A city cluster led by Beijing has been designated as an FCEV demonstration cluster. At least 5,300 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be deployed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region starting this year and lasting through 2025 to play out ten scenarios meant to demonstrate global impact.
The most visible use will most likely be the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, when fuel cell cars will compete with passenger transportation in a bid similar to the Tokyo 2020 ambitions. Port operations, commodity delivery, logistics distribution, and buses are among the other hydrogen mobility demonstrations in the Beijing zone, according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economic and Information Technology.
The demonstration projects are part of a plan developed by the Beijing Municipal Government to promote the city’s hydrogen sector from 2021 to 2015. The capital takes the lead in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster, with the goal of demonstrating a worldwide hydrogen economy with an industry chain worth more than 10 billion yuan ($1.551 billion) every year.
Beijing has been chosen as one of China’s first batch of FCV demonstration cities. Beijing’s Daxing district, Tianjin’s Binhai New Area, and Hebei’s Baoding city are among the twelve cities and districts that make up the region.
There are no specifics on the firms participating in today’s announcement on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster. However, there are a few hints.
Beijing has devised a financial assistance scheme for hydrogen promotion, which includes the establishment of hydrogen filling stations and the purchase of fuel cell vehicles. China has put hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles on the national agenda as well.
Private efforts appear to be following in the footsteps of Great Wall Motors, which announced in April that it will transport a fleet of fuel cell passenger cars to the Beijing Olympics. However, there have been little updates since then.
According to reports, Great Wall’s subsidiary FTXT Energy Technology and vehicle partners Dayun, Dongfeng, and Foton provided a fleet of 100 heavy-duty trucks with hydrogen fuel cells for a construction project in Hebei province in August. The heavy-duty FCEV will aid in the construction of Xiong’an New Area, a retort city.” Xiong’an will be located around 100 kilometers east of Beijing and Tianjin, in the province of Baoding.
SAIC had also declared in September 2020 that it will bring at least ten fuel cell vehicles to market over the next five years. This happened at a time when the Chinese government was anticipated to announce further fuel cell car assistance.
SAIC, for its part, plans to sell more than 10,000 units per year by 2025, accounting for more than ten percent of the Chinese FCEV market. According to SAIC’s strategy presentation, cumulative sales are anticipated to surpass 30,000 vehicles by 2025.
Hyzon, a US fuel cell truck manufacturer, has also been engaged, most recently signing an MoU with Shanghai Hydrogen HongYun Automotive, a logistics and leasing company, for the purchase of 500 fuel cell vehicles. “Hydrogen fuel cell technology has been adopted more swiftly in China than in the rest of the world,” Hyzon Motors CEO Craig Knight remarked at the time.
