Text: Understand the original Wei Wei of Chedi
On May 24, a news of a Great Wall Motor or an independent brand of fuel cell passenger cars circulated on the Internet, although Great Wall Motors, as the protagonist of the matter, has not yet responded to this news. But it has also re-aroused the attention of the outside world about the progress of fuel cell vehicles, especially hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars.
Independent brands seize the hydrogen fuel cell passenger car track
For hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, we are certainly not strangers, looking at the world including Toyota, Hyundai and even Mercedes-Benz, there has been a layout in this field, and hydrogen fuel cells have also begun to be applied in the field of commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks. But when it comes to the popularization of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars for the majority of private users, I am afraid that everyone will feel that it is still far away.
Even the current pure electric vehicles in full swing are still facing the problem of insufficient charging piles, and hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars with higher infrastructure requirements must first solve the problem of how to replenish energy before large-scale application.
However, the track suddenly became crowded.
On May 24, the Financial Associated Press quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying that the Great Wall Motor fuel cell passenger car brand may be launched at the end of the year, and said that if it were not for the impact of the epidemic, the new brand was originally planned to be released in the second quarter of this year. We also asked Great Wall Motors for verification at the first time, and we have not received a reply.
However, the possibility of this layout is very large, because in recent years, Great Wall Motors has been very high-profile for the layout of the hydrogen energy industry chain.
As early as September 2020, Great Wall Motor announced that its first fuel cell SUV would achieve mass production in 2021 while pushing its company Weishi Energy, which focused on the market-oriented operation of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Since then, Great Wall Motors also held a grand hydrogen energy strategy conference at its headquarters in Baoding in March 2021, and during the meeting, there was also news again that Great Wall Motors will launch a C-class hydrogen fuel cell SUV in 2021.
Mech Dragon
Since then, Great Wall Motors has released the salon brand, which was also positioned as a "hydrogen-electric dual-energy luxury brand" in the early days of its establishment, but at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, with the advent of the brand's first mass-produced car, the Mech Dragon, the brand's positioning was also updated to "become the first brand of 400,000-800,000 pure electric luxury brands". Great Wall Motors' hydrogen fuel cell SUV doesn't seem to have the following.
However, the domestic car companies have never stopped competing for the first time in the field of hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars.
Changan Automobile's first car of the new brand has a hydrogen energy version
Changan Automobile officially launched its new brand Changan Deep Blue on April 13. It is worth noting that the first model of the New Changan brand, SL03, includes a hydrogen version. According to the data, the SL03 hydrogen version of the comprehensive CLTC standard under the working range of up to 700 km or more, the feed hydrogen consumption as low as 0.65 kg / 100 km or less, can achieve 3 minutes of ultra-fast energy replenishment. Changan Deep Blue said that this will be China's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car.
The first model of the Changan Navy brand, the SL03, will include a hydrogen version
Earlier than Changan Automobile, in October 2021, GAC Group announced that its first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, AION LX Fuel Cell, opened demonstration operations on the Ruqi travel platform. During the demonstration operation, users can place orders through channels such as the Qi Travel App and Mini Programs, that is, they have the opportunity to experience hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for free.
In 2021, GAC Group's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the AION LX Fuel Cell, was demonstrated and operated on the Ruqi Travel platform
According to the data, the car is developed based on the GAC GEP 2.0 platform, equipped with a fuel cell system and on-board hydrogen storage system independently developed by GAC Group. The maximum power exceeds 135 kilowatts, the hydrogen consumption of 100 kilometers is only 0.77 kilograms, the NEDC has an endurance of more than 650 kilometers, and it takes only 3-5 minutes to hydrogen refuel.
In addition to GAC and Changan, Dongfeng Motor, Chery Automobile and SAIC Motor have also been laid out.
Dongfeng Hydrogen Boat e· H2 is based on dongfeng fengshen AX7 design
In December 2020, Dongfeng Hydrogen Energy sub-brand Dongfeng Hydrogen Boat hydrogen fuel cell SUV - Dongfeng Hydrogen Boat e · H2 has been declared to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Chery will spend 300 million yuan on a new hydrogen fuel vehicle project in 2020
In March 2020, Chery New Energy Vehicle has previously started construction of a fuel cell system development and industrialization project in Wuhu, Anhui Province, which will achieve an annual output of 440 hydrogen fuel cell assemblies after the completion of the project.
SAIC Maxus MAXUS EUNIQ 7
On September 13, 2020, SAIC Motor's first fuel cell MPV, SAIC Maxus EUNIQ 7, was unveiled. It is worth mentioning that SAIC Motor also laid out infrastructure in the same period: in July of the same year, SAIC Motor joined hands with China Baowu to promote the landing of 10 to 20 hydrogen refueling stations within five years.
Awkward hydrogen fuel cell passenger car
"Extremely stupid." This is the evaluation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the world's richest and the world's largest electric vehicle company.
At the recent "Future of The Automobile" summit hosted by the Financial Times, Musk was asked again whether he believed hydrogen could play a role in accelerating the move away from fossil fuels. Musk said: "No, I really can't stress this anymore. The number of times I've been asked about hydrogen, probably more than 100 times, or even 200 times. ”
"It's important to understand that if you want a way to store energy, hydrogen is a bad choice," he said. In Musk's view, liquid hydrogen needs "huge containers" to store, and if it is to be stored in gaseous form, it needs "larger" containers.
Image from Musk's Twitter account page
Musk also wrote on his social media account: "Fuel cell = stupid sales."
In four years, the first generation of Mirai sold only more than 9,000 vehicles in the global market
Musk's words, Toyota President Akio Toyoda will certainly not agree. Toyota's layout in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is currently one of the most mature and leading car companies in the world. But an embarrassing reality that Akio Toyoda also needs to face is the dismal sales of hydrogen fuel cell passenger car products at this stage. Toyota put the mirai, the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in the consumer market in December 2014, and as of May 2019, the mirai has sold just over 9,000 units in the global market in four years.
The cashier Toyota can ignore the sales figures and continue to invest in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and has already launched a second-generation Mirai. But other companies may not think the same as Toyota.
In June 2021, Hyundai Motor Group's hydrogen fuel cell systems entered the motorsport market
At the end of 2021, according to foreign media reports, Hyundai Motor Group determined after internal audit that its third-generation fuel cell research and development progress is far from the initial goal, so it has suspended the hydrogen energy vehicle project Genesis, which was originally scheduled to be launched in 2025, only 4 months after the announcement of the project.
In July 2021, Honda Motor corporation announced that it would terminate production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles fueled by hydrogen in August of that year. In the same year, Nissan Motor also announced the suspension of plans to develop fuel cell vehicles in cooperation with Daimler and Ford.
Write at the end:
When it comes to the development of fuel cell vehicles, we cannot but talk about policies.
The reason why Toyota Motor is so determined to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, on the one hand, is that it firmly believes that hydrogen energy is the ultimate clean energy and is worthy of vigorous investment across cycles. But on the other hand, it cannot be ignored that Japan has long identified the development and utilization of hydrogen energy as an important strategic industry for the country in the future.
In fact, in recent years, including the United States, Germany, Denmark and other countries are also increasing their support for hydrogen energy research and development and industrialization from policies and other aspects.
This is especially true for China. In recent years, from top-level documents to local policies, from industry standards to corporate strategies, there has been support for the hydrogen energy industry. In particular, the hydrogen energy industry in 2021 has been written into the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 Long-term Goal Outline and has become one of the six major future industries.
This is also the basis for domestic head independent brands to seize the track, preemptively lay out the future passenger car market, and preemptively develop a new blue ocean.
From the perspective of industrial development stage, hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars are indeed far from the majority of private consumers. But if you think about it, perhaps GAC Group's "demonstration operation" plan is a good idea to narrow the distance between ordinary users and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Next, what new solutions will other independent brands have, and it is worth looking forward to.