Chunhydrogen electric vehicles are becoming another important path to promote the electrification of new energy commercial vehicles outside pure electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

On October 23, Geely Yuan Cheng and Yinhe Innovation Capital announced that they have recently completed the signing of the first industrial mother fund cooperation agreement for chunhydrogen electric vehicles. According to the agreement, Geely Yuan Cheng and Yinhe Innovation Capital under Yinhe Securities will cooperate as the main contributors to establish the first industrial mother fund for chunhydrogen electric vehicles, with a total size of 2 billion yuan. The fund will mainly focus on investments in the upstream and downstream industry chain of methanol preparation, methanol refueling, promotion of chunhydrogen electric vehicles, and chunhydrogen ecology.

"Developing chunhydrogen electric vehicles is the best way to change China's energy status quo." In the view of senior executives in Yun Cheng's new energy commercial vehicles division, chunhydrogen electric vehicles, based on electrification, use methanol as a liquid hydrogen to directly replace traditional hydrogen fuel cell systems for power generation. This achieves a more convenient and economically practical upgrade to the charging and energy replenishment methods of pure electric vehicles. "For Chinese companies, developing chunhydrogen electric vehicles is a major opportunity for transformation and upgrading, high-quality development, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises with huge business opportunities."

Under the leadership of the 'dual carbon' goals, the green and low-carbon transformation of China's transportation industry has become an important part of the national strategy. Due to its wide sources of production, huge economic scale, and sustainable development of the entire industry chain, methanol is considered by the industry as an effective substitute for oil, natural gas, and other energy sources. Chunhydrogen vehicles can be seen as an 'extended range version' of methanol vehicles. Public information shows that chunhydrogen electric vehicles have begun to be promoted and used in multiple provinces and cities in China, with local governments in places like Shanxi, Guizhou, and Zhejiang providing policy support in terms of vehicle purchases, driving rights, road access, refueling stations, and more.

"Especially in northern China, chunhydrogen electric vehicles are the best solution for the new energy path of automobiles." The aforementioned senior executives of Yun Cheng stated that Geely Yuan Cheng's new energy commercial vehicles have initially deployed 200 chunhydrogen electric buses in Daqing, Heilongjiang. They will further promote the chunhydrogen electric vehicles in terms of overall format layout in manufacturing, refueling, finance, insurance, and other areas.

In addition, commercial vehicle and parts enterprises including Sinotruk, Shacman Heavy Duty Truck, FAW Jiefang, Weichai, and Yuchai have entered the chunhydrogen vehicle market one after another. In September, Beiben Heavy Duty Truck signed a cooperation agreement with Yulin Mining Group for the development of chunhydrogen plug-in hybrid extended-range traction trucks, and the two sides will jointly conduct research and development on chunhydrogen plug-in hybrid extended-range traction trucks.

Policy support is one of the reasons attracting companies to accelerate the marketization of chunhydrogen vehicles. Since this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Finance have successively issued documents focusing on the scrappage renewal of old operating trucks, urban buses, and other vehicles, introducing a series of subsidy implementation details for the replacement of old vehicles with new ones. These policies are accelerating the green transformation of the commercial vehicle industry.

On October 18th, based on the "Guidance on the Application of Methanol Vehicles in Some Regions" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and eight other departments, the Heilongjiang Industry and Information Technology Department released the "Several Policy Measures for Promoting the Application of Methanol Vehicles (Draft for Soliciting Opinions)". It mentioned supporting methanol vehicle manufacturers to declare the announcement of new methanol vehicle models. For newly listed vehicle products in the national "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products", manufacturers that reach a certain production quantity will be rewarded up to a maximum of 2 million yuan for a single methanol vehicle model, with an annual maximum reward of 5 million yuan per enterprise. In addition, according to the national policies supporting replacing old vehicles with new ones and scrapping old operating trucks, subsidies will be provided to users who purchase methanol vehicles for scrapping passenger and commercial vehicles. Cities and regions are encouraged to provide one-time consumer subsidies for methanol passenger and commercial vehicles. Methanol vehicles included in the new energy vehicle management system will enjoy equal road rights as new energy vehicles. Relevant policies on subsidies for high-speed tolls for methanol vehicles will be researched and formulated in accordance with the law and regulations.

In August of this year, the Ministry of Transportation and the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Implementation Rules for Subsidies on Scrapping and Renewing Old Operating Ships in Transportation", providing subsidy policies for newly built ships using methanol as a single fuel with a substitution rate of over 50%, and methanol and fuel dual-fuel ships. According to incomplete statistics from reporters, as of early September, national ministries and local governments have issued over 30 policy documents supporting the promotion and application of methanol-hydrogen vehicles.

"If methanol-hydrogen electric vehicles account for 5% of commercial vehicles (based on an annual output of 4 million vehicles), it could promote the revenue of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain, generating a market value of over 10 billion yuan annually." Shi Jianhua, Vice Secretary-General of the China Electric Vehicles Hundred People's Association, optimistically expressed that methanol-hydrogen vehicles have broad market prospects.

Zhao Kai, Chief Representative of the Global Methanol Industry Association in China, predicts that by 2030, global renewable methanol production capacity will reach 27 million tons, with China playing an important role, potentially accounting for half of the global capacity.