The China Daily reports that China’s government is planning policies to promote the development of hydrogen fuel-cell cars and detail plans on the construction of hydrogen fuel stations.
The report cited remarks by a Chinese industrial regulator.
Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology, reportedly said fuel-cell cars are an important part of new energy vehicles and China aims to achieve simultaneous development of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles with the international community.
The report added that the ministry will design policies that can ‘give the industry a clear guidance and a positive policy environment’.
“We will motivate energy enterprises and carmakers to increase investment in the supply of hydrogen energy, fuel cell vehicles and other areas to drive the development of the entire industrial chain, and tackle common technology bottlenecks,” Miao reportedly said.
The report noted that new energy vehicles (NEVs), which consist of electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars, saw solid growth in January, with a total of 38,470 units sold, a four-fold gain on last year. From that total some 33,848 were electric cars.
China is also developing new-generation automotive batteries and aims to commercialise batteries whose energy density can reach 350 watt hours per kilogram by 2020.