No surprise there. The Europeans have traditionally been more protectionist than the US. The former use trade to protect its industries while the latter use trade as a political tool. That's why the Europeans can't even compete with the Japs and Koreans in combustion engine cars, let alone take on China with their hobbled EV industry.
That said, China is now the world leader and the largest market for EV. 60% of the cars on the road are EV, all highways have unmanned quick charging stations at intervals and battery swap stations allow motorists to make a quick pit stop before resuming their journey. They have left the Europeans, Japs and Americans far behind.
Ironically, China's massive EV investment may actually cause them to lag behind Europe and Japan in the next battle ground:
hydrogen fuel cell cars. Cleaner, shorter charging cycles, longer range, cheaper cost. How to convince the consumers to switch to hydrogen cars is the big hurdle, given the paucity of fuel cell stations currently and a nation too weaned on EV technology.
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China's fuel cell vehicle push stalls out amid EV boom
Manufacturers turn to commercial trucks and buses as passenger car sales sputter
NORIYUKI DOI, Nikkei staff writerJuly 16, 2023 06:20 JST
SHANGHAI -- Beijing SinoHytec, China's largest fuel cell maker, is struggling to find its way in the world's largest electric vehicle market, with languid passenger car sales forcing a shift to commercial trucks and buses.
Sales for a fuel cell vehicle it developed with Chinese state-owned automaker Changan Automobile have been close to nonexistent a year after the model was launched.
"The fuel cell vehicle was developed to demonstrate our company's technical capabilities. We do not sell it here," said a representative at a Changan dealership in Shanghai.
A version of the Changan Deep Blue SL03 was marketed as China's first mass-produced fuel cell sedan, which uses an electric motor that draws from a fuel cell powered by hydrogen. But its high price, 699,900 yuan ($98,000), and a lack of hydrogen fueling stations has made it a hard sell.
Not a single fuel cell passenger car was sold in China for six consecutive months through May, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Even in August 2022, immediately after the Changan sedan went on the market, only 120 fuel cell vehicles were sold. Electric vehicle sales in China have exceeded 600,000 units in a month.
SinoHytec's net loss for the fiscal year ended December 2022 stood at 166 million yuan, exceeding the previous year's 162 million yuan loss.
"We told customers that they should buy fuel cell vehicles because it's a clean energy that only emits water. That was a mistake," said Dai Wei, president of SinoHytec subsidiary Shanghai SinoFuelCell.
The company now hopes to leverage fuel cell vehicles' advantages over standard EVs, such as shorter charging times, longer cruising ranges and the ability to maintain performance even at low temperatures, to sell fuel cells for commercial vehicles like trucks and buses. Fuel cell vehicles are also lighter than EVs and can carry more cargo.
SinoHytec was China's top supplier of fuel cells in 2022, accounting for 20% of the market, according to Sinolink Securities. It provided fuel cell buses for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with Toyota Motor and China's state-owned BAIC Group.
China's Refire, which is second in the domestic market, has delivered fuel cell trucks to Swedish furniture chain IKEA and 49-tonne fuel cell trucks to U.S. construction machinery maker Caterpillar.
Commercial vehicles present an opportunity for growth. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, about 300,000 commercial EVs were sold in 2022, 9.2% of all commercial vehicles. Fuel cell vehicle commercial sales were only 3,681 units, 0.1% of the total.
"By 2025, 7.5% of heavy-duty trucks will be replaced by alternative fuel vehicles, 25% of which will be fuel cell vehicles," said an analyst at Sinolink Securities. Alternative fuel vehicles include EVs, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles.
Fuel cell trucks are more cost efficient than other electric vehicles. The cost of operating a 49-tonne truck 1 million kilometers is 2.94 million yuan, compared with 3.23 million yuan for a standard electric vehicle, according to the Sinolink analyst. Fuel cell vehicles cost 0.07 yuan per tonne per km, while the figure for other EVs is 0.08 yuan.
A major contributing factor to the low total cost is generous government subsidies. A 49-tonne truck priced at 1.3 million yuan will be given subsidies of 924,000 yuan from the central and local governments, bringing the purchase price down to just 376,000 yuan. An EV truck of the same size is said to cost 989,000 yuan.
The Chinese government is pushing the spread of fuel cells to help achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, setting a target of 50,000 fuel cell vehicles in the country by 2025. The government hopes the shift will help reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 1 million to 2 million tonnes.
SinoHytec's current customers are mainly public bus companies controlled by local governments, and management is closely related to national policy.
"Graphite, which is the main raw material for fuel cells, is extremely cheap. More expensive platinum can be recycled, and if the cells are mass-produced, costs can be greatly reduced," said Shanghai SinoFuelCell's Dai.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/China-s-fuel-cell-vehicle-push-stalls-out-amid-EV-boom