China Methanol-fueled Automobile Development Status

On May 4, 2018, Guizhou provincial government established Guizhou Province Methanol-fueled Automobile Industry Development Work Leading Group, representing that Guizhou Province’s automobile industry and modem manufacturing industry have speeded up the development, and the methanol-fueled automobile will be promoted in whole Guizhou Province.

With China’s vehicle parc increasing, the national energy safety and environment protection are facing severer challenges. It is estimated that China’s vehicle parc will rise to 300 million by 2020. Consequently, this will lead to more serious exhaust gas emission problem. Meanwhile, China’s crude oil external dependence degree will also continue to climb up. Therefore, to develop the methanol-fueled methanol automobile industry may be one of the solutions.

China has started to carry out the pilot work of methanol-fueled automobile since 2012 in ten cities of five provinces and municipalities, including Shanxi, Shanghai, Shaanxi, Gansu and Guizhou. Thereinto, Guizhou, as one of the pilot areas developing well, got the approval of the NDRC and related departments in January 2018. It is running about 2,000 methanol-fueled automobiles, taking up 70% of the total in China. It also has completed the construction and transformation of seven methanol-filling stations, accounting for 1/3 of the total in China.

As for developing methanol-fueled automobile, China has rich capacity and sufficient supply of methanol feedstock, and the related technologies are on the top level of the world. However, there are still many issues, such as lacking policy support, technology bottleneck, fierce international market competition and inadequate matched facilities, etc. Therefore, there is still a long way for the methanol-fueled automobile industry.