Shaanxi Auto X5000 with hydrogen fuel cell power system

As a well-known heavy truck manufacturer in China and a holding company of Weichai Power, a key enterprise of hydrogen energy and fuel cell in China, Shaanxi Auto naturally cannot miss the track of hydrogen heavy trucks. As the Shaanxi Auto Heavy Truck 2020 Business Annual Meeting is about to be held, Shaanxi Auto finally exhibits its flagship heavy truck X5000 equipped with hydrogen fuel cell power system.

The FC EV lettering on the side of the body shows the identity of this X5000 fuel cell vehicle. As an important player in the domestic truck industry, Shaanxi Auto finally launched a hydrogen heavy truck product, which also shows Weichai Power's all-round layout in the field of hydrogen vehicles: from fuel cell system, to light fuel cell truck, to fuel cell heavy truck, and possibly to fuel cell passenger car in the future. Weichai Power has formed a complete fuel cell vehicle industry chain layout, and has made adequate responses to the future changes in the transportation industry.

Shaanxi Auto's fuel cell product line and Weichai Power's transformation layout

Shaanxi Automotive is not a "newcomer" to the fuel cell vehicle field.

As early as February 2018, Shaanxi Auto demonstrated the first domestic Delong L3000 hydrogen-fueled sanitation vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells at the "2035 Strategy" planning conference.

In May 2019, Shaanxi Auto's hydrogen fuel cell light truck equipped with Forsythe fuel cell system was officially launched, and the project also won the gold medal in the "Fengdong Cup" Shaanxi Province Science and Technology Workers Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition in July.

In other words, as an important layout point of Weichai Power in the truck field, Shaanxi Auto has already made the layout of fuel cell products in the field of special vehicles, light trucks and heavy trucks, forming a more complete fuel cell vehicle product line.

Weichai Power has formed a complete layout in the middle and upper reaches of the fuel cell industry by acquiring British Sirius Power, Canadian Ballard and domestic fuel cell manufacturer Forsythe. Combined with the layout of Yangzhou Yaxing Bus and Shaanxi Auto Group Truck, Weichai Power has completed the conversion preparation from traditional diesel power to new hydrogen fuel cell in the middle and lower reaches of road transportation field.

China will become the fastest market for hydrogen-powered heavy trucks to scale up?

In the opinion of academician Gan Yong, heavy truck is the most suitable field for hydrogen energy landing application, especially combined with steel transportation business, because steel transportation business has large load capacity, fixed route and suitable transportation distance, compared with pure electric truck, hydrogen fuel cell truck has more advantages in this regard, and at the same time, it is convenient for the planning and construction of hydrogen refueling station. With the gradual enrichment of domestic hydrogen heavy truck products and the entry of steel enterprises into the field of hydrogen energy, this vision of academician Gan Yong is gradually becoming a reality.

As for hydrogen heavy trucks, after the first fuel cell heavy truck, Jiangling Heavy Duty Truck, was listed in the catalog of MIIT, more and more domestic manufacturers have launched hydrogen heavy truck products, such as Dayun hydrogen fuel cell heavy truck (325th batch of MIIT announcement), SAIC Hongyan fuel cell dump truck, Qingdao Port's fuel cell tractor, etc.

With hydrogen heavy trucks, there must be application scenarios at the same time. HSC, one of the largest steel enterprises in China, has announced the opening of its first hydrogen refueling station and the demonstration operation focusing on hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty trucks to create an industrial chain of industrial by-product gas hydrogen production-hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty truck logistics, forming a truly recyclable and green industrial production-logistics transportation ecosystem that Realize zero pollution and zero emission.

In addition to domestic automakers, foreign companies are also speeding up the entry of hydrogen heavy trucks into the Chinese market. For example, Hyundai Motor has completed the site selection in Sichuan and will put fuel cell trucks into production in China.

Compared with the small amount of hydrogen truck operation experiments being conducted in foreign markets, the domestic hydrogen heavy truck market is more likely to form a scale due to the policy pushback of energy saving and emission reduction, while the fuel cell is more suitable for long-distance and large load application scenarios than pure electric trucks, especially in scenarios such as steel transportation.

The vision of academician Gan Yong is becoming a reality step by step.