The fuel cell vehicle industry chain is divided into three main links: complete vehicles, fuel cells, and hydrogen supply systems. Overall, China has no shortage of vehicle manufacturers, and there is also a surplus of fuel cell systems and stack layouts. , the biggest bottlenecks are core components and gas supply.
01 Complete vehicle: The bus market capacity is limited, and freight vehicles pursue cost-effectiveness
Different from the passenger car market equipped with pure electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles in China are mainly commercial vehicles market. Passenger cars where lithium batteries enter are consumer goods, and consumers may choose new brands because of fashion and trends, which is the core of the success of the Tesla brand; commercial vehicles are divided into passenger cars and freight logistics vehicles, among which, the passenger car market accounts for Nearly half of the buses belong to the government procurement market, which has strong regional monopoly characteristics and is a starting point for the government to support the development of new energy vehicles. However, the overall market capacity is not large; rather, logistics trucks are the means of production, and customers value them more. Cost-effective and highly marketable.
In 2019, the cumulative sales of products over 5 meters in the Chinese passenger car industry nationwide were 175,052 units. Road vehicle sales accounted for 45.8% of the total industry volume, achieving sales of 80,168 units, and buses accounted for 47.6%, achieving sales of 83,405 units, achieving sales 11,479 vehicles. In other words, the parts that local governments can purchase independently are mainly these more than 80,000 buses.
New energy buses are a project for local governments to attract investment. However, if a new energy vehicle company is positioned as a county-level enterprise, it will correspond to the county’s bus market; if it is positioned as an enterprise cultivated by a prefecture-level city, it will Once the bus business in the local area is completed, it will be almost done; unless it is positioned as a key provincial enterprise, it can operate buses for the entire province.
It can be seen from the sales ranking of new energy buses in 2019 that although new energy has indeed cultivated some new brands, it is difficult to achieve scale by relying on government procurement of tens of thousands of vehicles, not to mention Yutong’s strong It has completely occupied the position of the leading electric bus company, leaving the new electric buses with almost no story to tell.
We have noticed that in the golden decade of domestic electric vehicle development, in the field of passenger cars, passenger cars such as NIO, Li Auto, and Xpeng Motors have been launched one after another, but no commercial electric vehicle has been independently launched. In a passenger car market with a total market value of less than 80 billion, traditional car companies occupy an absolute market share, leaving little room for imagination for new companies. Moreover, the industry has begun to adjust since 2017. The production capacity of the passenger car industry is very sufficient, and some local governments The supported new energy buses were once popular, but most of them have disappeared in a few years.
Operating income of domestic passenger car listed companies
Judging from the current domestic vehicles equipped with fuel cells, in addition to the "internal circulation" model formed in Guangdong Province, the local licensed Mercedes-Benz vehicles In other regions, domestic brand commercial vehicles still have obvious advantages in terms of the number and effect of matching. At present, fuel cell companies are more likely to choose to cooperate with traditional buses such as Yutong Bus, Zhongtong Bus, King Long Bus, and Foton Motor.
Freight logistics vehicles are a market nearly 10 times larger than passenger commercial vehicles. In 2019, my country's truck sales reached 3.85 million units, a year-on-year increase of 0.91, and the total sales of medium and heavy-duty trucks were 1.313 million units. Among them, 1.174 million were heavy trucks and 139,000 were medium trucks. The cumulative sales of medium and heavy trucks accounted for 34.1% of the total truck market. (The fuel cell power requirements for subsidies in lieu of awards this time do not seem to cover the volume of light vehicles.)
China’s commercial vehicle market sales structure chart by model in 2019
And freight trucks are produced Information, customers are highly sensitive to cost performance, and it is a highly market-oriented sub-industry. We found that after more than 50 years of development, China's heavy-duty trucks currently have the highest market shares of Jiefang, Dongfeng and Sinotruk, and these are precisely the three earliest vehicles in my country's automobile industry.
From January to October 2020, the cumulative sales volume of my country’s heavy truck market reached 1.365 million units.
The company with the largest sales volume is still FAW Jiefang, with cumulative sales reaching 351,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 40%, and a market share of approximately 25.8%; followed by Dongfeng Motor, with cumulative sales reaching 259,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 31%, and a market share of 19%. ; Ranking third is China National Heavy Duty Truck, with cumulative sales of 218,700 units, a year-on-year increase of 45, and a market share of 16; the cumulative sales of heavy trucks of the above three car companies accounted for more than 60%
2010 2019 Mainstream Heavy Truck Market Share statistics
In recent years, only two construction machinery companies, Sany Heavy Industry and Xugong Machinery, have seen an increase in their heavy truck market share. Jiefang, Dongfeng, China National Heavy Duty Truck and Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck (including China National Heavy Duty Truck and Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck) Automobile (all owned by Shanggong Group) has occupied an absolute market share.
Vehicle companies have high output value, but investment is also very large. It is an asset-heavy industry. It is difficult to make money if it does not reach a certain scale. Therefore, the leading companies in the industry are already forming a "quality-scale" ——The virtuous cycle of "cost" leaves few opportunities for new car companies. Judging from the encouragement direction of 921 "with rewards and subsidies", it mainly emphasizes core components, business models, and application scenarios, and does not encourage the expansion of production capacity of vehicle companies.
If the world's fuel cell industry is divided into several models, Japan and South Korea are vehicle-driven models, Canada is a technology-driven model, the United States is a "technological resource integration" model, and Europe is an application model. Driven model, while China is mainly “introduced technology/talent capital driven model”.
Driven by capital, the talent team of technology-based companies is not stable. After some relevant technical personnel get the "essentials", they quickly copy new companies. We see that the technologies of many domestic fuel cell companies are almost all derived from Ballard, Dalian Institute of Physics and Chemistry or Tsinghua University.
If the first round of replication of fuel cell companies was driven by capital, then the second round of replication belongs to the regional layout of "investment in exchange for market". Local governments are more inclined to local supporting enterprises and use subsidies as a means to attract investment.
At present, domestic fuel cells are still in the trial operation stage, and it is difficult to distinguish between them in terms of technical level. More companies are gaining market opportunities through resource integration. Fuel cell companies have to operate in more than two countries and some even in 3. 4 city layouts. By entering the keyword "fuel cell" into "Chatianyan", there are 8,310 related companies. The number of active fuel cell entrepreneurs currently even exceeds that of internal combustion engines. A core materials company said that during the application process for the "reward instead of subsidy" demonstration city cluster, 50 fuel cell companies signed cooperation agreements with them alone.
After more than 20 years of development, Chinese fuel cell companies have formed three lineups: The first lineup is professional fuel cell system or stack companies, such as Shenli Technology/Yihuatong and Guohong Hydrogen/ There are dozens of listed companies including Reshape Technology, Xinyuan Power, Jiangsu Qingneng, Shanghai Panye, Wuhan Hydrogen, Hydrogen, Hydrotech, Himalaya, etc. Currently, many listed companies have stakes in fuel cell companies; the second lineup It is the layout of the entire automobile industry chain. For example, behind Shanghai Jie Hydrogen is SAIC Motor, behind Weishi Energy is Great Wall Motors, behind Weichai Ballard is Shanggong Group, etc., as well as Dongfeng Motor, which has returned to the A-share Science and Technology Innovation Board to raise funds. 1.3 billion of the project is used for fuel cell research and development; the third lineup comes from upstream energy companies, such as State Power Investment Corporation, Shanghai Electric, Dongfang Electric, etc. have also entered the field of fuel cells, because fuel cells can not only be used for transportation, but also As other power sources, it is also a natural new energy business for energy companies.
Comparing fuel commercial vehicles, vehicle manufacturers generally do not make internal combustion engines. Instead, there are professional internal combustion engine companies such as Weichai Power and Yuchai Power. Now, vehicle companies and upstream energy companies are entering the market. For fuel cells, active fuel cell companies have a production capacity of 5,000 or even 20,000 units. It is estimated that the current production capacity will be able to meet the demand in 2025.
At present, instead of purchasing fuel cells for complete vehicles, fuel cell companies find application scenarios and invite complete vehicle companies to bid together. In other words, many fuel cell system and stack companies are not selling to OEMs. But on the application side, demand is created through scene design on the application side. Fuel cell system and stack companies are not only competing for product development capabilities and cost control capabilities, but also resource integration capabilities.
Domestic fuel cells have extended from systems and stacks upstream to core components. Part of it is the anticipation of domestic market demand that has attracted relevant professionals, and part of it is the business expansion of stack and system companies. It mainly includes catalysts, membrane electrodes, bipolar plates, etc. Only key materials such as carbon paper, proton exchange membrane and platinum have higher thresholds.
Another problem in this industry chain is the pressure on funds. The downstream pressures the upstream funds, and the further upstream you go, the less advantage you have. An expert in the industry said that it takes 50 million to start a system, 100 million to make a stack, and 150 million to make a membrane electrode. From the perspective of maturity, the domestic system is equivalent to the Pre-IPO stage, the stack is equivalent to the PE stage, and the membrane electrode is equivalent to the VC stage.
Further upstream, there are proton exchange membranes, carbon paper, catalysts, etc. At present, proton exchange membranes have made breakthroughs, but it is very difficult to copy. Several companies are making catalysts, but carbon paper still relies on imports.
At present, the investment intensity of upstream core materials such as platinum metal, resin, and carbon fiber for gas cylinders is very high, and the technical threshold is high. Moreover, related companies not only serve the hydrogen energy market, but are not suitable for ordinary Private capital has entered; the relatively mature and affordable sectors are crowded. Unless you have core technology, the investment space in fuel cells is shrinking.
03 Hydrogen supply system: In the gas era of energy, resource integration and technological innovation are both equally important
If we determine that fuel cells are the future development trend, in the hydrogen energy industry chain, the entire vehicle should is the fuel/natural gas vehicle market, and fuel cells correspond to the fuel/gas engine market (the future purchase cost will not be higher than that of fuel engines), then hydrogen corresponds to the huge oil and natural gas market, even if it is three points with fuel vehicles and electric vehicles In the world, for fuel cell vehicles, the biggest market space is definitely not the fuel cell, but the huge gas supply market. If we are more radical and regard hydrogen energy as the ultimate energy source, it means that there will be new "three barrels of oil" and "seven sisters" in the hydrogen energy supply system.
Just as investors are collectively focusing on fuel cells, the world's three largest gas companies, Germany's Linde, France's Air Liquide and the United States' AP, have quietly deployed hydrogen supply systems around the world.
Three gas companies have begun large-scale hydrogen supply system layout in China:
Linde has participated in the construction of many hydrogen refueling stations in China and worked with Baowu Group, CNOOC Energy Group, Zibo Energy Group, etc. signed a strategic cooperation agreement to lay out the hydrogen operation business;
Air Liquide and Houpu Co., Ltd. established a joint venture to seize the hydrogen refueling station business in China, and cooperated with Yanzhou Coal Industry and Sinopec signed a strategic cooperation agreement to carry out hydrogen operation business;
The US AP company has quietly deployed in China Jiaxing, Zhejiang (serving the Yangtze River Delta), Zhangjiakou, Hebei (serving Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei), Chengdu, Sichuan ( Serving the southwest region), Huizhou Daya Bay (serving the Pearl River Delta), and multiple bases in Zibo, Shandong, basically covering the key areas for hydrogen energy development in China.
From hydrogen production, transportation, hydrogen refueling stations and on-board hydrogen storage and supply systems, every link is not as simple as coal mining or oil extraction, and the consistent goals that have been formed with fuel cells are also Differently, all aspects of the hydrogen supply system are more reflected in solutions, which require both scientific and technological capabilities and resource integration. At present, the domestic price of hydrogen at the station is as high as 80 yuan/kg and as low as 28 yuan/kg.
Technically, storage and transportation involving low-temperature and high-pressure capabilities have very high requirements for pipelines, valves and materials. There are different solutions for different gas sources and different application scenarios. How to use transportation methods And system design to reduce the operating costs of fuel cell vehicles is the mission of the gas supply side, and it is also a huge business opportunity.
The world's energy has experienced an era from being dominated by solid energy to being dominated by liquid energy. It is currently experiencing an era from being dominated by liquid energy to being dominated by gas energy.
Major energy companies in the world and domestic energy companies are seeking transformation and upgrading. SDIC Power, PetroChina, Sinopec, Yanzhou Coal, Dongfang Electric Group, Shanghai Electric Group, CIMC Enric, etc. will Business extension to hydrogen energy.
However, another change is that in the process of transformation from the energy resource era to the technology era, the energy monopoly pattern is transitioning from resource monopoly to technology monopoly. In this era, the management and operation of gas energy is a much larger market than that of fuel cells. As the cost of the entire industry chain continues to decline, hydrogen supply systems and fuel cells also require technological innovation.
In the past, gas energy was not underutilized because it was scarce, but because it was too difficult to obtain. The large-scale application of gas energy means a substantial improvement in storage and transportation equipment and gas supply system technology.
Hydrogen management involves many cutting-edge technologies, and there is huge room for innovation in hydrogen production, storage and transportation, materials, transportation, pipelines, valves and other aspects. At present, domestic military technologies such as liquid hydrogen technology, testing technology, material technology, and fluid technology from China Aerospace and China General Nuclear Power Corporation are entering the fuel cell gas supply system. Hydrogen energy provides a very good industrial platform for military-civilian conversion.
Taking hydrogen energy for vehicles as an example, there is little chance that the entire vehicle will be replaced on the manufacturing side. New investment opportunities are in fuel cells and supporting systems; on the energy side, traditional energy companies can already provide services, but their technological capabilities and solutions will replace resource monopolies, and there are a lot of investment opportunities here.