In the choice of this technical path, whether it is lithium battery vehicles winning or hydrogen energy vehicles winning, Chinese forces will play a very important role.
oral / Wu Xiaobo
Last week, the National Development and Reform Commission and seven other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Promoting Green Consumption".
For the new energy vehicle track that has been a popular investment in recent years, the orientation of "vigorously developing green transportation consumption and vigorously promoting new energy vehicles" in this document is an icing favor on the cake. The A-share new energy vehicle sector strengthened on Friday.
Although new energy sector fell at the beginning of this year, as for the overall situation in 2021, not only did this sector lead the stock market, but the Chinese automobile market resumed positive growth last year, which was also inseparable from the drive of new energy vehicles.
As long as energy conservation and emission reduction is still an important agenda for countries around the world, the popularity of new energy vehicles will not dissipate in the next twenty years.
In addition to popularity, the technical choices faced by new energy vehicles are a topic that requires "cold thinking".
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Any emerging industry may face the choice of technology path when it grows rapidly. Once the choice is wrong, the consequences will be very serious. Twenty years ago, the global color TV industry faced a "question" of technical path selection: in color TV flat panel display technology, should micro-rear projection technology or LCD display technology be chosen? The current monitor market uses overwhelming LCD screens to tell us the answer to this question. But around 2000, almost all major European and American color TV manufacturers chose the micro-projection path. The reason is very simple: rear projection technology is mature and the cost is controllable. Only a few factories in South Korea and Taiwan are betting on LCD display paths.
However, since 2005, LCD display technology has gradually achieved a "cost breakthrough" in its development, flat-screen TVs have significantly reduced prices, and the cost-effective advantages of rear projection technology have gradually dissipated, and the sales of rear projection TVs have increased from rising to falling. The serious consequence of this "choose one of two" is that today's color TV companies in Europe and the United States are almost wiped out. The battle between color TV did not end with the battle between rear projection and LCD. What people are more familiar with is the competition between plasma technology and liquid crystal technology. Plasma technology seems to be far superior to LCD technology in terms of production costs and imaging effects. Japan's Panasonic Electric chose the plasma technology that seemed more mature at the time. South Korea's Samsung still relies on government support and insists on moving forward on the LCD path. What the original decision makers did not expect was that plasma technology with imaging advantages was only better on the large screen, but in the face of the blooming handheld tablets, portable laptop , and even mobile phone screen display, plasma technology is "unable to do so". Panasonic 's "bet failed" in plasma technology has brought huge losses totaling more than 750 billion yen for two consecutive years. Faced with an unprecedented huge crisis, this old Japanese company finally gave up its plasma TV business in 2015.
Today's new energy vehicle industry is facing almost the same problem as the color TV industry twenty years ago: Should the automobile battery technology adopt lithium batteries or hydrogen energy? Different answers to this question may also become the "life-and-death choice" of different companies in the new energy track.
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"Lithium-hydrogen dispute" has not ended to this day. The current choices are mainly concentrated in lithium-battery-powered vehicles and hydrogen-energy vehicles.
The hydrogen energy vehicles on the market are roughly divided into two types: hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Currently, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are developing faster. The advantages of hydrogen fuel cell are mainly in three aspects.
1 is hydrogen element has extremely rich reserves. 71% of the earth's surface is covered by water. The hydrogen elements in these water can be regarded as "inexhaustible and inexhaustible" for people. In contrast, the reserves of lithium are slightly inferior.
Second, hydrogen energy is cleaner.Although hydrogen fuel cells have the word "fuel", their principle is not "combustion hydrogen ", but use the charge transfer of hydrogen and oxygen during the chemical reaction to form a current. In short, the hydrogen in the air and high-pressure hydrogen storage tank is sent into the fuel cell stack, and electricity and water are generated through hydroxide reactions, and then the electricity is sent to the engine. After the service life of hydrogen fuel cells ends, the pollution to the environment is also less. However, lithium batteries are difficult to avoid heavy metal pollution.
Hydrogen energy vehicle's fuel cell stack (gray) and hydrogen tank (yellow)
Third, hydrogen energy vehicle has a short charging time and a long range. A hydrogen energy vehicle can be filled with hydrogen fuel in about 5 minutes, and the corresponding range of kilometers can reach 650-700 kilometers, which is equivalent to traveling back and forth between Xi'an and Luoyang . Some models can even last for 1,000 kilometers. The battery life problem that has caused headaches for many electric vehicle owners seems to no longer exist in hydrogen energy vehicles. The current charging time of lithium battery vehicles generally takes more than ten hours. Even if you use a super charging pile, it will take half an hour.
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But for today's hydrogen energy vehicles, hydrogen is their weakness of "success and failure".
Several existing electrolytic water hydrogen production technologies are relatively high in cost, while others are relatively low in efficiency, which is still a long way to achieve commercial promotion. Solar hydrogen production technology has not yet fully entered the laboratory. The high-profile biohydrogen production is difficult to meet the needs of large-scale production due to the complex equipment. Currently, the mainstream of industrial hydrogen is still made of fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas and . As far as the existing technology is concerned, the energy consumption of industrial hydrogen production almost smooths out the environmental advantages of hydrogen energy vehicles.
Although Japan's Toyota and South Korea's Hyundai have launched their respective hydrogen energy vehicles, their prices are both above RMB 500,000, which is about twice the price of new energy vehicles using lithium battery technology. The high cost comes from the complexity of manufacturing on-board hydrogen motor systems. For example, the hydroxide reaction that generates electrical energy requires precious metal platinum as a catalyst. In the event that no alternative is found, it is conceivable that the "golden" of hydrogen energy vehicles is "conceived".
has made considerable investment in purchasing hydrogen energy vehicles, but the existing supporting facilities are even more disappointing. According to the forecast of the "China Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Industry White Paper", by 2025, China will only have 200 hydrogen refueling stations. In comparison, as of January 2021, the cumulative number of charging infrastructure in China was 1.716 million, of which 810,903 public charging piles were. But in terms of actual use, such charging configuration is far from enough for lithium battery owners.
This is actually the market's choice in comparison with the operating costs of these two new energy supporting facilities. The construction cost of an ordinary electric vehicle charging station is about 1 million yuan. The current construction cost of a hydrogen-energy vehicle hydrogen charging base station is around 10 million yuan.
Not to mention that in terms of hydrogen utilization, there is another important focus that needs to be guaranteed: transportation safety. Hydrogen has a low ignition point, high combustion energy, and is prone to leakage. Hydrogen explosions have occurred in hydrogen refueling stations in Japan, South Korea and , Norway. How to ensure that hydrogen energy vehicles can use hydrogen safely and efficiently is not only a time-consuming and laborious difficulty for manufacturers and hydrogen suppliers, but also a concern for some consumers about the reliability of hydrogen energy vehicles.
0 The hydrogen charging station explosion occurred in Oslo (Photo source: NRK)
Because the main advantages of hydrogen energy vehicles are based on the premise of "if technical difficulties can be overcome", Elon Musk once said in 2015 that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are an extremely stupid investment direction. But does Musk's judgment on the industry represent the truth? This is still unknown to us today.
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20 years ago also had no favorability. However, after three to five years of digestion, the cost of LCD displays has dropped sharply, and the technical path of the color TV market has been completely reversed.The rise of small-sized screens is an unexpected "external technology accident" for color TV manufacturers. It is worth noting that at that time, South Korea and Taiwan were able to achieve "overtaking on the curve" over Europe, the United States and Japan in LCD technology. One aspect that cannot be ignored is that their LCD panel industries have received support from the government.
This time, under the energy crisis , governments have put forward various ideas about new energy vehicles, adding many "divided trails" to this track. Many European countries have issued quite generous subsidies for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. While encouraging individuals and car companies to install charging piles, the German government also turned its attention to renewable energy electrolytic water-based hydrogen production technology. Montpellier, France canceled a contract to purchase hydrogen fuel cell buses this year because locals found that "the operating cost of hydrogen buses is six times that of electricity."
In today's China, some cities bet on hydrogen energy vehicles. Not long ago, Shenzhen planned to reach a hydrogen energy industry of 50 billion by 2025. Beijing plans to train 10 to 15 leading companies in the hydrogen energy battery industry chain with international influence by 2025, and strive to achieve a production of hydrogen energy vehicles exceeding 10,000.
The "Lithium-Hydrogen Contest" has only kicked off the competition today, but one thing is certain that in the choice of this technology path, whether it is lithium battery vehicles winning or hydrogen energy vehicles winning, Chinese forces will play a very important role.
audio planning | Ding Boyang
audio operation | Chang Xiujuan | Editor-in-chief | Zheng Yuanmei
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