After electric vehicles, which have been hot globally for more than 10 years and rapidly expanding, hydrogen has become the next trend. When the hydrogen industry becomes larger, hydrogen will become the most fashionable driver.
The year 2021 is recognized by the industry as the first year of hydrogen energy in China. Comparing the first year of electric vehicles in China from 2007-2008, there are many similarities between the two (table below). From this, we can boldly speculate that even if the development pace of hydrogen vehicles is not as fast as the original electric vehicles due to objective factors such as COVID-19 and reverse globalization trend, there is no doubt about the great market potential.
Electric Vehicles | Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle | |
Policy | November 1, 2007, "new energy vehicle production access management rules" officially implemented.
On December 18, 2007, the Development and Reform Commission released the "Guidance Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2007)", and new energy vehicles officially entered the encouraged industrial catalog. | On September 1, 2021, five ministries officially approved the first group of demonstration cities for fuel cell vehicle demonstration and application. The large-scale central special subsidies were launched.
In March 2022, the Development and Reform and Energy Bureau jointly issued the "Medium and Long-term Plan for Hydrogen Energy Industry Development (2021-2035)", and the top-level design of hydrogen energy was released |
Production and sales | 2008 electric vehicle production and sales at the level of 2,300 units | Fuel cell vehicle production and sales was 1,777 and 1,586 units respectively in 2021 |
External drivers | Oil prices soar, China's oil dependence rate exceeds 50%, energy security under long-term threat | Global promotion of "carbon peaking, carbon neutral", some countries and regions plan to impose a "carbon tax" in the future |
Front-end promotion model | Olympic village pilot + "ten cities and a thousand vehicles" project | Winter Olympic Games Pilot + "Model City Cluster" Program |
The hydrogen energy industry chain is long and technically difficult. At present, China's hydrogen energy industry is in the early stage of development, and compared with the international advanced level, there are still problems such as weak industrial innovation ability, low level of technology and equipment, and dependence on import of some key core parts and basic materials. Among all hydrogen energy end-use applications, the fastest profit can be achieved by giving priority to those applications with higher added value, so it is undoubtedly a more rational choice to take the lead in promoting the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry.
From the perspective of the automotive industry, the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is one of the most important means to achieve comprehensive decarbonization in the transportation sector. In the field of passenger cars, electric vehicles dominate the market, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles cannot catch up for a while in terms of technical maturity and total cost of ownership. However, in the field of heavy trucks and construction machinery, the power battery is not destined to compete with hydrogen energy due to its low energy density. At the same time, heavy trucks and construction machinery as commercial equipment are easier to form large-scale applications, and the mainframe manufacturers can realize the maximum use of their own resources through the way of sales-determined production to help tide over the survival period. The development of hydrogen-powered heavy trucks has become a general trend.
From the policy point of view, China takes transportation as the breakthrough point for hydrogen fuel cell application. In the face of the development boom of hydrogen-energy heavy trucks around the world, building a feasible business model has become the key. Technologies such as hydrogen internal combustion engine, liquid hydrogen storage tank and liquid hydrogen fuel cell, and automatic driving have also become the future development direction of hydrogen-powered heavy trucks.
There are two routes to powering heavy trucks and construction machinery with hydrogen, one is hydrogen internal combustion engine and the other is hydrogen fuel cell. In September 2022, Cummins unveils the X15H hydrogen internal combustion engine for heavy trucks with up to 395kW of power and a 70MPa high-pressure, high-capacity hydrogen storage system that provides a potential range of over 1,000 km. in September 2022, BMW joins forces with Volvo, DHL, TOTAL In September 2022, BMW, together with Volvo, DHL, Total and others, will develop two types of hydrogen internal combustion engine trucks, 18- and 40-ton, and will conduct operational tests.
According to the CAAM, hydrogen-powered heavy trucks have been landed in small batches for demonstration since 2020, with sales increasing 42 times year-on-year in 2021. In terms of delivery, hydrogen-energy heavy trucks have become a new driving force for the growth of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on a large scale after hydrogen buses. Since July 2022, the total number of orders for hydrogen heavy trucks announced by vehicle manufacturers such as China National Heavy Duty Truck Group, SAIC Hongyan, FAW Jiefang, Beiqi Foton and Foshan Feizhi has exceeded 10,000 units.
In 2021, the revenue of China's construction machinery industry will exceed 900 billion yuan, and the prospect of hydrogen energy for construction machinery is also very broad. At present, the international case of hydrogen construction machinery is mainly forklifts, excavators, cranes, mixers, dump trucks and other equipment have also been launched hydrogen-powered products. Caterpillar, Japan Komatsu, Xuzhou Xugong, Sany Heavy Industry, Zoomlion Heavy Industry and other global construction machinery giants are developing a series of large hydrogen construction machinery and equipment.
Hydrogen Heavy Truck and Engineering Machinery Forum 2022 will be held in Suzhou on December 2nd. The conference will discuss national and local hydrogen transportation industry policies and plans, hydrogen heavy truck and construction machinery application scenarios, operating costs and market outlook, hydrogen heavy truck and construction machinery models and production capacity of leading companies, hydrogen internal combustion engine technology development and application, hydrogen storage tanks, hydrogen circulation pumps and air compressors serving hydrogen heavy trucks and construction machinery, hydrogen fuel cell power systems, electric stacks and membrane electrodes, fuel cell catalysts, GDL, proton exchange membrane and bipolar plate, etc.
