More Than 3 Billion R & D Investment: SAIC Raced To The New Race Track Of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

The enthusiasm of automobile companies to invest in the field of hydrogen fuel cells continues.

On the afternoon of September 13, Wang Xiaoqiu, President of SAIC Group, announced the company's "hydrogen strategy" - SAIC declared that this was the first hydrogen strategy in China's automobile industry.

SAIC's hydrogen strategy can be summarized as "10 million". Specifically, in the next five years, i.e. before 2025, at least 10 fuel cell vehicle products will be launched, and SAIC jiehydrogen Technology (a high-tech enterprise providing fuel cell products and engineering services under SAIC Group) will reach 10 billion market value, establish a fuel cell R & D and operation team with more than 1000 people, and form a production and sales scale of 10000 fuel cell vehicles, with a market share of 10% above.

From the development of SAIC Group and even the whole industry, the above strategic planning is not without optimism. Although the Chinese automobile companies and upstream and downstream companies represented by the above automobile have been working in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for many years, the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is far from coming.

Take the most intuitive sales scale as an example. In the past five years, the total sales volume of all hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China was only more than 6000, and the performance of a single enterprise was even worse. Even SAIC, which was in a relatively advanced position, failed to break the situation. On September 13, LAN Qingsong, vice president of SAIC, told reporters of the 21st century economic report that the current sales volume of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is only 100.

In recent years, it is difficult to complete the construction of hydrogen refueling station without high cost of commercial facilities. "(hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) are not expected to see a real big development until 2030." LAN Qingsong said. But he also pointed out: "but this process we still have to go on."

As the first automobile enterprise to carry out fuel cell technology research and development in China, SAIC Group has invested more than 3 billion yuan in this field. It is as huge as SAIC, which is also a lot of money - this is just R & D investment. More funds will be needed in the field of R & D of 10 new models.

How much investment is needed to promote the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? The investment of individual enterprises will vary according to their strategic orientation, but the reference is Hyundai Motor, which plans to invest another $6.7 billion in this technology in the next 10 years. Of course, the stage of modern automobile in this field is different from that of domestic enterprises. This year, it plans to promote more than 10000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in South Korea.

It looks like another big gamble. For auto companies, the bet on forward-looking technology is the key strategy to determine the future fate, while SAIC is not willing to let go of any possible breakthrough point.

Production and sales of 10000 vehicles in five years

Scale is one of the key words of SAIC's hydrogen strategy. After nearly two decades of exploration, SAIC's research and development in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has also reached a key point that needs to be broken through.

Zu Shijie, vice president and chief engineer of SAIC, said that only when the scale of "10000" is reached can the industrial chain of hydrogen energy and technology level be promoted simultaneously. At present, only Japan and South Korea have more than 10000 hydrogen energy vehicles in the world.

In order to realize the scale effect, SAIC plans "ten models in five years", covering MPV, heavy truck, light truck, bus and other fields. With an average of two new cars a year, SAIC's development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has reached an unprecedented speed. In the past decade or so, SAIC has launched four hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, of which only three have entered the market.

From this point of view, SAIC's layout in the field of hydrogen energy has also reached the accelerated stage of batch application. It is worth mentioning that while announcing its hydrogen strategy, SAIC also released the first strategic vehicle model equipped with its third generation fuel cell technology: SAIC Maxus euniq 7 fuel cell vehicle.

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