Recently, a friend talked to the author about the topic of buying a car, and when discussing whether he could buy an electric car now, he asked a question: "Now that there is hydrogen energy, is the future electric vehicle just a transition?" "Because of such psychological concerns, I dare not buy pure electric vehicles."
Why hydrogen fuel?
Recently speaking of hydrogen energy, I have to mention the just-concluded Beijing Winter Olympics, the Winter Olympics work vehicles provided by Toyota, in addition to our familiar Sena, Camry and Leiling and other models, to serve as the winter Olympic transportation task, there are 140 units of the second generation Mirai that also serves as the transportation task of the Beijing Winter Olympics are also quietly busy working.
Regarding the Mirai model, many users may be relatively unfamiliar, ta is currently one of the few mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell models in the world, with three built-in hydrogen storage tanks that can carry up to 5.6kg of fuel, and the comprehensive cruising range can reach 850km.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, not the use of hydrogen combustion, drive the engine output to the wheels, complete the car driving to do work; hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, has a structure called "reactor", hydrogen in the reactor hydrogen oxygen reaction, and then generate electricity, the generated electrical energy output to the motor or the battery that needs to be replenished, and then through the motor from electrical energy to kinetic energy, driving the wheel; because the hydrogen and oxygen reaction only produces water, so it can be defined as a real environmental protection, secondly, the hydrogen refueling speed, can be comparable to the fuel vehicle, so Many people define hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as "the end product of new energy.".
Differences between Toyota and Honda
Toyota has been committed to actively deploying and developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but revolutionary construction always has to accept cold eyes and exclusion; Honda CEO Sanbu Toshihiro said that Honda had determined that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would not become mainstream 10 years ago, and shouted to Toyota: We should give up this unrealistic idea early and follow Honda to focus on the development of electric vehicles.
Honda and Toyota are both veteran teams of traditional car companies, and their views on the automotive industry are certainly not comparable to ordinary people, because each brand has its own unique development curve and thinking, and it is inevitable that Toyota and Honda will have differences in the future direction. From the perspective of the two long-term developments of pure electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as far as the current time node is concerned, no one can know the future answer very clearly and clearly, but from the rational analysis, what kind of spark will pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles rub in the future?
Hydrogen fuel or pure electric?
First from the perspective of Toyota to think about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, from the perspective of consumer use, the energy replenishment speed is comparable to that of fuel vehicles, the driving experience is completely consistent with pure electric vehicles, and it is better from the perspective of environmental protection; from a theoretical analysis, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can only be said to be more than pure electric vehicles.
But from the perspective of industry development, it is more difficult to build a hydrogen fuel ecology than a pure electric vehicle; first of all, the hydrogen storage device inside the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle needs very expensive carbon fiber, I believe that friends who play modified cars know the price of carbon fiber, in addition, in the fuel reactor, expensive platinum is needed to catalyze hydrogen power generation, so from the cost point of view, an ordinary hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is destined to be not something that ordinary consumers can afford.
In addition to vehicle costs, in the hydrogen energy ecology, the production of hydrogen energy also requires platinum as a catalyst, compared to power generation, the cost is more expensive; followed by the transportation of hydrogen, the vehicles and equipment transporting hydrogen also need to use more sophisticated equipment to ensure the safety of hydrogen, so in terms of difficulty and cost, it is also more expensive; finally, in terms of hydrogenation, the construction of hydrogen refueling stations needs to reserve a larger amount of hydrogen energy, and it needs corresponding equipment and construction; from the complete hydrogen fuel ecological construction, compared with pure electric, there is more gap in cost, There is also a very large difficulty in terms of difficulty.
From the perspective of pure electric vehicles, at present, pure electric vehicles have shown an absolute upward trend in development, whether from sales or the product itself, it proves that pure electric is the current absolute trend.
Pure electric vehicles first face the problem is the speed of energy replenishment, compared to refueling and hydrogenation, the current pure electric vehicle refueling speed in the DC third-party charging mode, the fastest need for more than 30 minutes to replenish the vehicle to 80% of the electricity, the speed is slightly inferior, secondly, the coverage of the supplementary facilities is still not perfect, even now in the north, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other first-tier cities and surroundings already have a very large amount of energy facilities, encounter peak periods, especially the Spring Festival and holidays, because the number of supplementary facilities is small and slow, Therefore, it is often faced with the phenomenon of charging queues in high-speed service areas, so if you want the pure electric industry to continue to develop, these two points are the biggest problems for consumers.
Write at the end
After a brief analysis of the above two, I believe that many people already have the answer in their minds, the author analyzes that in the short term, even within 15-20 years, pure electric vehicles will still become the mainstream products of new energy, and in 5 years, pure electric vehicles can improve the speed of energy and the coverage of energy facilities, and can also bring improvement to the experience of pure electric vehicles; and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, want to improve ecological coverage and want to control the cost to the price that ordinary consumers can accept, at least it takes longer to develop.