements.
Under the background of policies, major car companies have studied to accelerate the pace of layout and product updates.
Foton Motor announced that it will work with PetroChina to build the first 70 megapascal hydrogen refueling station in Beijing to meet the hydrogen refueling requirements of hydrogen energy heavy trucks; Jiangling Heavy Duty Truck successfully delivered the first batch of 10 Jiangling Weilong hydrogen fuel heavy trucks to Shanghai Zhidi; Weishi Energy landed the world's first 100 49-ton hydrogen heavy trucks in Xiong'an New Area; in addition, Shaanxi Automobile, China National Heavy Duty Truck, SAIC Hongyan and other car companies have released their own hydrogen fuel heavy truck products, intending to seize their place in the wind of the times.
IV. Conclusion
Whether from the perspective of technology, cost, resources, policies and other aspects of evaluation, heavy trucks must be the focus of hydrogen vehicles.
At present, the operation of continental fuel cell trucks has entered the primary commercialization level. On August 14, 2021, Xiong'an New Area opened the "Easy Line", and 100 hydrogen energy heavy trucks were put into operation at the same time. In addition, in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other places, the demonstration projects with early layout include thousands of hydrogen energy heavy trucks, covering multiple fields and types of application scenarios.
According to the Chinese Academy of Engineering, fuel cell heavy-duty trucks will achieve commercial operation in the next 5 to 10 years, gradually replacing the traditional fuel vehicle market. First develop commercial vehicles led by heavy trucks, wait until the relevant technology of hydrogen refueling stations is mature, and then pick up the girder of hydrogen energy passenger cars.
With full firepower, China is taking over the baton of the global hydrogen energy car and becoming the most promising "seed player".