The environmental field may become the key direction of the development of commercial vehicle electrification

"According to the "China Mobile Source Environmental Management Annual Report (2022)" and related research estimates, the nitrogen oxides, fine particulate matter, and carbon dioxide emissions of commercial vehicles account for a prominent proportion of all types of vehicles. On November 28, 2023, Wu Rui, director of the Environmental Resources Institute of the Planning and Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said at the "Towards Zero Emission Transportation Forum 2023 - and the Annual Conference of the China Clean Transportation Partnership (CCTP)" hosted by the China Clean Transportation Partnership (CCTP). Therefore, it is imperative to promote the zero-emission transition of commercial vehicles.

The picture shows the meeting site.

So, what is the path of pollution reduction and carbon reduction of commercial vehicles, what is the key direction of the development of commercial vehicle electrification, and what is the development situation of zero-carbon logistics system in megacities and the practice of hydrogen energy transformation? A series of important questions need to be answered urgently.

Municipal sanitation road cleaning, medium and long-distance garbage collection and transportation, etc., may be the key directions of the recent development of commercial vehicle electrification

There are many types of commercial vehicles, including buses, trucks, special operation vehicles, special purpose vehicles and other types. Wu Rui, director of the Environmental Resources Institute of the Planning and Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said: "The path of pollution reduction is the integration of "vehicle-oil-road-enterprise": that is, to reduce the activity level of diesel trucks guided by the adjustment of transportation structure; to reduce the emission level of fuel transportation equipment with fuel economy, emission standards, oil quality and engine technology as the starting point; to promote the transformation of the energy structure of transportation equipment with new energy and clean energy substitution as the source; to achieve the standard of diesel vehicles in use with the support of treatment technology and vehicle supervision in use; Focusing on transportation enterprises, strengthen the main responsibility of clean transportation. The path to carbon reduction is deep decarbonization of energy consumption and intelligent and efficient transportation. ”

From a practical point of view, what is the current situation of electrification in commercial vehicle application scenarios?

Qin Lanzhi, a senior researcher at the Clean Transportation Project of the Energy and Transportation Innovation Center, told reporters: "The electrification evaluation of the short-dumped transportation scene operating in closed scenarios such as ports and mines, the special engineering scene of construction waste such as urban construction muck, the municipal sanitation scene of short-distance operation and the urban distribution logistics scene is ranked highest, which is more consistent with the current market development of electric commercial vehicles." The scores of the road cleaning scene of municipal sanitation, the medium and long-distance garbage collection and transportation scene, the concrete mixing in the special project and the cold chain transportation in urban logistics are in the sub-optimal echelon, which can be regarded as the key direction of the recent development of commercial vehicle electrification, and also a design direction and force point of the policy. The scenarios that are relatively low in the ranking are mainly the use of heavy-duty vehicles or traction vehicles, and there is a lack of clear policy incentives, such as trunk logistics and transportation scenarios. Judging from the scores of individual indicators, the TCO of electric vehicles in these scenarios is about 5 years on par with that of fuel models, and there is almost no cost advantage at present. At the same time, the scores of indicators such as the optional model index and the continuous operation index are at the bottom of all scenarios, indicating that the resistance to the development of electric vehicles in the near future is still large in these scenarios. In the future, more diversified alternatives can be sought, such as the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. ”

With 17.6 tonnes of materials per capita per capita in Beijing, how to solve the problem of reducing pollution and carbon emissions in the freight sector?

Wang Pingxi, deputy director of the Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction Center of the Beijing Transportation Development Research Institute, told reporters: "Taking Beijing as an example, the Beijing Transportation Development Research Institute has checked and subdivided the materials and freight situation based on the urban multi-source data fusion and freight model, and the total supply and demand of materials in a year is 490 million tons, of which 370 million tons of materials need to be transported by the freight system, 17.6 tons per capita per year." In order to meet the demand for material circulation, each city has built a freight system. ”

From a national point of view, although the proportion of freight vehicles is low, but the contribution of pollutant emissions is high, trucks with 9.5% of motor vehicles accounted for 65% of carbon dioxide, 85% of NOx, so the material circulation system, especially the zero emission of freight links, has received great attention.

Therefore, Wang Pingxi believes: "Emission reduction and pollution control have become new development goals in addition to the stable supply of materials, cost reduction and efficiency increase in megacities." ”

It is reported that the state and local governments attach great importance to the management of trucks, and have successively improved the emission standards of vehicles and oil products, piloted a series of energy-saving and emission reduction technical measures, accelerated the elimination of old vehicles, and implemented transportation structure adjustment and energy structure optimization, and gradually realized the transformation from high pollution and high emissions to zero emissions. At the same time, the zero-emission transformation path of freight is gradually clear, the core of which is to build a cargo transportation system based on green energy based on electric energy, and the road transport part is the new energy of trucks, and the current new energy process of freight vehicles lags significantly behind that of passenger cars, and the electrification path of light trucks is basically clear, and hydrogen energy is being practiced as a technical route for the zero-emission transformation of medium and heavy trucks.

At present, in 2020, the five national departments will jointly launch the fuel cell vehicle demonstration city agglomeration. By the end of 2022, a total of 12,000 fuel cell vehicles have been promoted across the country, of which more than 7,000 are in three urban agglomerations, accounting for about 60%, and the three major hydrogen energy industry clusters have initially formed a situation of competition and cooperation. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration has carried out the application practice of hydrogen fuel cell trucks in six application scenarios: general cargo materials, cold chain materials, production raw materials, construction waste, industrial products, and concrete mixing, and has initially shown the potential as a zero-emission transformation solution for medium and heavy-duty trucks.

In addition, Wang believes that the practice of hydrogen energy freight also faces some challenges, including the need to release high-quality application scenarios to verify new technology products, the need to accelerate the improvement of product technology and economy, the insufficient supply of hydrogen sources, and the difficulty of ensuring the stable supply of hydrogen energy.