Guangzhou to Accelerate the Construction of Intelligent and New Energy Vehicle Infrastructure and Hydrogen Refueling Stations

The Guangzhou Development and Reform Commission issued the “14th Five-Year Plan” document on Wednesday, designed for the innovation and development of intelligent and new energy vehicles.

According to the document, the cultivation of one or two enterprises with a domestic market share exceeding 5%, and one or two “unicorn” automobile enterprises are planned, so as to achieve a substantial increase in the export of self-owned brand automobiles and a new breakthrough in the construction of overseas manufacturing bases.

The plan also notes that it is necessary to enhance the competitiveness of the whole vehicle enterprises. GAC Group, Dongfeng-Nissan, BAIC Group (Guangzhou) and other vehicle companies are supported to organically combine with key technologies of smart cars to become bigger and stronger on the basis of existing traditional fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, and continuously increase the proportion of production and sales of electric vehicles. XPeng Motors and other new power enterprises are also supported to develop and grow.

In addition, the plan mentions building world-famous automobile brands, and supporting vehicle manufacturing enterprises and well-known enterprises at home and abroad to implement integration, mergers and acquisitions and strategic cooperation. GAC Group and other state-owned enterprises are also endorsed to further promote institutional innovation in technology R&D, investment and financing.

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Then, it proposes to build infrastructure moderately ahead of schedule. Taking Guangzhou as an opportunity to build the first batch of pilot cities for the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and smart cars in China, the country will speed up the overall planning of infrastructure construction needs of smart and new energy vehicles and strive to build an advanced and complete infrastructure system.

The fifth point is to improve the layout of charging and replacing infrastructure, and compile and implement the 14th Five-Year Plan of Guangzhou Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure. Concrete actions include accelerating the construction of hydrogen refueling stations and the formation of hydrogen energy production, supply and storage networks; relying on Guangzhou Petrochemical and other enterprises to enhance hydrogen production capacity, and building a fuel cell hydrogen supply center. By 2025, the number of hydrogen refueling stations will exceed 50, and the sales price of hydrogen terminals for vehicles will be lower than 35 yuan/kg (about $5.49).

Increasing the application scale of new energy vehicles is the next. To achieve the goal, firstly, improving the information service of new energy small and medium-sized buses, study and introducing policies and measures that are conducive to the promotion and application of new energy vehicles, such as licensing charging and preferential high-speed traffic in the city is necessary. Also, it is required to ensure the implement the “double confirmation” of safety and quality of new energy vehicles and apply for subsidies, and actively promote the scale-level and commercial application of new energy vehicles in related fields.

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Meanwhile, Guangzhou will vigorously promote the application of new energy vehicles in public areas such as official vehicles, rental (including online car-hailing), sanitation, postal services, urban logistics and distribution, airports, ports, and more, and will fully complete the electrification of cruise taxis by 2023. Comprehensive subsidies for individual consumers to purchase new energy vehicles will be issued in a timely manner based on the epidemic situation. Incentive policies after subsidy withdrawal will be studied, the orderly development of new energy vehicles in the private sector will be promoted, and the proportion of individual consumers purchasing and using smart and new energy vehicles will be increased.

Last but not the least, the plan focuses on overcoming the core technologies of basic materials and key components such as fuel cell stacks, membrane electrodes and bipolar plates, as well as independently mastering R&D and manufacturing technologies such as high power density stacks. Strengthening the technical R&D on hydrogen production, storage, transportation and processing for vehicles, and reducing the use cost of hydrogen fuel are also included in core projects.