China sets sight on leapfrogging US and Japan in fuel-cell vehicles with subsidies for buyers and incentives for charging stations
- Buyers in 17 provinces will get subsidies of up to 160,000 yuan per fuel-cell vehicle this year while local authorities in 10 cities will hand out incentives of up to 4 million yuan toward the construction of every refuelling station
- The Chinese government is aiming to put a million fuel-cell vehicles on the roads by 2030, from 50,000 in 2025 and last year’s 1,791 units, more ambitious than plans outlined by Japan or in the US state of California
China’s government has set its sight on fuel-cell vehicles as the next growth engine in the world’s largest automobile market, as it aims to catch up with the United States and Japan in cutting emissions and taking the next giant leap in technology.
Buyers in 17 Chinese provinces will get subsidies of between 128,000 yuan and 160,000 yuan (US$22,000) per fuel-cell passenger car this year, while commercial vans and trucks get between 192,000 yuan and 400,000 yuan each, according to the Ministry of Finance. Local authorities in 10 cities have announced that they would hand out incentives of between 2 million yuan and 4 million yuan toward the construction of every refuelling station, following an April edict by China’s cabinet, according to an August report by Citic Securities.
The incentives form part of China’s plan to leapfrog the US and Japan in automotive technology, using the advantage of a market that sells more vehicles than any other nation on earth. The world’s number of fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) jumped 80 per cent to 12,900 units last year, with 46 per cent of them in the US, followed by 23 per cent in Japan and 14 per cent in China, according to the International Energy Agency.
The Chinese government is aiming to put a million fuel-cell vehicles on the roads by 2030, from 50,000 in 2025 and last year’s 1,791 units, more ambitious than the plans outlined by Japan or in the US state of California. Still, China’s ambitious goal pales in comparison to South Korea, which aims to have 1.8 million hydrogen-powered vehicles in service by 2030, with 80,000 units in 2023.
Hydrogen fuel cells could meet 18 per cent of global energy demand by 2050, creating a US$2.5 trillion market for hydrogen and fuel cell equipment, and contributing a fifth of the carbon emission abatement needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, projected the Hydrogen Council, an international body backed by 60 firms.
“FCVs are currently at a similar stage of development as electric vehicles in 2013 and 2014, when the entire supply chain saw explosive growth thanks to a top-down government policymaking process,” TF Securities’ said in a note in April.