If you want to select the most persistent car company leaders, then Geely's Li Shufu is definitely one of them.
As early as 2009, Li Shufu submitted the "Proposal on Introducing National Standards for Methanol Vehicles as Soon as Possible", and since then, in 2017 and 2019, methanol vehicles have been proposed to be developed at the two sessions, and this year is no exception.
On March 1, 2022, Li Shufu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Geely Holding Group, locked his eyes on methanol vehicles for the fourth time, and brought the "Suggestions on Promoting the Application of Methanol Vehicles to Help Carbon Neutrality in the Transportation Field", proposing to comprehensively promote the application of methanol vehicles in the mainland, to include methanol vehicles in the development system and management of new energy vehicles, and to give methanol vehicles the same policy support as new energy vehicles.
Why does Li Shufu, who has always been known for his outspokenness, cling to this point? Is there really hope for the "methanol car" that he has high hopes for?
Those years, those things
The story of Li Shufu and methanol cars is somewhat favorable at the right time and place.
As we all know, the energy structure of the mainland is "lack of oil, gas, rich coal", unlike oil and natural gas, China is a big coal country, and the domestic coal identified resource reserves are more than 16 trillion tons. In the past, cars were tied to oil, and the emergence of methanol initially made many people see new opportunities to connect coal and cars and optimize and upgrade the energy structure.
Li Shufu is one of them. In 2004, Li Shufu happened to read "Liquid Sunlight Economy - Methanol Power" published by the American Nobel Laureate Doctor of Chemistry, and in 2005, he began to focus on methanol power and methanol alternative materials.
In fact, as a high-sulfur coal produced by using inferior coal, methanol is calculated according to its 5:1 substitution relationship with gasoline, and the retail unit price of pure methanol is only 3 yuan / one kilogram, which has a great economic advantage over gasoline.
And methanol has a higher octane number, meaning the engine can work with a higher compression ratio without knocking. According to relevant studies, the ultimate compression ratio of gasoline vehicles in the laboratory is 35:1, while the ultimate compression ratio of methanol in the laboratory can be 67:1, nearly doubled, theoretically compared with the same displacement of gasoline engines, the dynamics have been greatly improved.
In addition, methanol has more advantages, such as clean emissions, renewable green and so on. Methanol emits carbon dioxide and water after combustion, which is cleaner than gasoline and diesel, and the liquid properties of methanol make it can be stored and transported like gasoline and diesel, which is convenient, safe and fast.
In 2005, Geely began to dabble in the research of methanol vehicles. In 2013, Geely methanol vehicles took the lead in launching trial operations in Jinzhong, Shanxi, and in 2015, Geely bet on methanol vehicles and invested $45.5 million in Iceland Carbon Cycle International to further promote methanol technology. In the same year, Geely methanol automobile project settled in Guiyang and began to build a methanol vehicle manufacturing base.
Li Shufu once said that Geely Holdings has been deeply engaged in methanol fuel vehicles for 16 years, developing nearly 20 methanol fuel models, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles. In the methanol vehicle pilot project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, up to now, Geely methanol passenger cars have been operated on a large scale of 27,000 vehicles, with a total operating mileage of 8 billion kilometers and a maximum single mileage of 1.2 million kilometers.
Why is the market reacting flatly to methanol vehicles?
In Li Shufu's imagination, cleaner, more convenient and cheaper methanol cars have a bright future, but at present, 90% of the methanol cars in operation are produced by Geely, which means that there is a lack of peers to open up new roads, and Geely has almost become the only car company in the industry that loves methanol cars.
The problem is that although methanol is good, the distribution of methanol production capacity has a strong correlation with the geographical distribution of mainland coal, so the current promotion of methanol vehicles is limited to Shanxi, Shaanxi, Guizhou, Gansu and other areas with better coal resource conditions. Since 2012, the national level has issued documents to promote the pilot of methanol vehicles, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has successively carried out methanol vehicle pilot work in 10 cities in 5 provinces and cities of Shanxi, Shanghai, Shaanxi, Guizhou and Gansu.
Such an operation, although it accelerates the promotion speed of methanol vehicles, but the limitation of the promotion area also makes it difficult for methanol vehicles to be reproducible in other domestic markets, which hinders the large-scale promotion of methanol vehicles in the national market in disguise.
In this regard, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, gave an answer, he believes that considering that the actual market demand for methanol vehicles is not strong at present, it is relatively easier to promote in specific regions.
On the other hand, the current policy support for methanol vehicles is still not enough, and many companies still have doubts about the prospects of methanol vehicles, believing that it is not the mainstream direction of future automobile development. Geely has not been without its peers, including Weichai Power, FAW Jiefang, Yutong Bus, Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck, Geely Automobile and other car companies, all of which once announced the research and development of methanol vehicle-related technologies.
However, with the passage of time, more and more companies have abandoned the research and development of methanol vehicle-related technologies and products, or only regard methanol vehicles as a forward-looking technology research.
This is also related to the physical properties of methanol. A commercial vehicle technician frankly said, "The actual experience effect of methanol vehicles on the user side is not good, because methanol has the disadvantages of corrosiveness and poor low temperature start-up, and the user reaction needs to replace the injector frequently." In addition, because the calorific value of methanol is much lower than that of gasoline, the operating range of the vehicle is limited. Therefore, methanol vehicles want to develop and grow, not only rely on policy support, but also rely on market competitiveness. ”
Where will the new way out be?
Fortunately, advances in technology always solve problems. The ill-fated methanol car seems to be ushering in its own spring, and the methanol hydrogen fuel cell may be its next best answer.
Unlike the previous use of methanol to be supplied to cars purely as fuel, methanol hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are equivalent to adding a range extender on the basis of pure electric vehicles. The range extender consists of two parts, one is a methanol hydrogen production system and the other part is a hydrogen fuel cell system.
Compared with pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, methanol hydrogen fuel cell vehicles not only retain the advantages of environmental protection, high efficiency and strong power, but also make up for the shortcomings of their short mileage.
And methanol is a flammable and non-explosive liquid, storage and transportation methods and gasoline is not much different, the nature is similar to gasoline, so there is no need to set up another alcohol station, just a slight modification of the gas station, each gas station transformation cost of about tens of thousands of yuan. Compared with the high-cost and more technically demanding hydrogen refueling stations, the difficulty of infrastructure construction is much lower.
In addition, as the world's largest producer and consumer of methanol, China accounts for more than half of the world's methanol production capacity and output, and the upstream supply of methanol hydrogen fuel cells has a natural advantage.
In short, the technical difficulties will always be overcome one by one with time, and whether the next policy can further throw an olive branch to the "methanol car" and accelerate the improvement of the relevant standard system of methanol vehicles will become the key factor in whether Li Shufu can "realize the dream".