Recently, in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV), there are two major news reports on China's major breakthroughs in this field: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and Dongfeng Yangzijiang Automobile Company launched the "Thai Ge" for the first time. The use of liquid hydrogen as an energy source; Zhongyu Hydrogen Energy Technology (Jingzhou) fills the gap in China's hydrogen fuel cell power system.
Although China is making technological breakthroughs in the FCV field like the technology-leading countries represented by Japan, we must face up to the fact that FCV has a very small proportion in the entire automotive market: no large-scale manufacturers participate in R&D. Hydrogen stations exist only in certain regions of the world, and only three FCVs are available on the market and are only available in certain regions. The public knows very little about FCV. We can't help but ask, is FCV really the next revolution in new energy vehicles?
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle global overview
Compared with the prosperous scene of electric vehicles all over the world, the existence of FCV is extremely low. At present, only developed countries represented by Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Korea have invested in the research and development of FCV to build a hydrogen refueling station. Facilities, and introduce preferential policies to encourage consumers to buy FCV.
Japan is not only leading the way in hydrogen energy utilization, but also plans to build a clean city with hydrogen energy as its main energy source. Similarly, Japan is at the forefront of the world in the development of FCV. Japan plans to open the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and the hydrogen refueling station will form a network covering the urban belts represented by Tokyo and Osaka. At the same time, the Japanese government is increasing subsidies for consumers to buy FCV, and said that by 2025, the market price of FCV will be reduced to 20,000 US dollars.
In Europe, countries represented by the United Kingdom and Denmark are accelerating the construction of hydrogen refueling stations. Today, Denmark has basically achieved full coverage of the hydrogen refueling station; the United Kingdom and Germany are also increasing the capital investment and geographical coverage of the hydrogen refueling station. In particular, the UK strongly supports FCV in its policy and plans to produce and sell 1.6 million FCVs by 2030.
The California area is a paradise for FCV. There are many hydrogen energy companies in California, and they are working with Toyota and Honda to build hydrogen refueling stations. We take Shell as an example. The company's hydrogen refueling station covers the whole of California. FCV users can use credit cards to facilitate payment. As long as they are in California, there is no need to worry about hydrogenation.
South Korea is a force that cannot be ignored. Although there are only a handful of hydrogen refueling stations in Korea and the FCV share is not large, the Korean government has introduced a number of incentive policies: not only have a high car purchase subsidy that accounts for 1/3 of the FCV price, but also plan to reach the national hydrogen refueling station by 2030. The number has increased from the current 10 to 520, which is basically covering all major cities in Korea. In addition, South Korea's famous battery manufacturer LG Chem and the famous car company Hyundai Motor have strong R&D strength and international competitiveness in the field of hydrogen fuel cells.
The development of China's FCV is still in the stage of technical reserve, neither FCV products introduced to the market nor commercial hydrogen refueling stations. Under the general environment of the country's main push for electric vehicles, some scholars said, "China's FCV industry is 5-10 years behind."
Comparison of advantages and disadvantages between hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and lithium battery electric vehicles
In a nutshell, the biggest disadvantage of FCV is the high manufacturing costs. Although in recent years, with the advancement of technology, the price of FCV has dropped from the previous 100,000 US dollars to the current 60-70 million US dollars; but we should also see that Tesla, GM has already adopted high-performance electric vehicles. The price dropped to $30,000.
In addition to manufacturing costs, the advantages of FCV are quite obvious. Some people even think that "FCV is the ultimate form of future cars." Fourth Energy believes that the biggest advantages of FCV are as follows.
First, the replenishment time is short, direct hydrogenation, generally only 3-5 minutes. The fastest charging method for electric vehicles is Tesla's super fast charging, which takes at least 1 hour. The direct replacement of the battery is not popular.
Second, there is no secondary pollution. The main component of a hydrogen fuel cell is hydrogen, which does not pollute the environment after the end of its useful life. Lithium-ion batteries must be recycled because they contain heavy metals such as nickel, cobalt, and arsenic.
Third, the cruising range is farther. Hydrogen fuel cells have high energy storage density and light weight, so the FCV's cruising range is generally farther than that of electric vehicles. The FCVs on the market have a cruising range of more than 500 kilometers, while electric vehicles are generally concentrated in 150-250 kilometers. More than 300 kilometers of electric vehicles are only a few products of Tesla and Chevrolet.
In addition, FCV also has significant advantages in terms of battery attenuation, energy efficiency conversion, and ease of maintenance. However, as mentioned above, the biggest obstacle to the development of FCV is its high cost, which is mainly reflected in the following two aspects.
First, the construction cost of the hydrogen refueling station is high. The cost of building a Tesla super charging station is about $300,000, and the cost of a hydrogen refueling station is often as high as $1 million to $2 million. This is because of the special properties of liquid hydrogen, the fuel tank of the hydrogen refueling station needs to be specially made, and the cost of related equipment is extremely high. .
Second, the catalyst required for the chemical reaction of the hydrogen fuel cell is high. Catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells generally use platinum, a rare precious metal, and platinum is known as platinum. Platinum is not only rare, but also difficult to mine, and the price is higher than gold.
As we can see above, in addition to the cost of "expensive", FCV can be described as a full range of electric vehicles.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle representative model
In fact, the first car companies to develop FCV were not Toyota or Honda, but the US General Motors. As early as 1966, GM released the world's first FCV - Chevrolet Electrovan. Since then, GM has invested $4 billion in the development of FCV, but it has not been able to solve the problem of the high cost of FCV.
However, for FCV, which has obvious advantages and can represent the future car form, car companies are reluctant to give up, and they still act frequently in the market: as the originator of FCV, GM has not launched related products in recent years due to market strategy. But the company has never stopped the development of FCV. In October this year, GM will launch a Chevrolet Colorado FCV concept car; Audi car launched the A7h-tronquattro concept car at the November 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show; BMW launched in 2015 The FCV prototype based on the i8 and 5 Series GT models, and announced the release of the production version in 2020; Mercedes-Benz has already launched the FC-based FV, and in June this year, the company said it will launch a new model in 2017. FCV version of GLC; although Ford has not launched FCV products in recent years, in August this year, the company received $6 million in research and development funding from the US Department of Energy to accelerate the development of FCV.
At present, there are only three FCVs available on the market, namely Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity, and Hyundai ix35FC. These vehicles are only sold in relatively complete areas of the hydrogen refueling station, which means that consumers cannot buy any of them in the mainland.
Mirai means "future" in Japanese, which represents Toyota's attitude in the FCV field. In stark contrast to the Tesla development path, Toyota has never launched a pure electric vehicle product, but instead promotes hybrid power and silently exerts its power on the FCV. Since 1992, Toyota has started research and development of FCV. Over the past 20 years, Toyota has accumulated as many as 5,000 patents in this field.
Mirai is undoubtedly the master of Toyota FCV. In November 2014, the production version of Miran came out, with a price of less than $60,000, while Tesla ModelS and ModelX were priced at more than $100,000. Mirai has a cruising range of up to 500 kilometers and crushes a number of electric cars.
At the New York International Auto Show in March this year, Mirai won the 2016 World Green Car Award. At present, Mirai has been sold in Japan, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and other regions. In 2015, the annual sales volume was 700 units. In 2016, the annual sales volume is expected to reach 2,000 units.
In the field of FCV, Honda's reputation is much smaller than that of its Japanese counterpart Toyota. However, this does not hinder Honda's strong performance in this field.
As early as 2008, Honda launched FCXClarity, which won the 2008 Japan Good Design Award and the 2009 World Green Car Award. In July 2014, Honda announced the discontinuation of FCXClarity and the launch of the new Clarity.
The new version of Clarity is based on the old FCXClarity and has been greatly improved in terms of battery life, from 372 km to 482 km. In addition, the fuel cell has been reduced by 33%, which makes the new Clarity body more compact. The car is priced at $67,000, slightly higher than the Toyota Miran.
In February 2013, Hyundai ix35FC took the production line from Busan, the second largest city in Korea, and became the world's first production version of FCV.
Hyundai Motor has more than 15 years of research and development history in the field of FCV. As early as 2001, the company has launched its first FCV. Since then, it has been continuously updated and iterated, and the current ix35FC is its fourth generation.
The ix35FC is an SUV product that, according to Hyundai's ix35 model, is capable of accommodating a larger hydrogen fuel tank with a cruising range of 594 kilometers. The car is priced at $57,000 and the high version is $7,700.
When will the future of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles come?
Toyota has opened more than 5,000 patents to its auto counterparts, hoping that more auto companies can join the FCV camp, and this is the trick that Tesla used before: in the high-cost start-up phase, companies want to To expand its influence on a certain product, it must be jointly developed by other members of the camp to reduce costs through economies of scale.
At present, Tesla is undoubtedly a great success, it will bring electric vehicles to the consumer's field of vision. Fourth Energy previously reported that more than half of the young people in the United States are interested in buying electric vehicles. Moreover, the high price of electric vehicles from $100,000 has been dropped to 30,000 US dollars that is enough to shake the market.
It is conceivable that once Toyota's marketing strategy works, the development path of FCV will be the same as that of the original lithium-ion electric vehicle: the number of participating manufacturers is increasing, the hydrogen refueling station is gradually popularized, and the FCV price has dropped sharply year by year. At that time, the FCV will compete fiercely with the electric car camp represented by Tesla.
There are two opposing views on the future of FCV. Supporters believe that it represents the direction of new energy vehicles and will become a strong competitor for electric vehicles. German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt spoke highly of the FCV at a car forum. "We are in the midst of the greatest transformation in the history of human racing, and hydrogen fuel cells will be a key factor in this transformation." InformationTrends is extremely optimistic about the development of FCV. The company recently released the "Global FCV Market Report", which predicts that by 2020, the hydrogenation infrastructure will gradually improve in several representative regions around the world, and will increase the market share of FCV; by 2032, global FCV sales will exceed With 20 million vehicles, the industrial scale will reach 1.2 trillion US dollars; by 2050, FCV will be the fastest growing segment of the automotive market.
Opponents argue that the FCV cannot solve its cost problem and will remain in a niche position for a long time. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly faced the media and publicly stated that "FCV has no chance of winning" and ridiculed "Fuel Cell is a foolish battery" (FoolCell). It also ridiculed FCV as a "deceptive trick". . IHSAutomotive, a car market research company, also believes that FCV will not have much development compared to electric vehicles. By 2027, the annual production of FCV will be 70,000 units. In contrast, the output of pure electric vehicles will remain at 9 million units, and the share of the two is very different.
Conclusion
In the fourth energy view, the future of FCV is bright. We embrace all new technologies actively and optimistically, not to mention that FCVs are superior to electric vehicles in all respects except for cost. With the passage of time, the continuous advancement of technology, the increase of participating manufacturers, the improvement of the hydrogenation station infrastructure, the cost of FCV will eventually be reduced enough to detonate the market.
Moreover, with the rapid development of the solar energy and wind energy industries, the current energy storage industry cannot keep up with the pace, and excess electric energy can be used to produce hydrogen energy by electrolyzing water. The linkage of the energy industry will help the FCV to further reduce costs.
Therefore, we believe that with the continuous reduction of production costs, the FCV represented by Toyota Miran will give Tesla a heavy blow with its many advantages.
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