Beijing Buses 95% Electric, Hydrogen Buses Dwindling, Refueling Stations Closing

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A rule of thumb I’ve been making use of for some time is to take a look at what’s succeeding in China when it comes to clear expertise. It tries the whole lot that’s probably viable domestically and fierce competitors weeds out the winners from the losers. And on battery-electric buses vs hydrogen buses, and battery-electric vs hydrogen automobiles basically, the story is evident. Let’s illustrate it with the case of Beijing, China’s capital.

For some context, Beijing is a northern metropolis 150 kilometers from the ocean. It’s at the moment -11° Celsius (12° Fahrenheit), a not unusual prevalence within the metropolis throughout its winter. The report low was −27.4° C (−17.3° F). In the summertime, it’s sizzling and humid, averaging 31° C (88° F) and 70% humidity. The report excessive was 41.9° C (107.4° F). Its local weather is considerably much like Chicago’s or Washington’s in the US, or Toronto in Canada.

It’s a giant metropolis, with 22.6 million residents in its 12,796.5 km² (4,940.8 sq mi) space. It’s an even bigger and extra populous metropolis than even New York and Los Angeles.

China leverages transit much more than most western cities, which developed along with the automotive. As of December 2024, the Beijing Subway system has expanded to 29 strains with 523 stations, overlaying 879 kilometers. The system handles a mean of 10.5 million passenger journeys per day, making it one of many busiest metro networks on the planet. Line 10 alone serves round 1.34 million every day riders. It’s nonetheless increasing.

As of October 2024, Beijing’s public transportation system operates 2,257 bus strains, rating first globally within the variety of routes. On weekdays, roughly 20,000 buses are in service every day, collectively making round 147,000 journeys and transporting over 6.6 million passengers every day. With a inhabitants of twenty-two.6 million and 17.1 million transit journeys a day, that’s a really excessive ratio of transit use by its residents.

Beijing began shifting to low-emissions automobiles very early. The Beijing Summer season Olympics in 2008 have been a significant popping out occasion for the nation and Beijing’s air was notoriously unhealthy. Together with different measures, cleansing up transportation was a key wedge they used to ship blue skies. Over 3,800 pure fuel buses and 50 electrical buses have been added to the fleet, whereas 2,580 older diesel buses have been retired. Personal car use was restricted with an odd-even license plate system, and 300,000 high-emission automobiles have been banned from the roads. Beijing additionally expanded its subway system, launched 500 electrical and hybrid taxis, and lowered public transit fares to encourage widespread use. It even had hydrogen buses. Three Mercedes-Benz buses have been trialed beginning in 2006 and three extra have been added from Chinese language producer Higer for the Video games.

The subsequent Olympics, the Winter Video games in 2022, noticed a remodeled Beijing. Whereas town was nonetheless having unhealthy air days, the sky was blue a variety of the times of the 12 months with none particular efforts by the federal government. As of 2022, the Beijing Subway system comprised 27 strains overlaying a complete size of roughly 783 kilometers. By 2022, Beijing had solidified its place as a world chief in electrical public transportation, with 12,000 buses in operation, nearly all of which have been battery-electric. Inside the third Ring Highway, combustion-engine buses had change into a rarity, underscoring town’s aggressive push towards zero-emission transit. Beijing additionally maintained the world’s largest battery-powered trolleybus community, with 1,250 automobiles working throughout 31 routes.

Whereas there have been a couple of extra hydrogen buses working, battery-electric buses had taken the lead by far. Nevertheless, the Olympics are inclined to have a mushy spot for hydrogen, and town deployed over 800 hydrogen gasoline cell buses. Main Chinese language producers, together with Foton AUV, Yutong, Zhongtong, and Geely, equipped the fleet, with 515 buses from Foton AUV alone overlaying 1.88 million kilometers. One other 200 mild hydrogen automobiles have been deployed as nicely. To help operations, Beijing constructed greater than 30 hydrogen refueling stations.

As of early 2025, China has roughly 10,700 hydrogen gasoline cell automobiles on its roads, primarily comprising buses and business vehicles. The determine displays a major improve from earlier years, however stays beneath the federal government’s goal of fifty,000 FCEVs by the tip of 2025. As a reminder, China can be assembly its battery-electric automotive gross sales goal of fifty% of all vehicles offered this 12 months, a decade sooner than deliberate.

So what’s occurring in Beijing? As of October of 2024of the 20,000 buses, 94.7% are zero emissions, nearly completely battery-electric.

In September of 2024, solely 13 of the hydrogen refueling stations have been nonetheless formally working, however a reporter for China’s respected domestic paper the Economic Observer went to all of them, and solely seven have been really nonetheless in operation. Some stations have been overgrown with weeds, some weren’t open to the general public, and a few had been closed. They discovered one station the place overgrown wormwood had reached a peak taller than an individual, whereas hydrogen buses parked on the station confirmed seen indicators of rust.

At one other station, a single bus was being refueled whereas greater than a dozen different buses have been lined up. Every bus takes fifteen minutes to refuel, together with the time to repressurize the station’s hydrogen tanks in order that they’ll replenish the subsequent bus, so along with driving lengthy distances to get to the refueling stations, bus drivers have to attend an hour or longer for his or her flip.

It’s unclear what number of hydrogen buses are nonetheless working within the metropolis, however with the difficult hydrogen refueling scenario and the sheer dominance of battery-electric buses, it’s most certainly that many of the 800 new buses for the Olympics are rusting in tons in varied locations. I used to be solely capable of finding one supply that indicated that 200 hydrogen buses have been nonetheless working in a single district of town. Town has added a few small batches of recent hydrogen buses a few occasions, however largely it’s simply purchased and deployed an infinite quantity extra battery-electric buses.

The hydrogen buses are additionally acknowledged to be environmentally problematic. Till not too long ago, nearly all of the hydrogen used for hydrogen automobiles was manufactured from home coal. Coal-to-hydrogen manufacturing, referred to as coal gasification, converts coal into hydrogen by reacting it with steam and oxygen at excessive temperatures. Producing 1 kilogram of hydrogen from coal releases 20 to 25 kilograms of CO₂e, making it some of the carbon-intensive hydrogen manufacturing strategies. That made the early hydrogen buses greater greenhouse fuel emissions than diesel buses, however the focus for the primary Olympics was air high quality, not local weather change.

The excessive prices of constructing and working hydrogen refueling stations in China pose a significant problem for traders. With hydrogen priced at 30 yuan (US$4.12) per kilogram, a station promoting 2,000 kilograms per day generates solely 60,000 yuan (US$8,233) in every day income. Nevertheless, substantial electrical energy bills, working into a number of thousand yuan every day, mixed with labor and upkeep prices, make it tough to recuperate the preliminary funding and obtain profitability. As a word, that’s by far the bottom retail value for hydrogen I’ve seen on the planet, however companies that make hydrogen are constructing the stations in a zero revenue try and construct a market.

The development price of a hydrogen refueling station with a every day capability of 1,000 kilograms and a 700 bar compression system is no less than 20 million yuan (US$2.75 million), together with design, building, upkeep, and administration prices. Tools accounts for 80% of this complete, with the hydrogen compressor alone making up 30%, or roughly 6 million yuan (US$823,800). Pipes, valves, hydrogen tanks, and filling tools every characterize 13% of the entire price, amounting to round 2.6 million yuan (US$357,980) per class.

The prices for the hydrogen refueling station, apparently, are similar to western prices. This can be a place the place China can’t construct issues extra cheaply, it appears. A number of the difficulties are on account of hydrogen being precisely outlined as a hazardous chemical, so a security manufacturing license is required for every of manufacturing, storage, transportation, and filling.

As of June 2024, the typical electrical energy value for companies in China was 0.634 CNY per kWh, equal to roughly US$0.088. Meaning filling up a battery-electric bus for a 300 km day may cost a little $35, whereas filling up a hydrogen bus would price $100 for a similar distance, even with zero revenue hydrogen.

As of 2023, China’s common carbon depth of electrical energy technology was roughly 582 grams of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour, about the place the USA was in 2015. Assuming that they have been electrolyzing the hydrogen with grid electrical energy in centralized services, that’s nonetheless about 38 kg of CO2e per kg of hydrogen. Meaning a couple of ton of CO2 for a 300 km day, so the buses nonetheless aren’t local weather wins in comparison with diesel buses, however nonetheless are air high quality wins, for what that’s price. That’s with out counting any leakage of hydrogen, which is a potent, if oblique, greenhouse fuel. Electrical buses, by comparability, can be working round 0.25 tons of CO2e for a similar journey, and fewer every year because the grid decarbonizes.

After 19 years of placing hydrogen and electrical buses on the street in Beijing, there are about 19,000 battery-electric buses working, a bunch of the hydrogen buses deployed for the Olympics are rusting in varied parking tons, the variety of hydrogen refueling stations has dropped from thirty to seven and hydrogen buses are nonetheless worse than diesel for greenhouse fuel emissions. Even China can’t make hydrogen for transportation work.