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

Table of contents

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

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.

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