Great Wall Motor to launch hydrogen SUV & truck
Great Wall Motor has announced that it will launch its first hydrogen-powered SUV model and 100 FC heavy-duty trucks in 2021. GWM also plans to contribute a hydrogen-powered passenger car fleet to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The Chinese manufacturer announced in a statement that it has invested about 2 billion yuan (257 million euros) in hydrogen research and development so far and plans to pump another 3 billion yuan (386 million euros) into this field in the next three years. The goal is to build international H2 supply chains from production to storage and transport, to refuelling and applications. GWM announced intentions to become “among the top 3 in the world” in this field by 2025.
The manufacturer also provided concrete details on the planned use of hydrogen in vehicles. The system is to be based on three technology platforms for hydrogen-generated electricity, stacks and hydrogen tanks (HE, HS and HP platforms). With the HS platform, Great Wall intends to build stacks with a nominal output of 150 kW, a peak output of 160 kW and a power density of up to 4.2 kW/L in the future. According to the manufacturer, the HP platform enables Type IV hydrogen tanks with 70 MPa.
“In the next five years, GWM will focus on fuel cell system to strive for high power (> 200 kW), high efficiency (> 60%), high temperature (> 100°C), high durability (> 20,000h), and high interconnection (new energy + intelligent network),” Chen Xuesong, president of GWM FTXT, is quoted as saying in the release. With the technology described, hydrogen refuelling should be completed within three minutes and a driving distance of over 900 kilometres should be possible.
Great Wall only provided a few details about the vehicle models mentioned. The 100 planned FC trucks will be 49-tonne trucks. There are no further details on the SUV model with FC propulsion announced for this year, nor on the planned passenger car fleet for Olympia.
Incidentally, GWM also is conducting research and development in the hydrogen sector at five locations in Canada, Japan, Germany and the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Baoding. The Chinese company is cooperating with Air Liquide, Linde, W. L. Gore & Associates, Bosch, Tsinghua University and Tongji University, among others.
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