On December 6, the Financial Association reported (Reporter Zhang Yipeng) that as the domestic hydrogen energy industry accelerates towards the end of 2024, hydrogen engines at the vehicle end are frequently "ignited", injecting new power into the continuous development of the hydrogen energy track.

On December 5, the CA6HV3 hydrogen engine, independently developed by faw jiefang group, was released as the country's first heavy commercial vehicle with direct injection hydrogen fuel engine. Half a month earlier, on November 14, a six-month demonstration running of hydrogen internal combustion engines began, covering a route of 35 kilometers with 8 vehicles and engines participating, including passenger vehicles from GAC and Geely, commercial vehicles from faw jiefang, sinotruk, and dongfeng liuqi, as well as hydrogen internal combustion engines from weichai, yuchai, and others. Among them, GAC's independently developed and globally first model equipped with the Jiulang hydrogen hybrid system, the GAC New Energy E9 hydrogen hybrid version, was included.

Hydrogen internal combustion engines are referred to by industry insiders as the "third technological route" following pure electric and hydrogen fuel cells, and the advancement speed of this technological route in the supplier field is also notable. Recently, Zhongzi Technology announced that it has received development point notifications for three new hydrogen fuel cell engines and will become its catalyst designated development supplier. Bosch Hydrogen Power, zhejiang founder motor, and kunming yunnei power also recently announced their latest progress in the hydrogen energy field, focusing on "hydrogen internal combustion engines."

Hydrogen internal combustion engines can be understood as filling the cylinder with hydrogen, which burns and works within the cylinder. It is widely believed that hydrogen internal combustion engines are essentially internal combustion engines that, through upgrading existing mass-produced internal combustion engines, achieve "low cost" while avoiding the "high cost" disadvantages of hydrogen fuel cells, and by combining with lithium batteries, they can also somewhat solve range issues caused by low efficiency through hybrid modes. In August this year, faw jiefang released its latest hydrogen energy product—the Jiefang Lantu "Xingyi" hydrogen engine tractor, which features an independently developed 15L hydrogen engine and characteristics of high adaptability, high power, high reliability, low cost, and low emissions.

However, at this stage, many hydrogen internal combustion engine products still have shortcomings such as "low thermal efficiency." When faw jiefang launched the CA6HV3 hydrogen engine, it emphasized that this model's thermal efficiency can achieve the level of "domestic first."

"As one of the practical scenarios for hydrogen energy utilization, although hydrogen internal combustion engines still have shortcomings, many industries in their early development depend on support from national and local government policies, and so does the hydrogen energy field, including hydrogen internal combustion engines." An industry insider stated that as of October this year, the demonstration scale of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China has reached 0.015 million units, setting a new high for the industrial scale.

On December 4, the Guangzhou Municipal People's Government Office released a notice on issuing several measures to accelerate the high-quality development of the hydrogen energy industry. The notice mentioned that for manufacturing projects with total investments of over 1 billion yuan in the hydrogen energy industry, the municipal finance will provide a matching support of 1:1 based on a universal investment reward for the new actual fixed asset investment amount at the provincial level, not exceeding 2%. For projects with project initiation investment or total investment of 0.1 billion to 1 billion yuan in the hydrogen energy industry, a funding reward of 1% of the total fixed asset investment amount in the year after the project begins construction will be given, with a maximum cumulative reward amount of no more than 10 million yuan per project.

According to incomplete statistics from the Financial Association reporters, in the past six months, many regions have released supportive policies for the hydrogen energy industry, including peking, sichuan, hunan, chengdu, shenzhen, and hong kong.

In March of this year, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration clearly stated that hydrogen energy is a key component of the future national energy system and outlined the mid- to long-term development goals for the hydrogen energy industry. In this context, the parallel development of both hydrogen fuel cell energy and hydrogen internal combustion engine technologies will facilitate the achievement of these planning objectives, the industry insiders analyzed.

Citic sec stated in its latest research report that in 2024, policies will continue to drive the development of hydrogen energy: The Energy Law clarifies the energy status of hydrogen energy; green transition and energy-saving carbon reduction programs promote the full chain development of hydrogen energy 'production, storage, transportation', and are expected to accelerate the application of hydrogen energy in the industrial sector; relevant policies related to high-speed hydrogen energy are likely to expedite the development of the hydrogen energy vehicle industry chain. It is anticipated that by 2025, the aforementioned policies will continue to form a synergistic effect, catalyzing new applications and business models, and driving the rapid development of FCEV and green hydrogen industry chains. For this reason, Citic sec maintains a 'stronger than the market' rating for the hydrogen energy industry.