Shanghai: Clean Energy Vehicles for Expo?

As the host city of Expo 2010, Shanghai is pressured to reduce vehicle emission. An obvious solution is to convert from traditional vehicles into those clean energy ones; however, with a variety of different choices, what will be the right ones for Shanghai Expo?

In fact, Shanghai has been working on alternatives to diesel and gasoline for a while. For instance, Shanghai has already put some hybrid electric vehicles into operation. Furthermore, Shanghai is also looking into hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and built up the first hydrogen station for filling up such vehicles with hydrogen. Apart from that, LNG (liquefied natural gas) and DME (di-methyl ether) vehicles are in the market too.

Different clean energy vehicles employ various technologies, which are currently at different stages in terms of maturity of technologies and extent of commercialization. For example, LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) and CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles, though more mature in terms of technological development, are not perfect given their emission. Hydrogen fuel cell and electric vehicles are much cleaner, but still not ready for large-scale commercialization. Thus, what Shanghai needs is a blueprint to achieve zero-emission step by step.

When choosing the type of clean energy vehicles, there is a 4E principle to follow, which is Environment, Energy, Easy, and Economy. From that perspective, Shanghai will start from reducing emission, and gradually move toward the target of zero emission.

Based on the current blueprint, for buses, as a first step, Shanghai will restrict those “polluting” buses in outskirts of Shanghai city, and within in the city, the government plans to expand the use of CNG buses.

When the technologies for LNG or DME buses are more developed, LNG buses will take over, supplemented by some DME and electric buses. To meet that end, most of the CNG stations will be transformed into LNG stations then.

In the meantime, Shanghai will keep with demonstration projects of hydrogen fuel cell buses, and expect to reach the stage where electric buses constitute the majority, supplemented by hydrogen fuel cell buses. At that time, those LNG stations will be transformed into hydrogen stations.

For taxis, Shanghai plans to use more LPG cars at first, which will be gradually taken over by LNG ones in the mid term, and eventually reach the stage where hydrogen fuel cell cars constitute the majority, supplemented by LNG ones.