Written by | Chu Yunwen
Large-scale sports events have always been the time when many brands have gained a lot of exposure through sponsorship, such as the World Cup, the World Championships and the quadrennial Olympic and Winter Olympic Games.
Commercial operation has become an indispensable part of the modern Olympic Games, in the face of a large number of travel links in the Olympic Games, automobile brand sponsorship has become a common link in the previous Games.
The platform of the event is not only an opportunity for car companies to take the opportunity to publicize and let consumers have a deep understanding of the current mainstream products, but also an important means to show the technological development and planning in the future period.
Hydrogen, the theme of the 2022 Winter Olympics
Taking the Beijing Winter Olympics as an example, this is the first world-class sports event after China put forward the goal of "2030 carbon peak and 2060 carbon neutrality". The participating athletes are constantly pushing their limits, and for the event organizers, the goal to be challenged is "the most environmentally friendly Olympic Games in history".
Toyota is one of the main sponsors of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and in addition to the common hybrid models in the market, the overall degree of electrification has also reached a new high, which also includes a large number of hydrogen energy technology applications.
During the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Toyota offered a total of 2,205 different types of models, 140 MIRAI and 105 Costa are particularly eye-catching, both of which are hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Among them, MIRAI is the first large-scale introduction to the Chinese market; Costa Hydrogen Engine is specially designed and developed for the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, developed by Toyota China R&D Center, and produced in Sichuan FAW Toyota, which is the first time that Toyota motor has realized the whole process of hydrogen fuel cell technology from R&D to production overseas.
In addition, there are more than 200 Beiqi Foton hydrogen fuel cell buses equipped with Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell system put into operation, thanks to the joint cooperation between Toyota, BAIC and Yihuatong, compared with only 3 hydrogen fuel cell buses in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the number has increased significantly.
Demonstrating hydrogen fuel cell technology at the Winter Olympics is actually a smart thing to do.
At present, pure electric vehicle models are the mainstream choice in line with green travel, but as we all know, power batteries have shortcomings in mileage due to the impact of technology, especially in cold areas with lower temperatures.
The Winter Olympics were transferred to Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, involving longer routes and a wider variety of roads, both traditional urban sections and undulating mountain roads, coupled with widespread snowfall during the event, which exacerbated the complexity of road conditions, which put forward higher requirements for the use of cars for the games.
According to the information obtained so far, the Winter Olympic vehicles serving the event have maintained a good state, taking the Costa hydrogen engine as an example, which can start normally at a temperature of minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the characteristics of the electric drive allow its power output to be guaranteed, and it can be used in the mountainous areas with large slopes.
In addition, in this Winter Olympics, the hydrogen refueling station has also been applied on a large scale, jointly operated by Sinopec and PetroChina, compared with the charging time of pure electric vehicles, the hydrogen refueling station can make the vehicle like the traditional fuel vehicle to achieve "plus and go", greatly reducing the time cost.
Fast fuel filling and long mileage are one of the biggest advantages of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles over pure electric vehicles, since hydrogen fuel cells have so many advantages, can this technology become the main development direction in the future?
Hydrogen fuel cell, the next new energy outlet?
Hydrogen fuel cells are not a new thing that has appeared in recent years, taking Toyota as an example, which began to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology in 1995, 26 years ago, of which mirai, the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell model MIRAI was officially launched in 2014, which shows that its research and development difficulty is not low.
In the world, Japan and South Korea is a relatively clear development plan for hydrogen fuel cells, although the development and popularization of high difficulties, but it is still evaluated as "the cleanest energy in the 21st century", in addition to Toyota, Hyundai is also one of the car companies that vigorously develop hydrogen fuel cells.
After Li Heguo took over as vice president of Hyundai China, li he also positioned the Chinese market as one of the important development areas of hydrogen strategy in his planning. Why many car companies are deploying hydrogen fuel cell strategies in China, because from the perspective of policy, there is a certain positive for this development route.
In March 2021, hydrogen energy was officially included in the draft outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan. In December 2021, the Ministry of Finance and other five departments issued the "Notice on Launching a New Batch of Fuel Cell Vehicle Demonstration Application Work", and the two urban agglomerations of Hebei and Henan were officially approved, plus the first batch of beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai and Guangdong city clusters announced earlier, and 5 cities will carry out fuel cell demonstration applications this year.
It can be seen that hydrogen fuel cells have become one of the important components of a new generation of energy technology in the domestic planning.
And we got such a set of data, in China, there are currently more than 150 cities in the "14th Five-Year Plan" mentioned the word hydrogen energy, among which, more than 50 cities have issued "local hydrogen energy industry development special plan".
According to the "China Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Report 2020", China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle ownership will increase from 7352 in 2020 to 100,000 in 2025, and the market size of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is expected to reach 80 billion yuan by 2025.
But the existence of anything has two sides, and hydrogen fuel cells must have their own reasons for not seizing the beachhead in the initial stage of new energy development.
For such products, there are several important technical indicator points, such as power density, hydrogen cylinder quality, battery cell durability, etc., among which power density, battery cells are basically linked to power batteries, and hydrogen bottles are unique components of hydrogen fuel cell products, and the current design and manufacture of manufacturers is still a minority.
This leads to the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles become a big problem, and most of the hydrogen storage bottles are currently used aluminum fiber wound inner bottle (III. type) and plastic fiber wound inner bottle (IV. type), of which IV. type hydrogen storage bottle is the new favorite of the current industry, which most of the carbon fiber materials used are provided exclusively by Toray, so there will be restrictions on the price.
For the popularization of an emerging product, price is one of the important factors affecting whether it can be rapidly promoted in the market, like Toyota is currently doing one of the things is to innovate the manufacturing technology of hydrogen storage tanks, reduce the use of carbon fiber, etc., and promote the popularization of FCEVs.
Of course, the impact of the cost of more than the above, the development of hydrogen fuel cells other difficulties also include the construction of hydrogen refueling sites and hydrogen storage and transportation, for this problem, in fact, is a necessary process of energy replacement, just like the construction of charging stations, can not be built overnight.
In the "14th Five-Year Plan" we mentioned earlier, according to the planning goals of various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, more than 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations will be built nationwide by 2025.
Compared with the gas stations that have long been rolled out, 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations are still rare, but hydrogen fuel cells should be the same as pure electric, in the commercial field in the early stage, and after the technology matures and the manufacturing costs fall, they will begin to gradually transition to civilianization.
Compared with the negative evaluation of hydrogen fuel cells by some car companies, its reference significance is not so strong in China, after all, the domestic automobile market has its own uniqueness, if there is policy support behind it, its development process will be easier, pure electric vehicles are a good example.
But in the end, mass production and popularization is the ultimate destination of technology, and this time Toyota's batch use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the Winter Olympics is just a new beginning.
Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda has said that to achieve carbon neutrality, it is not the internal combustion engine that needs to be eliminated, but carbon dioxide. If one day there is an ideal and widespread clean fuel, the current pure electric technology may disappear from people's vision in a short time.
Where we are now, and the ultimate goal of "carbon neutrality", is like two points on a blank piece of paper, there can be countless paths between points and points, you can't say that the line is the most correct, and achieving carbon neutrality is actually a process of continuous exploration.
For consumers, solving the pain points of the car is the fundamental, Toyota hydrogen fuel cell can be said to give consumers an expectation, the rest to the technology developers, to time. 【iDailycar】