China is relying on hydrogen and electric cars

Published on: September 28, 2020 / Update from: December 4, 2023 - Author: Konrad Wolfenstein

California recently announced that all cars in the state must be carbon neutral . This shows that the electric vehicle trend is gaining significant momentum in the US and around the world. China, one of the world's biggest carbon polluters, also recently unveiled a plan to be completely carbon neutral by 2060, and new data shows how the country hopes to have over half of its passenger vehicles electric in the next two decades.

According to data collected by Bloomberg, 59 percent of all vehicles in the country will be electric by 2040 to meet China's goal of being carbon neutral by 2060. Only 40 percent will be traditional combustion cars, while about 1 percent will be other fuel cell technology. However, the country still has a long way to go as 98 percent of cars in China currently run on internal combustion engines.

The data also shows how China has expanded wind and solar energy capacity over the past decade, creating the infrastructure to continue relying on cleaner energy in the future. According to Bloomberg, hydrogen energy is also much cheaper to purchase in China compared to other countries, suggesting that a boom in clean hydrogen energy is just around the corner. Still, the country leads the world in coal demand and the production of new coal-fired power plants, and it will be the most difficult to move away from this type of fossil fuel in the next few decades.

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Projected percentage summary of passenger vehicles in China for the next two decades