Many people are "not optimistic" about hydrogen fuel cell technology, mainly because "electric vehicle charging is still difficult to popularize, let alone the construction of hydrogen refueling stations?"

This is really a headache. The safety level of hydrogen refueling station is higher than that of ordinary gas stations, and the cost is also high, even the transportation cost of hydrogen is high. In recent ten years, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Honda have been engaged in hydrogen fuel cells, but the main difficulty is the difficulty of hydrogenation.

Hyundai has been one of the leaders of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and they have achieved mass production of NEXO: the core power is a fuel cell stack independently developed by Hyundai, each cell is composed of five layers of materials, and then it is composed of 400 such cells, and the system conversion efficiency reaches 60%.

We visited the Ma Bei Research Institute in Seoul, which is the research and production base of hydrogen energy for Hyundai Motor. When talking about why Hyundai insists on developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, an important reason is that lithium battery pure electric vehicles will be very inefficient because of their weight when they need a long battery life of more than 400~500 kilometers.

At this time, the technical advantage of hydrogen fuel cell is very obvious, and it can complete hydrogenation within 5 minutes. However, long battery life is necessary for commercial vehicles.

Trucks or buses need a high cruising range, while ordinary lithium-ion battery electric vehicles need to reach a cruising range of hundreds of kilometers and push dozens of tons of loads. The weight of the battery will become too amazing to be suitable for this field.

Compared with passenger cars, hydrogen fuel cells are most suitable for commercial vehicles? This view coincides with Bosch and Hyundai. In Ma Bei Research Institute, Hyundai talked about another important reason why hydrogen fuel cell technology is easy to popularize in commercial vehicles-because the driving route of commercial vehicles is relatively fixed and it is friendly to the construction of hydrogen refueling stations.

Foreign car companies and parts brands are very enthusiastic about developing hydrogen fuel cell technology, so what is the progress of domestic hydrogen fuel cell technology in the field of commercial vehicles?

The answer is yes. Last year, Shanghai CES SAIC Chase showed MAXUS? FCV80 hydrogen fuel cell bus has been mass-produced, and Yutong bus, another bus production giant, has also begun to exert its strength. No one knows whether the hydrogen fuel cell bus market will become a growth hotspot in the next year or two.

In fact, Yutong has been developing hydrogen fuel cell buses for more than ten years. Ten years ago, it happened that Mercedes-Benz was keen on developing hydrogen fuel cell technology. Yutong bus developed the first generation fuel cell bus in 2009. In 20 12, Yutong formally established a full-time research and development team for fuel cell buses, and has completed the research and development of three generations of vehicles.

At the "China Committee of Hundred Members for Electric Vehicles Forum" held in Beijing on June 5438+ 10 this year, Yutong showed their latest F 12 fuel cell bus, which is a bus with a length of 12 meters and is driven by ZF motor. ?

The core technology of Yutong F 12 is to configure a 60kW fuel cell system. According to the relevant technical data, the system has broken through the key technologies such as fuel cell system integration, matching and control of fuel cell electric-electric hybrid power system, and comprehensive thermal management of vehicles based on fuel cell waste heat utilization.

The key performance is to realize the rapid start-up test of vehicle environment cabin at -30℃, and Yutong F 12 has been put into practical operation in Heihe. Compared with traditional lithium batteries, hydrogen fuel cell technology also has advantages at low temperature.

So how high is the energy consumption of hydrogen fuel cell buses? The hydrogen consumption (CCBC) of Yutong 12m fuel cell bus is as low as 4. 1? Kg/ 100km, which is at the leading level in the same industry in China. The actual hydrogen consumption of the line is 5.5-7.0kg/ 100km.

Up to now, Yutong has promoted a total of 87 fuel cell buses, which have run safely in the country for more than 3.8 million kilometers. Recently, 200 Yutong fuel cell buses were put into operation in Zhengzhou.

At present, the cost of hydrogen fuel is also very high, which cannot be compared with the cost of traditional fuel, so the promotion of domestic hydrogen fuel cell buses must also rely on policy support, such as subsidies.

Similarly, in terms of cost, European hydrogen fuel is mainly used in industrial applications, and the price per kilogram is generally above 5 euros. Of course, with the increase of output, the price will also drop. However, the energy density of hydrogen is very high. 65,438+0 kg of hydrogen can produce energy equivalent to about 3 liters of diesel. A 40-ton truck in Europe only needs 7-8 kg of hydrogen when driving 100km. ?

Although the promotion of hydrogen fuel cell technology seems difficult, we should also see that international enterprises including Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Bosch and Magna are booming. For example, Bosch's existing fuel cell products will be listed in 2022 at the latest, first used in commercial vehicles such as trucks and will be developed into passenger cars in the future.

This also proves that the fuel cell technology has broad prospects.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.