China's Future Transport Fuel Cell Heavy-Duty Vehicles (FCHDVs) Comparison & Analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the various factors that underlie the latest fuel cell heavy-duty vehicles (FCHDVs) development in China. Current trends like China’s carbon strategy “Carbon Peaking by 2030, and Carbon Neutral by 2060”, the 14th Five-year plan on new energy development, and the recent opening of China’s carbon trading market all signaled the grand start on China’s energy sustainable transition. The transportation sector is one of the biggest CO2 emitters in this system. It has been estimated that 1 standard diesel heavy-duty vehicle’s emission could potentially account for that of 100 normal gasoline-powered passenger vehicles’. Thus, it is imperative to decarbonize China’s heavy transportation sector using new energy heavy-duty vehicles. FCHDVs, like the one of the near-zero emission transport, gradually gained attractions in the energy industry. Thus, this paper has two objectives: Objective 1 investigates not only the internal factors which shaped FCHDVs' strategic position from purchasing price, environment, structural efficiency, and performance but also the external factors which might influence the core of FCHDVs’ penetration --- hydrogen cost and stations. The research on these factors is irreplaceable since the internal factors would determine if FCHDVs have a comparative advantage over diesel HDVs and the external factors will decide the fate of FCHDVs on a much broader scale and answer the questions like if FCHDVs’ hydrogen fuel is so expensive and the availability of hydrogen station is also limited, then even the FCHDVs can be cheaply made, the fleet operators would also not willing to purchase the vehicles. On the other hand, if the stations could not be easily constructed and the source of hydrogen could not be solved, then it would also cause a problem for the industry. Thus, both internal and external factors are important measurements for decision-makers. Objective 2 research on the comprehensive comparisons between FCHDVs, diesel HDVs, and battery HDVs from fleet operators’ perspective. The purpose of this objective is to imitate the decision-making process in the real world situation. Which option they will likely pursue based on the matrix illustration? Then an outlook of the future is presented to show the potential future of new energy HDVs’ penetrations. The critical insights from this research: 1. The FCHDVs are still in their initial developing stage and the average price of FCHDVs is at least 2-3 times the price of comparative diesel HDVs. 2. Even there are quite a lot of emissions from hydrogen production, the FCHDVs could still potentially achieve over 90% emission reduction. 3. We can expect higher FCHDVs’ performance from their potential higher torque and instant power supply. 4. Even the FCHDVs’ size causes a certain payload penalty in the process, the FCHDVs is still 100% more efficient than the diesel HDVs counterpart. 5. FCHDVs potentially can achieve the same range as diesel HDVs, but diesel HDVs will still be the backbone of heavy transport in the years to come. 6. Currently, the hydrogen production from coal in China enjoys the lowest cost but still contributes to the highest emission compared with other methods. 7. Carbon pricing will most likely be the major factor influencing the cost of hydrogen production, making SMR hydrogen the cheapest option after 2024, and green hydrogen the cheapest option after 2030. 8. The utilization of FCHDVs has to satisfy a series of criteria to realize. These include hydrogen stations, hydrogen sources, logistical contracts, government subsidies, and a mature transport market. 9. The diesel HDVs still in many ways have comparative advantages other than emission. 10. The newly – emerged battery HDVs with battery swapping stations also present strong potential as the swapping stations have more flexibility in installation requirements. 11. In the next 10 years, the heavy transportation sector will most likely include 16-20% of new energy HDVs reaching the tipping point of transportation transition.