Great Wall to Invest in German Hydrogen Fueling Venture

China’s Great Wall Motor Co. has agreed to invest in H2 Mobility Deutschland GmbH, which is developing a network of hydrogen fueling stations across Germany.

H2 Mobility operates 50 publicly accessible hydrogen filling stations and aims to expand the network to 400 locations in the country by 2023. The 3-year-old company has six partners: Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde Materials Handling, Austria’s OMV and European energy companies Shell and Total.

Great Wall says it hopes to learn how to build a hydrogen fueling infrastructure in China. In April, the company acquired a 77% stake in Shanghai Fuel Cell Powertrain. Two months later it opened a fuel cell research center in Baoding in June.

Automotive News Europe notes that Great Wall intends to unveil its first fuel cell prototype vehicle in 2020 and deploy a small group of such vehicles at the Winter Olympics in Zhangjiakou in 2022.