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BEIJING, September 5 (TMTPOST) – With the acceleration of technological advancement and commercialization, the production of fuel cell vehicles in China will speed up in the next eight years.
There are 50,000 fuel cell vehicles globally, with about 10,000 units in China. The global fuel cell vehicles are expected to exceed 10 million units in 2030, with more than 2 million units in China, a 200-fold increase from the current level, Lin Zhongqin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said recently at the Hydrogen Energy Economic Development Forum.
Fuel cell vehicles are one of the three new energy vehicle technologies developed in China, with hydrogen energy as the core and relying on built-in fuel cells to provide the driving force. Because fuel cells rely mainly on the electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to continuously generate electricity, which is clean and carbon-free, the promotion of fuel cell vehicles is seen as one of the paths to decarbonizing in the transportation sector.
In March 2022, the National Development and Reform Commission released a plan on the development of hydrogen energy for the 2021-2035 period, which for the first time positioned hydrogen energy as an important component of the future national energy system and a green energy transformation carrier. It is planned to gradually establish a complete hydrogen energy industry system in the next 15 years. The Plan proposed that by 2025, the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China should reach 50,000, expanding four times during the 14th Five-Year Plan.
The breakthrough of fuel cell vehicles in the future is mainly in the field of heavy trucks. According to Lin, there are about 300 million vehicles in China, with about 30 million trucks and 8.5 million heavy trucks. Heavy trucks only account for 2.6% of the total number of vehicles, but the emission of carbon dioxide accounts for 47% of the total number of vehicles.
The aforementioned Plan also clearly pointed out that the promotion of future fuel cell vehicle applications will focus on medium and heavy-duty vehicles. This also means that the policy maker intends to promote fuel cell vehicles to enter the market in commercial scenarios such as ports, logistics parks, industrial and mining enterprises and other non-government procurement.
