When the 2022 Beijing Olympics begin on February 4th, it will be the first Olympic event to be carbon neutral. It is the world’s largest demonstration of hydrogen and fuel cell technology, with over 1,000 vehicles in service and over 30 hydrogen refueling stations.
According to the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, manufacturers such as Beiqi Foton Motor and Geely’s commercial vehicle brand, Farizon, donated 816 commercial cars.
Farizon is said to have donated 80 Interstellar Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus C12Fs for the event, as well as a full-time on-site support crew consisting of R&D engineers, service engineers, and supply chain engineers for efficient vehicle operations.
Toyota has also provided 140 second-generation Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the event. The second-generation Mirai is being employed on a wider scale in China for the first time, and 212 of the 515 buses are fitted with a Toyota hydrogen fuel cell technology.
Toyota, the BAIC Group, and SinoHytec — a Chinese company specialising in hydrogen fuel cell engine research, development, and industrialization – collaborated on the system.
Trucks were among the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Zhilan Automobile’s 4.5T hydrogen fuel cell logistic trucks were specially designed for the Beijing Olympics.
Sinotruk also gave the Chinese Olympic team with the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell truck with a waxing trailer.
Diesel Vehicles replaced by Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles
In the future, hydrogen will play a role in the transition to clean energy and carbon neutrality. The relationship will be similar to that of today’s gasoline and diesel-powered cars, with gasoline being used mostly in mass-market passenger vehicles and diesel being used primarily in commercial and heavy-duty vehicles.
Toshihiro Mibe, Honda’s CEO, also reaffirmed that the majority of the company’s next mass-market passenger and compact vehicles will be electric, with hydrogen used for long-range commercial and heavy vehicles.
Hydrogen fuel cells, on the other hand, will be different from the appropriate hydrogen combustion used to power autos, which Toyota has been testing recently.
China has come a long way from three hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to 196 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, with over 1,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Following the Olympics, these hydrogen fuel cell cars will be employed to serve the public in Beijing and Hebei via various public transportation networks, and the popularity of hydrogen-fueled buses in China is expected to rise as a result of the ongoing demonstration.
Furthermore, 16 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shandong, Hebei, Tianjin, Sichuan, Zhejiang, and Ningxia, have already announced plans to expand hydrogen energy, and China’s hydrogen fuel cell car fleet is expected to grow from 7,352 in 2020 to 100,000 in 2025.
The market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is expected to reach 80 billion RMB ($12 billion USD) by 2025, according to the China Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Report released in 2020.
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