China's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai, and Guangdong provinces were approved by the five Chinese national departments as the first batch of fuel cell vehicle demonstration city clusters. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei city cluster centered on Beijing will promote hydrogen-fueled electrical vehicles, Kallanish notes.

It was mentioned in the "Hydrogen Energy Industry Development Implementation Plan (2021-2025)" issued by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology on 16 August. The scale of the hydrogen energy industry chain in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will exceed CNY 50 billion ($7.72 billion) by 2023 and 3,000 fuel cell vehicles will be promoted in the region. At the same time, Beijing will cultivate 5-8 leading enterprises in the hydrogen energy industry chain and plans to reduce carbon emissions by 1 million tonnes by 2023. A total of 37 hydrogen refueling stations will also be completed by then.

Before 2025, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region needs increase the number of leading enterprises in the hydrogen energy industry chain to 10-15 and to reduce carbon emissions by 2m t. About 10,000 units fuel cell vehicles will be promoted in the region, speeding up the sales comapred with the past three years.

By 2050, the demand for hydrogen energy in China is expected to be close to 60m t, achieving carbon emissions reduction of about 700m t. The goal of hydrogen energy accounting for more than 10% of the energy system will be reached at that time in order to approach carbon neutrality.

The latest data released by the China Automotive Manufacturers Association (CAAM) shows that from January to July this year, the production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 664 and 675 units respectively, up 48.5% and 47.7% year-on-year.