In the context of the global fossil energy emergency, electrification has become the mainstream direction of the current automobile industry, whether it is a new car-making force or a traditional car company is making every effort to develop electric vehicles, but electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrid, range extended electric vehicles) is not the only direction in the future.
Hyundai Motor recently announced that its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle NEXO China version has officially obtained a Beijing new energy vehicle license, which means that the NEXO China version can be legally launched in China, and Hyundai also plans to launch this model in China within this year.
This is also the first domestic mass-produced "hydrogen fuel" SUV that can be licensed. In fact, the popularity of hydrogen fuel vehicles has always been relatively high in China, and Toyota and Hyundai have invested in this field for a long time, and there are corresponding models sold abroad or tested on Chinese roads. However, there is no model that can be legally put on the road so far (except for designated cars for large-scale events), so the arrival of nexo China can be called the first hydrogen fuel vehicle in China.
For the new energy vehicle market where electric vehicles currently dominate, the launch of hydrogen fuel vehicles may mean that another new energy track has been slowly unfolded. The deeper implication is that hydrogen energy will be upgraded to a national strategy, and the future may be on an equal footing with electric energy.
Fill up with hydrogen for as little as 5 minutes
The endurance can reach nearly 600 kilometers
There are two types of hydrogen vehicles, hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles (HICEV) and hydrogen fuel vehicles (FCEV), while nexo China belongs to FCEV. In simple terms, the power system equipped with the NEXO China version relies on hydrogen or hydrogen-containing substances and air to produce chemical reactions in the fuel cell package, thereby converting hydrogen energy into electrical energy, and then driving the electric energy to achieve the dynamic form of the vehicle.
NeXO China is equipped with a hydrogen fuel reactor with a maximum power of 95 kilowatts inside the front engine room, which redoxes hydrogen and oxygen to generate water and electricity, which is used to drive the vehicle, and the water is discharged to the outside of the vehicle as a pollutant-free.
According to official information, the Chinese version of the NEXO is equipped with a hydrogen storage tank that can store 3.99 kg of liquid hydrogen with a pressure of 35 megapascals, and in the state of full load of the hydrogen storage tank, according to the CLTC test standard, it can provide the vehicle with an endurance of 596 kilometers.
If you just look at the mileage, you may not think that NEXO has much advantage, after all, this endurance can be achieved by many electric vehicles at present, and even some of the mileage can exceed 1000 kilometers. However, as a hydrogen fuel vehicle, the biggest feature of NEXO is that it can "charge and go".
At present, whether it is Tesla or "Wei Xiaoli", although the fast charging technology has developed rapidly, some have also launched a power exchange mode, but for the battery life anxiety, it is still a shoe itch, which fundamentally cannot solve the battery life anxiety - after all, the fastest charging time is half an hour to an hour, and the replacement power station cannot be everywhere. So mileage anxiety is still there.
Hydrogen-fueled vehicles are different, and their energy replenishment efficiency is much faster. In practice, it only takes a few minutes to fill up liquid hydrogen. Take the Chinese version of NEXO as an example, it only takes 5 minutes to fill up with hydrogen, only one or two minutes more than the traditional refueling, and the user can drive away in a dashing manner, without the anxiety of replenishing energy for too long.
Compared with fuel vehicles, the cost of hydrogen fuel vehicles is also more economical, taking the unit price of Beijing Hydrogen Station 30 yuan / L hydrogen as an example, calculating the endurance cost of 100 kilometers is only about 23 yuan, and the cost of using the car is greatly reduced.
In addition, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has a small battery as a storage for kinetic energy recovery. It can be said that hydrogen fuel cells combine the advantages of high energy ratio of gasoline vehicles, that is, charging and walking, and surpass the energy replenishment efficiency of electric vehicles, and also have the advantages of pollution-free.
Toyota and Hyundai are two giants
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle applications are accelerating
When it comes to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, we have to mention two traditional car giants: Hyundai and Toyota.
As one of the pioneers in the field of hydrogen energy, Hyundai Motor Group has more than 24 years of history of hydrogen energy research and development, as early as 1998, Hyundai Motor Group has established a fuel cell development department.
In 2000, Hyundai developed Hyundai's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, santa fe FCEV, based on Santa Fe, launched the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle ix35 in 2013, and launched the second-generation hydrogen fuel cell SUV model, the NEXO, in 2018. As of October 2021, NEXO has sold more than 20,000 units worldwide, making it the best-selling hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in the world.
On March 2, 2021, Hyundai Motor Group started construction of the world's first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system production and sales base, "HTWO Guangzhou". This is hyundai Motor Group's first hydrogen fuel cell system production and sales base overseas, and the first large-scale hydrogen fuel cell system production plant in China.
"HTWO Guangzhou" is scheduled to be completed and put into operation in the second half of 2022. Covering an area of 207,000 square meters, HTWO Guangzhou is a comprehensive base including a hydrogen fuel cell system production plant, an R&D center, and an innovation center. The plant initially plans to produce 6,500 sets of hydrogen fuel cell systems per year, plans to expand the supply of hydrogen fuel cell systems to the automobile, generator, ship, train and other industries, and will expand production and supply capacity in a timely manner according to the Needs of the Chinese market and policies
Another giant, Toyota, has also been immersed in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for many years. At the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games at the beginning of the year, Toyota, as a sponsor, provided more than 240 fuel cell vehicles (FCEV), with a cumulative driving range of nearly 400,000 kilometers, equivalent to running around the earth's equator for a full 10 laps, which can be said to be the first time that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have achieved large-scale and long-term commercial operation in the world. It was also through this grand event that people finally discovered that the original hydrogen energy society has come so close to us.
It can be said that Beijing's license to Hyundai NEXO is also releasing a new signal in the industry: hybrid, hydrogen fuel cells, and pure electric vehicles will become three power technology routes for mainland new energy vehicles to go hand in hand in the future, which is of far-reaching significance for breaking the dependence on fossil single energy.
At the national level, the application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is also accelerating. On March 23, the National Development and Reform Commission officially announced the Medium and Long-term Plan for the Development of hydrogen energy industry (2021-2035). The plan not only clarifies for the first time that hydrogen energy will become an important part of China's future energy system, but also determines that renewable energy hydrogen production is the main development direction, and at the same time puts forward three phased development goals by 2025, 2030 and 2035, of which the number of fuel cell vehicles will reach 50,000 by 2025.
In addition, since August 2021, when the mainland clarified the list of the first batch of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters, five major hydrogen fuel cell vehicle policy support demonstration city clusters in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan and Hebei have been initially formed.
Industry experts said that for a long time, hydrogen has been managed as a dangerous chemical, and the newly built hydrogen production projects belong to the "new hazardous chemical production projects" and are strictly prohibited from being built and expanded outside the chemical park. With the release and implementation of the plan, the energy attributes of hydrogen are further clarified, which will promote the rational use of hydrogen energy in the automotive industry.
Just today, the Beijing Municipal Urban Management Committee began to solicit public opinions on the "Interim Measures for the Operation and Management of Hydrogen Refueling Stations for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in Beijing" online, showing that the construction and standardized commercial operation of hydrogen refueling stations have been officially put on the agenda.
With the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and supporting hydrogen refueling stations successively put into the market, the development of hydrogen energy vehicles will obviously accelerate.