Historically, Japan has used its two industrial revolutions as a latecomer advantage, manufacturing has achieved rapid development over Europe and the United States, and its economic level has leapt to the top of the world. One of the reasons for the rise of Japanese manufacturing industry is that it has no historical burden. Because the level of technology is backward, the desire to upgrade equipment is particularly strong. In contrast, under the background of the birth of new energy engines, the situation of China's engine manufacturing industry and Japan in the third industrial revolution have the same purpose. Then, can our company seize the opportunity to make it later?
Traditional engines powered by gasoline or diesel are facing unprecedented trials.
There are indications that the threat comes from the use of new energy sources. As one of the contents of the fourth industrial revolution, the use of new energy has long been not news, but new energy is still the matter from concept to entity. At the Bibiden Challenge in Shanghai not long ago, Ford Motor launched a hydrogen engine, and Nissan Motor launched a fuel cell engine.
A few days ago, Volkswagen signed a memorandum of cooperation with Tongji University and Germany's IAV company to conduct cooperative research on fuel cell vehicle technology.
On the other hand, SAIC Group announced that it will work with its partner, General Motors, to create a hybrid bus for daily operation and explore its potential for commercialization in China.
The car is still the car, the difference is the power plant.
Environmental Protection and Energy: Double Swords Hanging
On October 28, the national standard for the “Limits on Fuel Consumption of Passenger Vehicles†was jointly issued by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Standardization Administration. This standard will be formally implemented on July 1 next year. This is the first time China has promulgated the relevant mandatory standards.
According to experts from the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, the "Limit" aims to limit large-displacement, high-fuel-consuming vehicles to reduce energy consumption.
At present, China's carbon dioxide emissions ranks second in the world, and automobile emissions have made a "significant contribution". In major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, vehicle exhaust pollution has become the main source of air pollution. Experts predict that nearly 400 cities across the country will change from coal-burning pollution to soot-vehicle hybrid pollution in 2010.
The Chinese government has introduced a series of policies and regulations that limit emissions. On July 1st this year, the State Environmental Protection Administration announced that it will implement the second phase of China's second-generation light vehicle emission standard (referred to as the "National Standard 2"), which is equivalent to the European Standard II, from now on. Beijing plans to implement an emission standard equivalent to Euro III from January 1 next year, and the standard for supporting oil used by Euro III has been finalized in the near future.
Although the government continues to raise the standard for motor vehicle emissions, the amount of motor vehicles described as "volcanic eruption" has inundated this effort.
In recent days, international oil prices have continued to rise at a high level, and the issue of China's energy security has been further highlighted.
According to data from the International Energy Agency, China consumed 5.46 million barrels of crude oil per day last year, which is higher than Japan’s daily consumption of 5.43 million barrels. Now that China has surpassed Japan, it has become the second largest oil consumer country after the United States. Beijing actively engages in global energy diplomacy in the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Russia.
This provides a footnote for China's development of engines that use new types of energy: In China, where there is more coal and less oil, oil has apparently become the lifeblood of economic development and is also a bottleneck. China began to be a pure petroleum importer 10 years ago. Experts estimate that by 2020, China’s oil supply will show a clear gap.
New Energy Engine: Starting Opportunity
Ni Hongjie, chairman of the China National Internal Combustion Engine Association, said that in terms of traditional internal combustion engine technology, especially diesel engine technology, China has fallen behind the world advanced level for 15 to 20 years. The lack of historical accumulation and the eagerness of scientific research institutions have caused domestic companies to fail to grasp the status quo of core technologies.
At present, domestic companies must cooperate with foreign countries in order to produce engines that meet Euro II or Euro III emissions. Although this saves the huge amount of money needed for research and development, the disadvantages of being controlled by others are also obvious.
New energy engines are not. Dr. Wan Gang, president of Tongji University and chief scientist of the National 863 Electric Vehicle Major Project, believes that China's development of environmentally friendly engines is only about 5 years away from the international advanced level, and some aspects may have slight advantages.
China began its research on environmental protection engines during the "Seventh Five-Year Plan" period and was successfully developed during the "Ninth Five-Year Plan" period. In 2000, the fluctuations in international oil prices depicted the real threat of the energy crisis, shocked the countries of the world, and of course also shocked the rapid economic growth of China.
In September of this year, a group of experts jointly signed a letter and proposed the development of clean energy, which was highly valued by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Since then, the state has invested huge amounts of money. During the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period, it clearly stated that manufacturing cost growth should be less than 30%, fuel consumption should be saved by more than 30%, and emissions should be reduced by more than 50%.
According to experts, the development of new energy engines has a real advantage for the Chinese engine manufacturing industry: In the traditional engine manufacturing sector, China has lost the opportunity to catch up, and in the field of new energy engines, China’s technology level and industry compared to foreign countries. The degree of change is relatively small.
History has also provided an opportunity for China's engine manufacturing to overturn: we have no historical burden on the engine manufacturing industry in developed countries.
Fuel Cell: Power Upstart
It is reported that the national 863 plan has clearly defined the key points for the development of new engines: fuel cell engines are at the top of the list, and the second is a hybrid engine. At the same time, pure electric motors are taken into consideration. FAW, FAW, SAIC, Beijing Bus Factory, Tsinghua University, and Beijing Institute of Technology each assumed various topics.
In other words, China will also develop fuel cell engines, hybrid engines and pure electric engines. Some experts questioned this approach, because the pure electric engine is zero emissions, but it will produce new pollution - battery pollution, so now developed countries will be the main force for the development of hydrogen fuel cells and hybrid power. Moreover, our country’s R&D funds are inherently limited, so that the average share is even more stretched.
Some experts believe that the direction of the development of new energy engines is not clear, so now all three roads must be tried. The pure electric engine is the technical foundation and future of the new energy engine.
Because of its high cost, long charging time, short driving distance after a charge, and battery pollution, pure electric motors have not yet achieved a major technological breakthrough. Therefore, the development of pure electric engines did not achieve the intended purpose.
The hybrid engine combines the internal combustion engine with a certain capacity of energy storage devices (mainly high-performance batteries or super capacitors), significantly reducing fuel consumption and reducing pollutant emissions. Major automobile companies generally believe that it has less investment, large choices, easy to meet future emission standards and energy-saving targets, and the market is relatively simple. Consumers are also easy to accept in terms of concepts, so they have invested a lot of their resources in research and development.
Fuel cell engines have become a new focus in recent years due to their advantages of energy saving, high conversion efficiency, no need for petroleum fuels, zero emissions, near-combustion engine performance, simple structure, and smooth operation. Nowadays, foreign business communities have formed powerful transnational alliances in order to achieve their complementary advantages. Major automobile companies in the world have successively introduced fuel cell vehicles fueled with methanol or gasoline.
Equipment Bus: Practice Testimony
Over the past 100 years, internal combustion engines and oil have played the most important role in the tremendous development of industrial civilization. However, if this model of development continues to be adopted in the future, along with the rapid growth of the world’s population, coupled with other issues such as limited fossil fuel resources, urban development, atmospheric quality, higher safety, and natural environmental protection, such The restrictions of the model will soon show up.
Professor Di Ming of the School of Automotive Engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai said that because of the high environmental protection requirements and the huge number of automobiles, the new type of power is mainly equipped on vehicles. Because of its special nature, buses have naturally become reform experimental fields.
The demonstration project for the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles in China was started in March 2003. Six fuel cell buses in Beijing and Shanghai have each been put into demonstration operations. Nowadays, among the buses that Beijing residents use, there are the most advanced vehicles equipped with new types of power – fuel cell vehicles.
The fuel cell commercialization demonstration project is jointly supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The GEF supports the development and application of fuel cell vehicles in developing countries based on its plans for sustainable transportation (the other four developing countries are Brazil, Egypt, India and Mexico).
According to reports, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Deng Nan revealed that China has formulated a roadmap for the development of environmental protection power. The first step is to promote gas power; the second step is to promote the development of hybrid power; the third step is to increase hydrogen power R&D and promote the development of battery power technology.
Next year, Shanghai's first hydrogen station will be built. Beijing is also building a hydrogen refueling station on the site.
Wan Gang believes that the key issue in the fastest industrialization of fuel cell technology is how to reduce costs through cooperation: "If we can apply the technology we have developed to the car in a market that China is deeply concerned about by the government, This can reduce manufacturing costs through mass production."
Reviews
Yang Tang Stops Boiling
The traditional engine, also known as the internal combustion engine, converts heat energy from the combustion of gasoline, diesel or natural gas into kinetic energy. Internal combustion engines are inevitably polluted due to incomplete combustion and excessive combustion temperatures. Of course, this situation is improving. Restricted emission policies have been introduced in succession, which has led us to see the hope of controlling emissions from internal combustion engines.
Then again, no matter whether it implements the country 1, country 2 or country 3 emission standards, the pollution produced by traditional engines is always inevitable, and the emission restriction policies are still being strongly impacted by economic interests. All in all, all the means to improve the pollution control of traditional engines can only be said to be boiling water.
The use of new fuels has expanded the research horizon of this issue. For example, hydrogen engines can achieve zero emissions. In this sense, the new engine to solve the emission problem is a drastic salary.
Unfortunately, at the technical level, the current manufacturing cost of engines using new fuels is still quite high. In addition, the corresponding supporting facilities are also extremely imperfect.
With regard to the former issue, as the environmental protection and energy issues become more and more severe, the comparative advantage of new-type fuel engines will emerge sooner or later. For the latter issue, we are pleased to see that it is also being solved. The hydrogen refueling stations under construction in Shanghai and Beijing have already conveyed such a message to us.
The road is tortuous and the future is bright. The new fuel engine is such a new thing, although it is still too early to promote it, but it will be a long-term focus of the engine manufacturing industry.
All kinds of new power energy
â—† Natural gas: Compared with traditional fuels, the carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas combustion are reduced by 25% to 35%, and nitrogen oxides are reduced by about 40%. At present, there are about 1 million natural gas vehicles in the world, and Argentina has the largest number.
Hydrogen: Most experts believe that hydrogen will be the most viable alternative to gasoline in the future, but the impediments to the development of hydrogen power are the need to ensure the safety of use and the availability of a highly efficient fuel addition device.
BMW became the first hydrogen-powered manufacturer in 2000. The Ford FocusH2ICE2003 hydrogen-powered prototype emits less than 99% of the CO2 emissions of gasoline vehicles and saves energy up to 25%.
Biofuels: Ethanol, an alternative fuel, will reduce carbon monoxide by 30% and carbon dioxide by 10%. The Chinese government began to promote the use of ethanol fuel in 2001. The factors that hinder the widespread use of biofuel ethanol are its high production costs, which are about 4 times that of conventional fuel vehicles.
â—† Double ester diesel: Double ester diesel, also known as biodiesel, is a mixture of diesel esters and methyl esters in sunflower rapeseed. The fuel usually contains 11% oxygen to enhance combustion. The diesel ester made from methyl ester and diesel oil mixed at 30% has reached an ideal level both technically and environmentally. Particle emissions can be reduced by 22%.
â—† Fuel cell: A fuel cell is a type of primary cell that is directly converted into electrical energy by chemical energy released when hydrogen, natural gas, methanol and other fuels are electrochemically reacted with oxygen or air. At present, the energy conversion rate of fuel cells can reach nearly 80%, which is about twice that of thermal power generation. Exhaust gas pollution such as sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides in fuel cells is almost zero. If hydrogen is used as a fuel, it will not emit carbon dioxide at all.
However, there are still many obstacles to the mass production and industrialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the market. "High cost" has become the biggest problem. It is understood that the production of a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle with a similar performance to that of an ordinary family car will cost nearly 2 million yuan. At present, there are about 50 fuel cell vehicles. It is estimated that by 2007, this figure will increase to 300 vehicles. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, GM, Dai Ke and other companies have joined the project. Japan hopes that by 2010 there will be about 50,000 fuel cell vehicles. China also announced at the beginning of this year that it will order a batch of fuel cell vehicles that will be used in the future Beijing Olympic Games and the Shanghai World Expo.
â—†Hybrid power: Under the condition of frequent starting and stopping of the hybrid vehicle, the electric motor drives the car. When the car accelerates, the internal combustion engine will start. When a car decelerates or brakes, it loses kinetic energy, while hybrid energy can store a part of its lost kinetic energy in the motor when the car decelerates, to charge the battery, which greatly increases the mileage of the battery car.