Technical infrastructure bottleneck to be solved fuel cell vehicle landing is still blocked

The automotive industry has undergone a revolution in power transformation. In the field of lithium-ion power batteries and fuel cells, the forward research and development of related technologies is showing an unprecedented blowout.

Therefore, under the strong industrialization, China's lithium-ion power battery technology has developed rapidly. In 2017, among the top ten global power battery sales, seven Chinese battery companies entered the list.

The good news is that compared to the slightly calmer hydrogen fuel cell field, it seems that there will be another round of technical acceleration.

It is well known that fuel cell vehicles have many advantages such as zero emissions and fast hydrogenation speed.

In terms of energy density, with the advancement of technology, hydrogen energy can be converted to electricity, the theoretical conversion efficiency can be close to 100%, and the energy conversion efficiency of electric motor to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy is above 90%. As a result, the energy density of fuel cell power is nearly 10 times that of conventional fuel power.

Based on the final emissions of water, fuel cell vehicles are also seen as an ideal clean energy vehicle and are called "the ultimate new energy power solution."

Thus, in terms of policy, fuel cells are being seen as a key technical route.

Policy, industry double speed

A few days ago, Premier Li Keqiang, accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visited the Toyota Hokkaido factory and the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle was one of the visiting projects.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Outline of the National Innovation Driven Development Strategy" and pointed out that it is necessary to "develop new generation energy technologies such as hydrogen energy and fuel cells."

It is pointed out that the electric vehicle technology plan specifically deploys and develops fuel cell vehicles, and plans to increase R&D and investment in key infrastructure devices, fuel cell systems, infrastructure and demonstration.

In addition, in the case of new energy vehicle subsidy policy, China will continue to maintain fuel cell vehicle subsidies unchanged in the case of accelerated subsidies in 2018.

Research and development, fuel cells have also been regarded as one of the key areas. On May 7th, in the 2018 annual project public notice list of the “New Energy Vehicle” project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, it will invest 260 million yuan in Dongfeng, Yutong, China Automotive Center, Beiqi, Tsinghua University and other five enterprises/institutions. Research and development of fuel cell vehicles and demonstration applications, the project cycle is 3 years.

Therefore, for the fuel cell vehicle sales expectations, China also gives certain expectations.

In October 2017, according to the National Manufacturing Powerful Country Construction Strategy Advisory Committee, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized the “Technology Roadmap for Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicles”, which clearly defined the sales data of fuel cell vehicles, and achieved 5,000 sales in 2020, and 2030 The scale will be planned to be a million.

Based on the policy, China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle market is gradually becoming active. More companies and capital are willing to enter this field. Among them, SAIC and Beiqi Foton are the first car companies to start research and development of fuel cell technology in China.

For example, in 2006, SAIC Group established the Fuel Cell Division, starting with R&D work such as vehicle integration and system integration, and has begun to break through the stack technology. Based on this, SAIC landed two hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, namely Roewe 950, and fuel cell light passenger car Chase FCV80.

Marketization is still slow

In the fuel cell field, although policy and industrialization progress is accelerating, at the market level, it still faces many challenges.

According to statistics, since the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2013 to the end of 2017, a total of 6,475 hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars have been sold worldwide, and Toyota sales accounted for more than 75%. However, it should be noted that the Japanese brand is not the only company that insists on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. For example, South Korea also strongly advocates hydrogen fuel cells. As early as 1998, Hyundai has started research and development of related technologies.

Depth|Technical infrastructure bottleneck to be solved

In comparison, China’s technological progress in this area is still somewhat sluggish.

For example, hydrogen fuel cells and key components are dominated and monopolized by a few developed countries. At present, most of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles loaded in China use foreign power reactors and technologies, and the proportion is estimated to be over 70%. Only by encouraging the localization of fuel cell components, reducing dependence on imports, further reducing the cost of fuel cell engines, and making fuel cell vehicles reach or close to the cost of fuel vehicles, can this further promote the decentralization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. .

In terms of supporting facilities hydrogen refueling stations, hydrogen fuel equipment cannot be compared with electric electric vehicles. At present, the global hydrogen refueling station is in a state of scarcity, and China's related infrastructure is only located in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai.

In addition, based on the high cost of hydrogen extraction, and manufacturing, transportation, storage, filling and other aspects have certain technical difficulties, the country has not yet formed a complete industrial chain system, which also affects the further decline of hydrogen fuel cells in the automotive field. Ground.

It is foreseeable that although there have been accumulations at many levels, based on technology and foundation is still not perfect, hydrogen fuel cells will not usher in a large-scale marketization in the short term.

When the fuel cell vehicle can achieve large-scale landing, the industry's more optimistic people expect at least five years, and Ouyang Minggao and SAIC related leaders will extend the relatively mature technology and industrial scale time to 2025.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.