New energy vehicle route: waver or stick to it?

my country's pure electric vehicles are in a leading position worldwide in terms of both market and technology. From the perspective of energy strategy transformation and transportation rationality, insisting on pure electric development as the focus is the right choice in line with national conditions.

Recently, according to Xinhua News Agency, Premier Li Keqiang visited Hokkaido during his visit to Japan and visited Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle "Mirai". Li Keqiang asked about the range of Mirai and other issues. From this news, we can see that the Premier is very concerned about the development of new energy vehicles.

This has also set off a wave of heated discussions about the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles inside and outside the industry, and some people have expressed doubts on Weibo about my country's electric vehicle focus on pure electric technology. In this regard, Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, leader of the overall expert group of the national key scientific and technological project "New Energy Vehicles", and professor of Tsinghua University, said in an interview with the China Science Daily reporter, "China's new energy vehicle technology route is different from that of Japan's Toyota. In terms of hydrogen fuel cells, my country's hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles are also at the world's leading level. There is indeed a gap in passenger cars, but this is also related to the strategic focus of my country's electric vehicles."

"my country's pure electric vehicles are in a leading position worldwide, both in terms of market and technology. From the perspectives of energy strategy transformation and traffic rationality, insisting on pure electric drive as the development focus is the right choice in line with national conditions." Ouyang Minggao said that we do not have to abandon our industrial advantages or change our routes, and we cannot deny ourselves just because of a leading technology shown by others.

The overall industrialization of fuel cells lags behind pure electric vehicles by more than 5 years?

After years of summarizing the technical route of new energy vehicles in China, the pure electric drive strategy was established in 2012. As one of the main technical paths for new energy vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been confirmed to be vigorously developed in important strategic outlines such as the "National Innovation-Driven Development Strategy Outline", "Made in China 2025", and the "Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for the Automobile Industry".

"From the perspective of the technical roadmap of new energy vehicles, the application timetable and roadmap of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are at least five years behind that of pure electric vehicles." Qiu Kaijun, editor-in-chief of "Electric Vehicle Observer", told reporters that unlike the current hot sales of pure electric vehicles, my country's hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are expected to begin large-scale commercial applications around 2020.

Ouyang Minggao believes that the reason why Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle was given the opportunity to be displayed in front of the Prime Minister is that as an automobile powerhouse, Japan has spent 20 years investing in it, and it is natural for it to achieve results.

"The energy density of the most advanced hydrogen fuel cell stack has reached 3 kilowatts per liter; the battery stack life of a general fuel cell bus can reach 10,000 to 20,000 hours, and that of a passenger car can reach 4,000 to 5,000 hours; the platinum used in the catalyst has also dropped from 1 gram per kilowatt to less than 0.2 grams, greatly reducing the cost of fuel cells," said Qiu Kaijun when summarizing the progress of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

When talking about the application of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Ouyang Minggao explained to reporters that the technology and industrialization level of my country's fuel cell commercial vehicles are not much different from Toyota. On the contrary, whether it is the driving range, hydrogen consumption per 100 kilometers or the price, my country's fuel cell electric vehicles have more advantages than Toyota vehicles.

In fact, in April last year, five Foton Auman fuel cell buses were put into commercial operation in Shangzhuang, Haidian District, Beijing. After that, more than 300 fuel cell buses of two models were delivered and put into operation in 2017. Some media said that compared with the so-called "commercial operation" of more than a dozen or dozens of fuel cell buses of other brands, the delivery contract of more than 300 fuel cell buses of two models by Beiqi Foton can be called the world's first commercial fuel cell bus project.

According to relevant plans, by 2020, the demonstration scale of fuel cell vehicles in my country will reach 5,000 to 10,000, with commercial vehicles accounting for the majority, and more than 100 hydrogen refueling stations. By 2030, a total of 1 million fuel cell vehicles will be promoted, and more than 1,000 hydrogen refueling stations will be built.

For passenger cars with a driving range of less than 500 kilometers, hydrogen fuel cells have no advantage over lithium-ion batteries

"In the field of passenger cars, fuel cell technology has indeed made great breakthroughs, but the upstream of the related industrial chain - hydrogen fuel technology is not ideal." Ouyang Minggao admitted that advanced passenger car fuel cell technology still faces the bottleneck of hydrogen energy technology. For example, the cost of hydrogen bottles for on-board hydrogen storage is still very high. A passenger car hydrogen bottle that stores one kilogram of hydrogen costs about $1,000. Hydrogen requires a lot of pressure to compress, and the pressure of hydrogen bottles can generally reach 700 atmospheres. Therefore, the bottle must be both light and strong. The combination of aluminum alloy and high-strength carbon fiber materials has led to high costs for hydrogen bottles.

In addition to hydrogen bottles, the cost and efficiency of hydrogen production, transportation, storage, and hydrogen refueling stations are also reasons why hydrogen fuel cells cannot be quickly promoted and applied.

Hydrogen has a low density, so storing enough hydrogen fuel requires more advanced containers and media. The medium-pressure cryogenic compression hydrogen technology with a hydrogen bottle pressure of 35 MPa and a critical temperature of 40K is considered to be an ideal way to store hydrogen, which can ensure a high hydrogen storage density without too much energy loss. "It is expected that the ideal state of hydrogen storage can be achieved by 2025, and the cost of hydrogen is expected to drop to 40 yuan per kilogram by then," said Ouyang Minggao.

"Even if the goal is achieved, fuel cell passenger cars still do not have an advantage over pure electric passenger cars within a driving range of less than 500 kilometers." Ouyang Minggao calculated for the reporter that a pure electric car consumes 20 kWh of electricity for 100 kilometers. The trough electricity price of renewable energy is 2 yuan per kWh at highway charging stations, and the consumption per 100 kilometers is 40 yuan, which is the same as the price of hydrogen fuel. However, for pure electric vehicles, the fuel cost of 40 yuan per 100 kilometers is a relatively high consumption, while the 40 yuan for hydrogen fuel does not take into account long-distance transportation, which is a relatively low estimate. Therefore, "the electricity cost must be lower than the cost of hydrogen fuel, and the smaller the car, the fewer times it is driven, and the shorter the one-way trip, the less advantage hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars have." For hydrogen fuel cells to have advantages, they must be applied to large commercial vehicles that travel long distances and other large mobile and fixed power generation devices, that is, fuel cells are more suitable to replace diesel engines rather than gasoline engines.

In response to the current situation where hydrogen refueling stations cannot keep up with the development of vehicles, Li Jin, head of the new energy department of Yutong Bus, suggested that a "four-in-one station for refueling, hydrogenation, gasification and charging" could be established. "There is no technical problem in building it together, but it requires a larger site to meet the safety distance requirements of hydrogen refueling station regulations. A demonstration project should be available before 2020."

Microgrids cannot do without pure electric vehicles

Pure electric is the mainstream solution for new energy passenger vehicles in my country, and fuel cell vehicles are unlikely to replace pure electric vehicles. Ouyang Minggao said that from passenger cars for short-distance travel between cities, to high-speed rail for long-distance transportation of passengers, to two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles in rural areas, we have a large amount of pure electric technology accumulation and advantages. From the perspective of rational transportation, pure electric should also be the mainstream solution.

When talking about the relationship between the two, Ouyang Minggao said that the most likely scenario is that the two will coexist. "At least until 2030, pure electric vehicles may dominate the passenger car field, and there will be more fuel cell vehicles in the commercial vehicle field."

"In recent years, our annual photovoltaic power generation has grown very fast. Whether in technology, industry or application, we have an advantageous position in the world. This is also a very concrete manifestation of China's advantages. In particular, the photovoltaic industry can be combined with the new energy vehicle industry to form a larger industry." Ouyang Minggao said,

"Now the electricity used by our new energy vehicles may still be coal-fired. From the perspective of energy strategic transformation, photovoltaic power generation will account for a larger proportion in the future, or even all of it will be photovoltaic power generation." Ouyang Minggao told reporters that photovoltaics need new energy vehicles to store energy, and new energy vehicles also need clean renewable energy.

Distributed photovoltaic, energy storage battery, hydrogen fuel, pure electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and other links will form independent microgrid hydrogen-electric energy systems connected by energy Internet. If connected to the large power grid, only battery energy storage is needed. If not connected to the large power grid, fuel cells are needed as a backup power source.

"In any case, the future transportation system, intelligent system and renewable energy cannot do without pure electric vehicles. Through the energy Internet, electric vehicles are both energy-consuming terminals and also feed energy back to the energy system. This concept will basically take shape between 2030 and 2035," said Ouyang Minggao.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.