China pushes development of fuel-cell vehicles with subsidies for buyers and incentives for charging stations
September 10, 2019 Category China News Round-up, Weekly
China’s government has set its sight on fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) as the next growth engine, as it aims to catch up with the United States and Japan in cutting emissions and developing new technologies. Buyers in 17 Chinese provinces will get subsidies of between CNY128,000 and CNY160,000 per fuel-cell passenger car this year, while commercial vans and trucks get between CNY192,000 and CNY400,000 each, according to the Ministry of Finance. Local authorities in 10 cities have announced that they would hand out incentives of between CNY2 million and CNY4 million toward the construction of every refueling station.
The incentives form part of China’s plan to leapfrog the U.S. and Japan in automotive technology, using the advantage of a market in which more vehicles are sold than in any other nation on earth. The world’s number of fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) jumped 80% to 12,900 units last year, with 46% of them in the U.S., followed by 23% in Japan and 14% in China, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Chinese government is aiming to put a million fuel-cell vehicles on the roads by 2030, from 50,000 in 2025 and last year’s 1,791 units, more ambitious than the plans outlined by Japan or in the U.S. state of California. Still, China’s ambitious goal pales in comparison to South Korea, which aims to have 1.8 million hydrogen-powered vehicles in service by 2030, with 80,000 units in 2023.
Hydrogen fuel cells could meet 18% of global energy demand by 2050, creating a USD2.5 trillion market for hydrogen and fuel cell equipment, and contributing a fifth of the carbon emission abatement needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to the Hydrogen Council, an international body backed by 60 firms. The Chinese government’s policies will help FCVs compete with electric vehicles that run on batteries, especially for public transit and heavy-duty vehicles, where longer driving range and shorter refueling time make fuel-cell vehicles the better zero-emission alternative, the South China Morning Post reports. China is aiming to halve the cost of fuel cell systems to CNY4,000 per kilowatt by 2025 from last year, according to a white paper on fuel cell industry development published by the China Hydrogen Alliance late June.
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