Text/Peach Lee
Affected by multiple factors such as the epidemic, the new energy electric vehicle market this year is not very good, all kinds of lithium battery raw materials are almost soaring, and the most direct impact of the rise in the price of upstream raw materials is the rise in the price of new energy electric vehicles of major brands. Since the beginning of this year, new energy electric vehicles have experienced several waves of price increases, after many car companies announced that many of their models will be adjusted in May, and so far, the price increase trend of new energy electric vehicles has not stopped.
We all know that if there are multiple things of the same type in the market, and if the price of one of them continues to rise, then other similar alternatives will appear in the market, thus alleviating the problem caused by the price increase. Since the price of lithium batteries has risen to the point where car companies and consumers are crying bitterly, is there no other product on the market that can replace it?
The answer is yes, the new energy vehicle itself refers to the use of unconventional vehicle fuel as the power source, the integrated vehicle power control and drive of advanced technology, the formation of advanced technical principles, with new technologies, new structure of the car. It includes, but is not limited to, electric vehicles, and at present, it is mentioned more in addition to electric vehicles, that is, hydrogen energy vehicles.
Hydrogen energy vehicles currently have two main forms, one is a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, similar to the current electric vehicle, it is by the chemical energy of hydrogen and oxygen directly converted into electrical energy, to achieve the purpose of supplying energy for the car; the other is a hydrogen internal combustion engine car, and the fuel vehicle is more similar, by burning hydrogen heat generated by conversion into kinetic energy to achieve the purpose of promoting the car.
The benefits of hydrogen fuel are actually many, and its biggest advantage is environmental protection. Hydrogen will produce water vapor discharge after combustion, which can achieve true zero pollution emissions and effectively reduce the air pollution problems caused by other fuel vehicles. Previously, the biggest purpose of the mainland's vigorous promotion of new energy vehicles is to reduce air pollution, and from this point of view, hydrogen energy is undoubtedly the best choice. In addition, hydrogen energy has another advantage, that is, high energy replenishment efficiency.
Before the new energy electric vehicle was the most criticized problem is the endurance problem, and now the battery life is slowly coming up, but its charging time is too long to bring new anxiety. At present, the construction of charging facilities in the mainland is still in progress, the number of charging piles is far from meeting everyone's charging needs, and the fastest charging technology now takes half an hour to fill, which also leads to the phenomenon of queuing up for charging during peak travel periods. Hydrogen energy does not have such a problem, it is similar to a fuel vehicle, as long as a few minutes can be full of blood resurrection.
Since hydrogen energy has so many advantages, and the rise of lithium battery raw materials has also given it more market development opportunities, why has hydrogen energy not developed much more now? The author believes that the first is that the technology is immature, and the second is that the cost is too high.
Although hydrogen energy has been proposed for a long time, its use is far less common than batteries, and because the market is larger, the study of it is naturally deeper and the technology is more mature. Hydrogen energy currently faces two main technical problems, one is hydrogen production, the other is hydrogen storage. At present, the mainstream hydrogen production method is fossil fuel hydrogen production, but its reserves are limited and cannot be carried out for a long time, and the production process is also accompanied by very serious pollution, and the efficiency of electrolyzed water to produce hydrogen is low, and it will also produce higher heat.
Another problem is that hydrogen as a flammable gas, its storage method also has high requirements, so the production of hydrogen storage devices also requires high technical support. The problem brought about by immature technology is that the cost is too high, the current hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and transportation technology is still developing, the raw material consumption in the process of production, storage and so on has not found a new breakthrough, which also leads to the production cost of hydrogen energy vehicles will be higher than electric vehicles, and before the cost is not lower than electric vehicles, the market will naturally not choose things that are immature in technology as alternatives.
Write at the end:
Although the current price of new energy electric vehicles continues to rise, but it is still in the acceptable range of consumers, and the manufacturing difficulty and cost of hydrogen energy vehicles are higher than electric vehicles, in this case, hydrogen energy does not rise with the trend can be understood. However, with the disappearance of various subsidy policies for electric vehicles and the determination of the national hydrogen energy strategy, hydrogen energy may have more room for development in the future.