Observation chamber
Written by | Lei Lei
If you want to ask what is the biggest hot spot in the global auto market in recent years, it must be new energy. Especially in the Chinese and European markets, the promotion of electric vehicles is particularly hard, such as the new energy penetration rate of the Chinese car market has reached about 20%.
But new energy is not only electric vehicles (whether pure electric or plug-and-mix), but also new species such as hydrogen fuel cells (FCVs), although consumers are still rarely exposed, but this technology has actually come to us. For example, the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are in full swing, demonstrated the operation of 1,000 hydrogen energy vehicles, which is the world's largest demonstration of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles so far.
It can be said that the various advantages of hydrogen energy vehicles with real zero pollution, high system efficiency, long service life and renewable energy have been well demonstrated, and car companies that can seize the East Olympic Games to show their hydrogen energy strength are undoubtedly the big winners of this grand event. Let's pay attention to the popular hydrogen energy vehicles that appeared during the Winter Olympics today, as well as the development and promotion of this technology around the world.
Toyota hydrogen energy, out of the limelight
The number of hydrogen energy vehicles put into use in this Winter Olympics is thousands, but most of them are buses, and the real relationship with ordinary people is Toyota Mirai (Chinese name "future"), Toyota has brought 140 vehicles for the Winter Olympics this time.
Mirai has not yet begun to sell in the domestic market, but it has developed into the second generation of models in Japan, and its first generation of products was born in 2014, ushered in a replacement in 2020, and based on the GA-L rear-drive platform under the TNGA architecture, it is the most advanced mass production FCV in the world today. The body size is 4975/1885/1470mm, with a wheelbase of 2920mm, which is slightly larger than the 15th generation crown, but the wheelbase is the same (Nichika Crown body size 4910/1800/1455mm, wheelbase 2920mm).
In terms of power, the second generation mirai is equipped with a hydrogen fuel engine, driving a 182 horsepower drive motor, the fuel tank can hold up to 5.6 kg of hydrogen, the hydrogen filling time only takes 3-5 minutes, and the endurance is 750 km and 850 km.
In addition to the Mirai, which hangs toyota's logo, Toyota also brought a Costa hydrogen-fueled vehicle developed specifically for the Winter Olympics.
Not only that, as the host of Beiqi Foton, its 515 hydrogen-powered buses for the Winter Olympics are a big deal, but more than 200 of them are using Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell system. In other words, Toyota is the largest technical exporter of hydrogen energy vehicles in this Winter Olympics, and the limelight is unlimited.
Hydrogen energy, applause is not popular
It is reasonable to say that all the products that Toyota carefully builds, there is no reason why they cannot sell, which has been verified in a package of models as small as YARIS and as large as LAND CRUISER, but it is a special case here in hydrogen energy.
It just so happened that during the Spring Festival this year, I brushed a video released by a car blogger who was far away in Japan, and one of them was a brief test drive of the mirai of hydrogen energy models. He said Toyota's hydrogen energy technology is very mature and has now developed into the second generation, but few people buy it in the Japanese market.
In order to confirm whether what the blogger said is true, the author deliberately queried the relevant data.
In the past 2021, the world's major countries sold a total of 16313 hydrogen energy vehicles, an increase of 68% year-on-year, although the increase has been quite powerful, but regardless of sales or growth, such data to catch up with electric vehicles Does have a big gap.
Driven by strong subsidy policies, South Korea is the world's largest hydrogen energy market, with a total of 8498 hydrogen energy vehicles sold throughout the year, accounting for about half of the total global sales; the United States is close behind, with annual hydrogen energy vehicle sales of 3341 units; Japan ranks third, hydrogen energy vehicle sales of 2464 units, an increase of 67% year-on-year, in which the main role is the new generation of Toyota Mirai mentioned above.
As for the Chinese market, where the momentum of new energy is the strongest, the sales of hydrogen energy vehicles last year were only 1586 units, an increase of 35% year-on-year. Europe, where the new energy momentum is also good, developed markets like Germany only sold 424 hydrogen energy vehicles last year, an increase of 38% year-on-year.
Compared with the million-level electric vehicles and tens of millions of fuel vehicle sales, the scale of hydrogen energy in the world is basically negligible, not to mention the more than two thousand units in the Japanese market.
The price is expensive and the supporting facilities are the main reasons
As we mentioned earlier, Toyota's second-generation Mirai's endurance has developed to the level of seven or eight hundred kilometers, which is already stronger than pure electric vehicles in the same period (BEV's current mainstream endurance level is still stuck at five or six hundred kilometers), coupled with completely pollution-free emissions (the only emission of hydrogen fuel cells is water), there are reasons to buy it in public and private, but why are few people paying for hydrogen energy in such a technologically advanced market as Japan?
According to the blogger's analysis, there are two reasons for this: one is that the price is too expensive, and the other is that there are too few hydrogen refueling stations.
First look at the price, let's take the Toyota Mirai with an 850-kilometer range in the Japanese market as an example, which is priced at 7.1 million to 8.05 million yen, which is converted to nearly 400,000 yuan according to the latest exchange rate - you know, even in Japan, this price can already buy a lot of luxury brand C-class cars.
▲The price of the crown in the Japanese market
Moreover, even in the Japanese market, the price of the Mirai is also higher than the crown of its own luxury car, and the starting price of the 15th generation of the hybrid version of the crown is only 5.2 million yen (equivalent to about 280,000 yuan), in other words, I guess I will not hesitate to choose the crown.
Looking at the problem of supporting facilities, in July last year, a research institute revealed a set of data, as of the end of 2020, there are 578 hydrogen refueling stations in operation worldwide, of which Japan alone occupies the top of the list. What is the concept of 148 seats? According to the calculation of Japan's land area of 370,000 square kilometers, that is, there is only one for every 2,500 square kilometers.
It may be compared that in order to promote the development of electric vehicles, the data released by the mainland in August last year showed that 2.105 million basic charging facilities have been built, which is still too few in the face of the explosive growth of electric vehicle users, because the number of electric vehicles in China has exceeded 7 million, and the helplessness of queuing for several hours on the small and long holiday highways is pushing the government and major car companies to continue to increase investment in charging piles.
As the country that attaches the most importance to the hydrogen energy industry in the world today, the Japanese government has publicly declared that it aims to build 900 hydrogen refueling stations by 2030 and achieve the popularization of hydrogen energy vehicles by 2040. But until then, the convenience of the people using hydrogen energy vehicles is not guaranteed.
It can be said that too few hydrogen refueling stations are the primary factor restricting people from buying hydrogen energy vehicles, which is no exception for developed countries such as Japan.
『 Final Remarks 』
The development of technology is always ahead of commercial applications, which has been fully confirmed in all walks of life. Therefore, although Toyota has mastered the world's leading hydrogen storage technology and is at the forefront of the industry in the iteration of related products, it cannot get the recognition of consumers until the social support is perfected and the overall cost is reduced to a reasonable level, because this is the law of the market.
What's more, in the Japanese market, Toyota, Honda, Nissan three giants focus on the HEV oil-electric hybrid field, its market popularity has been very high, the rest, is the K-Car as the representative of the affordable pure transport products, the market left for other technical genres of space has been very small - this is quite representative of electric vehicles, such as Honda e such electric vehicles, mileage of up to 300 kilometers, in Japan the price has been nearly 5 million yen, plus less charging piles, It's also rarely asked.
This also has a high reference value for our domestic new energy development, after all, we are still in the initial stage of hydrogen energy, how to improve hydrogen production, storage and other key supporting industries, how to reduce consumer purchase and use costs, will be the two core issues facing the entire industry.
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