Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Nikola Tesla, the great electrical engineer and the father of alternating current, has two new energy vehicles named after him in the world, one is the well-known Tesla, the other is the little-known Nikolai, Nicholas specializes in hydrogen energy heavy truck, also known as "Tesla of the fuel cell automobile industry".

When Nikolai was listed on Nasdaq in June 2020, it was the first fuel cell manufacturer in the world to achieve IPO. At its peak, its market capitalization surpassed that of Ford, but more than two years later, Nikolai's founder, Trevor Milton, was convicted of three counts of fraud, adding to Musk, who has always scoffed at fuel cell cars.

At present, the global automotive revolution dominated by new energy vehicles is in full swing. Lithium battery has become a hot core resource. Although it belongs to new energy, fuel cell vehicles are still a minority.

At the beginning of the exploration of new energy vehicles in China, the status of fuel cell vehicles is even higher than that of lithium battery vehicles. In 2009, with the start of the "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" project, the industrialization of new energy vehicles in China began, and the three technical routes of pure electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell went hand in hand.

The three routes stand on the same starting line, but run at different accelerations. the popularity of fuel cell vehicles always lags behind that of lithium battery vehicles, and the gap is widening.

In 2022, China sold 6.887 million new energy vehicles, including 5.365 million pure electric vehicles and 1.518 million plug-in hybrid vehicles, while fuel cell vehicles sold less than 3400 taels, less than a fraction of pure electric vehicles.

Data source: China Automobile Association, although the sales of fuel cell vehicles are poor, China has never given up this technical route, especially since the launch of the demonstration application promotion campaign, fuel cell vehicles have gradually become "prosperous". It is generally believed that the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry chain in China is in the dormant period of lithium battery vehicles 10 years ago, and the outbreak is just around the corner.

1. "Ultimate Plan" as early as 1839, William Grove of England invented the first gas fuel cell, 47 years before the birth of the world's recognized first car, but the fuel cell was really used to drive transport machinery. 120 years later.

In 1959, the world's first transport machine equipped with fuel cells, the Alis Chalmers tractor, came out. In 1966, the United States General Motors launched the world's first fuel cell vehicle. Since then, fuel cell vehicles have come into public view.

Fuel cell vehicle is also a kind of electric vehicle, the fuel itself does not provide power directly, but generates electricity through internal chemical reactions, and then drives the car. The power system is mainly composed of fuel cell, high pressure hydrogen storage tank, motor / generator, power storage battery and so on.

According to the difference of on-board fuel, fuel cell vehicles can be divided into methanol fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, in which hydrogen fuel is the mainstream of current development. therefore, the industry generally regards "fuel cell vehicles" as "hydrogen fuel cell vehicles".

It should be noted that although fuel cell vehicles and lithium battery vehicles are electric vehicles, fuel cells are essentially different from lithium batteries.

The fuel cell is essentially a power generation device, which is actually a bit like the way the add-on works, except that the add-on electric car generates electricity from a gasoline generator. The lithium battery is an energy storage device, and its electricity comes from external charging.

In theory, fuel cell vehicle is the "ultimate solution" or "perfect solution" of new energy vehicles.

First of all, the upper limit of the battery life of fuel cell vehicles is not only much higher than that of lithium battery vehicles, but also fuel cell vehicles only need to add fuel, which takes much less time to recharge than lithium battery vehicles.

Secondly, hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and the earth's hydrogen resources are far more abundant than lithium ore resources, which can be described as inexhaustible. Once the hydrogen fuel cell technology makes a breakthrough, it means that mankind will bid farewell to the energy crisis.

However, Musk, the flag-bearer of lithium-battery cars, is not optimistic about the ultimate plan. At the 2019 Truss shareholders' meeting, Musk said bluntly that Fuel Cell (fuel cell) was a Fool Cell (stupid battery) and that fuel cell cars could not succeed at all.

Musk's contempt is not without reason, after all, fuel-cell vehicles to achieve large-scale commercialization, the cost is too high.

On the one hand, from the perspective of the fuel cell vehicle itself, the cost of the power system of the fuel cell vehicle is higher than that of the traditional fuel vehicle and the lithium battery car. The price of a fuel cell vehicle is about three times that of the fuel vehicle and 1.5-2 times that of the lithium battery car. In addition, the metal catalysts needed for fuel cells are currently nano-sized platinum, which is platinum, which is rare and expensive.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the supporting infrastructure of fuel cell vehicles, the costs of a series of links such as hydrogen production, hydrogen transportation, hydrogen storage and hydrogenation remain high. For example, the construction cost of a hydrogen station is more than 10 million yuan, which is much higher than that of gas stations and charging piles. At the same time, the price of hydrogen per kilogram is also dozens of yuan, which is also far higher than the price of oil and electricity.

Under the cost dilemma, the progress of commercial mass production of fuel cell vehicles around the world has been delayed again and again. The Development Plan of New Energy vehicle Industry (2021-2035) issued by the State Council in October 2020 mentioned that after 15 years of continuous efforts, fuel cell vehicles should be commercialized. It can be seen that fuel cell vehicles have a long way to go.

2. China's process since the birth of the first fuel cell vehicle more than 50 years ago, the investment of major automobile regions in the world to fuel cell vehicles has been increasing on the whole, which is limited to immature technology and high costs. the promotion of fuel cell vehicles will inevitably encounter setbacks.

Combing the development process of fuel cell vehicles in China, it can be divided into four stages: exploration period, lag period, shift period, and the demonstration period since 2022.

The first stage, the exploration period (before 2009), the fuel cell research in China began in 1958. Driven by the development of the aerospace industry in the 1970s, fuel cell research developed rapidly for the first time. The commercialization of fuel cells in the United States was also first applied to the space program of NASA.

During the Ninth five-year Plan period (1996-2000), the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences included fuel cell technology in the program of tackling key scientific and technological problems. In early 1999, Xu Guanhua, then vice minister of science and technology, proposed to the State Council to promote alternative fuel vehicles such as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. In this year, Tsinghua University developed China's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, but compared with the United States and Japan, China's research on fuel cell vehicles is relatively late.

By the 10th five-year Plan period (2001-2005), the Ministry of Science and Technology even invested half of its special funds in the field of fuel cells. On this basis, at the beginning of the development of new energy vehicles in China, fuel cell vehicles occupy the primary position, followed by plug-in hybrid and pure electric.

SAIC is one of the earliest vehicle factories to enter fuel cell vehicles in China, and it has been developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles since 2006. in this year, BAIC Futian set up a joint research and development team with Tsinghua University and Beijing Yihuatong to develop hydrogen fuel cell buses for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games.

In the second stage, the stagnation period (2009-2017) after the Beijing Olympic Games, China and the United States successively delayed the research and development of fuel cell vehicles, especially since the launch of the "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" project in 2009, lithium battery vehicles changed to the main direction, but fuel cell vehicles continued to advance, but entered a relatively slow period.

In 2012, the National Strategic emerging Industry Development Plan of the 12th five-year Plan was issued, which for the first time included fuel cell vehicles in the key development direction of the country's strategic emerging industries. Japan also put the development of hydrogen energy at the height of national strategy in 2013.

During this period, the relevant national authorities and some car companies have issued plans for fuel cell vehicles, and now looking back, the overall results are not as expected, fuel cell vehicles have always been in a very small range of pilot operation.

According to data released by the China Automobile Association, China sold a total of 777000 new energy vehicles in 2017, including 652000 pure electric vehicles and 125000 plug-in hybrid vehicles, while fuel cell vehicles were ignored.

The third stage, shift period (2018-2021) in May 2018, the Premier of the State Council visited Japan and stopped in front of a hydrogen fuel cell passenger car when he visited the Toyota plant, which had a huge and far-reaching domestic response.

Ouyang Minggao, vice chairman of the China Electric vehicle Association of 100 people, once lamented that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were "extremely popular" in 2018.

On the eve of the two sessions of the following year, it was reported that the project of "thousands of vehicles in ten cities" of fuel cell vehicles was about to start. During the two sessions, a number of deputies and committee members made suggestions on fuel cell vehicles and directly promoted the inclusion of hydrogen energy in the government work report for the first time. Since then, a variety of policies to support the development of fuel cell vehicles have been introduced intensively, and fuel cell vehicles have since shifted gears, from slow to accelerated.

Interestingly, there was speculation in the market that the country would no longer support lithium-cell cars and focus on fuel-cell vehicles, which was obviously a misreading. In fact, the three major routes of China's new energy vehicles have never been substituted, but their respective development processes have their own speed.

In September 2021, the notice on the demonstration Application of fuel Cell vehicles was officially released, and the New deal was results-oriented, adjusting the purchase subsidy of fuel cell vehicles to the incentive of demonstration application, that is, "replacing compensation with awards". This policy is called a replica of the "Ten cities and Thousand vehicles" project.

3. Demonstration effect in August and the end of 2021, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan and Hebei passed the examination and approval of the model urban agglomeration in two batches, indicating that China's fuel cell vehicles have entered a new development stage-the demonstration period.

The scope of the five model urban agglomerations is not only "ten cities", but also covers 47 cities or regions, with a large span. Among them, Zibo City, Shandong Province is the only cooperative city across the five demonstration city agglomerations.

The promotion target of fuel cell vehicles is not only "thousands". By 2025, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Henan and Hebei have respective targets of 5300, 5000, 10000, 5000 and 7710 fuel cell vehicles, totaling 33000.

From the date of approval of Henan and Hebei demonstration urban agglomeration, the five major urban demonstration agglomeration has passed a complete natural year.

According to data from Guojin Securities, in 2022, the Hebei demonstration urban agglomeration had the largest number of fuel cell vehicles, with 1677 vehicles, while Henan, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong demonstration urban agglomeration had 1601, 1395, 1284 and 450 vehicles respectively, totaling 6407 vehicles, accounting for 19.4% of the overall planning target.

Taking into account the early development of fuel cell vehicles in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the progress of the promotion target of the five major urban demonstration groups has exceeded 20%. At present, there are still three years to go before the end of the demonstration period, and the follow-up development of domestic fuel cell vehicles will be accelerated. In a word, it is not difficult for the five model urban agglomerations to achieve the set goals.

Although it is not difficult, it is not without problems. With the competition for demonstration vehicles, the supply of hydrogen energy is becoming an unavoidable problem for the five model cities, especially the green hydrogen energy.

In addition, the lack of funds may also be a hidden worry. According to the demonstration application incentive scheme, each urban agglomeration can receive a maximum reward of 1.7 billion yuan, and even if an additional 10% is added, the maximum reward is only 1.87 billion yuan. Compared with hundreds of billions of yuan in subsidies for lithium-ion battery cars over the past decade or so, the five model urban agglomerations can receive a total of no more than 10 billion yuan.

It is particularly noteworthy that with the introduction of the top-level design and the promotion of the demonstration urban agglomeration, the development of fuel cell vehicles is not limited to the demonstration urban agglomeration, and non-model cities do not hesitate to make efforts.

According to incomplete statistics, since last year, Gansu, Yueyang, Guiyang, Shanxi, Nanjing, Wuxi, Ningdong, Baotou, Hubei, Chengdu, Hainan, Jinan, Chongqing, Anhui, Xinjiang and other regions have formulated plans to distribute the hydrogen energy industry.

By 2025, the planning target of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in nearly 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions is estimated to reach 100000, which has exceeded the target of 50,000 vehicles in the medium-and long-term Plan for the Development of hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-2035) issued in March 2022.

It is not difficult to understand that local governments are keen on the hydrogen energy industry. It is generally believed that the current development situation of China's hydrogen fuel cell industry is similar to that of lithium battery cars when they started more than 10 years ago. Fuel cell vehicles may reproduce the growth trajectory of lithium battery vehicles in the future. Look at the current popularity of the lithium battery car industry, who doesn't want to take the lead in the best part of the next round of new energy vehicles.

However, in the face of the rising popularity of the fuel cell vehicle industry, the relevant authorities of the National Development and Reform Commission have also warned against the signs of local blindly following the trend, homogenized competition, and low-level construction. After all, the fuel cell industry is still in the stage of demonstration application and commercial exploration, and it is not clear how big this "cake" is.

[full text reference]

[1] "Test, hone, growth-- one year record of the launch of the fuel Cell vehicle demonstration and Application Urban agglomeration Project", China Automobile News

[2] fuel cell cars are popular but not popular, China Energy News

[3] "hydrogen Energy observation | was in the" first camp ", why fuel cell cars in China got up early in the morning and caught up in the evening collection, China Automotive News

[4] Electric vehicles "China Road", Caixin

[5] "fuel cell industry research: thousands of FCV has been cashed in a single month, and the annual installed capacity has broken through the record high", Guojin Securities

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: che Bai think Tank (ID:EV100_Plus), author: Qin Haiqing

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