21st Century Business Herald Xi reporter Gong Zhaoen reported from Guangzhou
Driven by the "dual carbon" strategy, at present, the continent's electric vehicles are showing a rapid growth trend, and the fuel cell vehicle industry is also developing simultaneously.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, from January to November this year, the mainland produced a total of 5,261 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 35%, the cost of fuel cell systems dropped to 3,000 yuan per kilowatt, a decrease of 80% compared with 2020, and the volume power density of the stack reached 4,000 watts per liter, an increase of 35% over 2020.
As of October 2023, Continental has sold a total of 18,197 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, second only to South Korea's 34,000 units, becoming the world's second largest fuel cell vehicle market, and has built a total of 417 hydrogen refueling stations, ranking first in the world, an increase of 63 compared with the end of 2022.
The policy support and huge market potential have also driven some multinational car companies that are deeply engaged in hydrogen energy to accelerate their layout in China, shouting the slogan of "pure electric is just the transition, hydrogen energy is the future", and eager to occupy a place in the Chinese market with a penetration rate of more than 40% of new energy vehicles.
In June this year, Hyundai Motor Group's first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system R&D, production and sales base, HTWO Guangzhou, was officially completed and started production and sales, with a planned annual output of 6,500 sets of hydrogen fuel cell systems.
On December 15th, after half a year, the factory was fully on track and operating normally.
The HTWO Guangzhou production line includes hydrogen-related electrode stack building and non-hydrogen-related system assembly building, and the two workshops are connected by a corridor on the second floor. After the production is completed, it will be transported to the system assembly building through the corridor on the second floor, where it will be assembled into a hydrogen fuel cell system together with other components and tested for activation.
At the same time, in order to ensure quality and safety, 90% automation is used for the assembly of core components and the hydrogen use process. The entire production process of the factory adopts ICT technology (information and communication technology), and the sensors installed in the factory identify and collect data for intelligent analysis and decision-making.
According to public information, after HTWO Guangzhou was put into production, it completed the development of 3 hydrogen logistics vehicles and 1 sanitation vehicle with domestic partners. Based in Guangzhou, it cooperates with Guangzhou Public Transport Group, Jiaotou Group, WeYuan Zhixing and other enterprises to jointly promote the use of buses, passenger cars, logistics vehicles, refrigerated trucks, and hydrogen autonomous driving sweepers.
According to the official introduction, in the future, HTWO Guangzhou will participate in the demonstration operation of fuel cell vehicles based on commercial vehicles in a variety of ways, and will also provide global hydrogen fuel cell systems for China's hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles, as well as ships, rail transit, power generation and other fields.
As far as hydrogen energy technology is concerned, Hyundai has been exploring for a long time, and is in the same "first echelon" position as Toyota and other car companies in the entire international market.
For commercial vehicles, the XCIENT Fuel Cell, a heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell truck, has been exported to Switzerland and the U.S., and the ELEC CITY Fuel Cell, a hydrogen fuel cell bus, has been widely used in South Korea.
In terms of passenger cars, the company launched the iX35 Fuel Cell, the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, in 2013, and in 2018, the second-generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the NEXO, was launched. According to official data, as of October 2023, the cumulative global sales of NEXO have exceeded 37,000 units, ranking first in the global sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that NEXO has been introduced to China and obtained a new energy license in 2022, which is legal for the road.
In fact, as an important part of the national energy system and an important carrier for energy-using terminals to achieve green and low-carbon development, hydrogen energy is a key development direction for strategic emerging industries. As a leading field for hydrogen energy applications, fuel cell vehicles have become an emerging industry that is highly concerned and competing for the layout of the world.
In 2020, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the Notice on Carrying out the Demonstration Application of Fuel Cell Vehicles, and in 2021, it successively approved five urban agglomerations in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhengzhou, and Hebei to start the demonstration of fuel cell vehicles.
With the support of the demonstration policy, the fuel cell vehicle industry in mainland China has achieved further development.
In March 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Energy Administration (NEA) issued the Medium and Long-Term Plan for the Development of the Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035), proposing the goal of having about 50,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2025 and deploying the construction of a number of hydrogen refueling stations.
According to statistics, as of July 2023, a total of 27 provincial-level administrative regions across the country have formulated hydrogen energy industry development plans (or guidance and action plans).
"We are exploring a sustainable growth path for the future economy to achieve carbon neutrality through efficiency and renewable energy. For the economy to grow in the future, it may depend on renewable energy (green electricity). In this process, hydrogen energy has naturally become a new source of energy. On December 7, Wan Gang, chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology and chairman of the World New Energy Vehicle Conference, said at the 2023 World New Energy Vehicle Conference.
Hyundai Motor is expected to seize new opportunities for the development of the Chinese market by deploying the HTWO Guangzhou plant in the critical period when fuel cell vehicles in mainland China are speeding up.
However, it should be noted that in terms of the current development trend of automotive energy in China and the world, electric energy is still a common solution in the market. Betting on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and winning in the Chinese market still needs to go through many hurdles.
Dong Changzheng, senior executive deputy general manager of Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd., pointed out that the current domestic market infrastructure is not perfect, and the scale effect is not visible due to the inconvenience of hydrogen refueling, and the initial cost of buying a car remains high.
According to Toyota's statistics, there are currently more than 236 hydrogen refueling stations in operation in China, of which only 24 are 70 megapascals, and basically none of them have carried out normal commercial operations.
At the same time, in his opinion, due to the management of hydrogen as a hazardous chemical, the problem of storage, transportation and processing links has caused the price of hydrogen to rise, resulting in a very high cost of use of vehicles in the later stage.
Therefore, even though hydrogen fuel cell vehicles theoretically have more advantages than pure electric vehicles in terms of energy replenishment efficiency, low-carbon and environmental protection, they lack the optimal solution in terms of cost, transportation, supply convenience and safety.
"At present, the understanding of the value of hydrogen energy is still stuck in the strategic value, and what needs to be developed urgently is the commercial value of hydrogen energy. The subsidy demonstration is limited, the scale will not be very large, and the time will not be very long, and it is necessary to seize the window period of the demonstration to tap the economic value of hydrogen energy. Previously, Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Tsinghua University, also said that although the development prospects of hydrogen fuel cells are good, the current core problems are technological improvement and cost reduction.
In addition, based on the first overseas hydrogen fuel cell system R&D and production base - HTWO Guangzhou, in addition to promoting the iterative optimization of its own technology, how to open up the hydrogen transportation channel in China, improve the efficiency of hydrogen refueling, and promote the commercial operation of hydrogen refueling stations are also the directions that Hyundai Motor and its joint venture Beijing Hyundai in China need to think about and cooperate in depth in the next step.
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