Decarbonization Trends in Commercial Vehicles: Accelerating Alliances for EV and FCV Development
Energy policy aiming for carbon neutrality, and commercial vehicle market in Japan
2021/08/24
- Summary
- EV development for commercial vehicles
- FCV development for commercial vehicles
- Development of internal combustion engine technology and other decarbonization measures
- Linkage diagram of commercial vehicle manufacturers: The complicated relationship of bitter enemies (placed by fate) in the same boat
- Japan's New Basic Energy Plan: Responding to the global decarbonization regime
- Current status of the medium and large commercial vehicle market in Japan
Summary
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| Fig. 1: BYD's EV bus J6 (Source: BYD Japan) Buses are leading the way in the electrification of CVs in Japan. Many electrified CVs include BYD for EVs and the Toyota SORA for FCVs. The BYD J6 will also be the base vehicle for the Hino Poncho Z EV (to be released in 2022). |
Japan's Basic Energy Plan, the draft of which was released on July 21, 2021, describes a comprehensive approach to carbon neutrality, focusing on a plan to decarbonize grid power generation. EVs and FCVs are the main measures for low-carbon technologies for commercial vehicles (CVs), and different introduction targets have been set for electrified vehicles with a GVW in excess of 8 tons.
In response to this, automakers will continue developing EVs and FCVs, but the number of alliances for joint development and production is increasing rapidly because commercialization by a single company going it alone is seen as too difficult.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on truck sales in Japan was limited only to light-duty vehicles with a payload capacity of 4-tons or less. Conversely, bus sales have been on a downward trend since before the COVID-19 crisis, and the sales of large-sized buses fell even further in 2020.
Related Reports:
Japanese OEMs announce and update policies for electrification and carbon neutrality (Jun. 2021)
Development of Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCVs) and Expansion of Applications (Apr. 2021)
Smart Energy Week 2021: Electrification-related Technologies (FC edition) (Mar. 2021)
FCV Developments at Daimler and Hino and Efforts toward the Realization of a Hydrogen Society (Feb. 2021)
The Routes to Carbon-neutral Freight Transport (Dec. 2020)
SAE China 2020 (2): Electrification of Commercial Vehicles (Dec. 2020)
Fuel cell commercial vehicles: Toyota jointly develops FC systems with major Chinese OEMs (Aug. 2020)
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