AG3 battery!How should my country develop in the face of the leading fuel cell technologies of Japan, South Korea, and the United States?

Since the two sessions in 2019, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which have always been tepid, have become a hot topic in the domestic industry. Domestic car companies have suddenly woken up and begun to pay attention to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Foreign car companies have already joined forces to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology. Japan, the United States, Germany, and South Korea are already far ahead in hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Since the two sessions in 2019, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which have always been tepid, have become a hot topic in the domestic industry. Domestic car companies have suddenly woken up and begun to pay attention to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Foreign car companies have already joined forces to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology. Japan, the United States, Germany, and South Korea are already far ahead in hydrogen fuel cell technology.

Recently, at the 2019 China Automobile Forum, Mr. Marn-kiJEONG, Chairman of the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association, South Korea plans to produce 1 million hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2040 and build 1,200 charging piles. Currently, South Korea only has 14 hydrogen fuel charging piles, and starting from this year, South Korea has been increasing the pace of related infrastructure construction.

Hydrogen fuel has good prospects, but why is domestic development slow?

We all know that hydrogen generates water after combustion, which has the advantages of zero emissions and no pollution. Therefore, hydrogen is considered to be the most environmentally friendly green renewable energy currently used in automobiles. However, development has been very slow due to unresolved technical problems.

In 2018, Professor Zhang Cunman from the New Energy Vehicle Engineering Center of Tongji University said, "China's hydrogen fuel vehicle technology lags behind foreign developed countries by 5-10 years. One situation faced by China, which started late, is that foreign fuel cell vehicles have overcome technical difficulties. We have begun to overcome costs and service facilities, but the country is still facing technical problems. If the gap remains around 5 years, there is still a chance to catch up. If it exceeds 10 years, it will be very difficult to catch up."

From the fragmented dynamics of many hydrogen fuel cell fields in the past year, including South Korea’s plan for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, we can find that many foreign car companies have already joined forces. We still think that fuel cell vehicles are far away. Abroad, it has moved from breaking through technical bottlenecks to a new level of accelerating marketization.

For example, in early 2017, General Motors and Honda announced a cooperation. The two parties invested more than 40 million US dollars to establish a joint venture company FCSM for the construction of fuel cell stack production lines. This is also the first joint venture in the automotive industry to engage in the mass production of fuel cell systems. company.

In June 2018, it was revealed that the cooperation between Volkswagen Group and hydrogen fuel cell technology company Ballard was extended to March 2019. On June 21, Audi, which has 20 years of experience in fuel cell technology research and development, signaled a "marriage" with South Korea's Hyundai to jointly develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicle components and technology. In addition, Toyota and BMW also signed an FCV strategic cooperation agreement. Toyota will provide fuel cell-related technologies, and BMW will provide vehicle lightweighting and other technologies. The two parties will jointly promote the solution of cost and technical problems of fuel cell vehicles.

Under the huge cost of research and development, more and more foreign car companies have begun to adopt group cooperation to overcome the cost and technical bottlenecks in the process of fuel cell marketization.

However, while foreign countries have begun to accelerate the marketization of hydrogen fuel passenger vehicles, China is still focusing on pure electric vehicles. Although the country has issued many related support policies in the field of fuel cells, and some companies have begun research, most of them are still in the experimental stage. At the same time, they are mainly commercial vehicles, and there has been no big move in passenger cars.

According to data from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, in the three years from 2015 to 2017, 1,911 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles did roll off the assembly line, but of these, 1,837 were passenger cars and special vehicles, and very few were passenger cars. Not only that, our country has still not made substantial progress on safety and technical issues such as hydrogen production and storage.

The gap is obvious. How can domestic car companies accelerate their breakthrough?

Compared with its foreign counterparts, China still started too late in hydrogen fuel cells. Since 2001, my country has only begun to carry out research and development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The first hydrogen energy industry development plan was proposed in the "China Hydrogen Energy Industry Infrastructure Development Blue Book (2016)" released in October 2016. "Made in China 2025" clearly proposed the development plan for fuel cell vehicles. General Motors in the United States began developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 1966, and Honda in Japan began in 1992.

How can domestic car companies accelerate their breakthrough despite lagging behind?

First of all, standing at the forefront of the development of new energy vehicles, we must fully realize the important position of fuel cell vehicles and give sufficient attention and support to the energy diversification strategy in the future. From the 2019 Two Sessions, hydrogen fuel vehicles were mentioned in the suggestions of Xu Heyi, Wang Fengying, Yin Tongyue and other car tycoons. A recent report on the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that the development of hydrogen fuel cells may be part of the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan" ( 2021-2035)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Plan”). From this, it can be seen that the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will no longer sit on the bench in China.

From "light green" to "dark green", the domestic development strategy is to first develop hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles, namely hydrogen fuel cell buses, and then develop hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles. This is based on the fact that the current core technology is at a disadvantage, and hydrogen production, hydrogen storage and hydrogenation are also at a backward stage. Such national strategic planning takes into account the relatively low technical threshold of hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles on the one hand, and the low average cost of public transportation on the other hand, which can also have a good social promotion effect.

In addition, at the "Hydrogen Energy Industry Innovation and Development Forum" held at Tsinghua University on June 28, 2018, Wan Gang, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also suggested that it is necessary to establish a fuel cell testing platform in the near future to conduct comparative testing of domestic and foreign fuel cell products. to identify specific gaps. Moreover, through long-term international cooperation, we will establish unified fuel cell product testing and technical standards. He said, "This is very important for the industrialization of fuel cell vehicles."

According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, by the end of 2018, a total of 12 hydrogenation infrastructures had been built across the country. In 2018, more than 1,500 fuel cell vehicles were added to commercial vehicles. Among them, there are more than 1,400 passenger cars and more than 100 trucks. Although my country's fuel cell industrialization has begun, compared with developed countries and regions such as the United States and Japan that have raised hydrogen energy to a national strategic level, my country still lacks hydrogen energy production, storage, transportation, etc. Unified planning and layout.

Perhaps if hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are included in the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)", my country's hydrogen energy development will usher in a new stage of rapid progress.