Geely Choose to Develop Methanol Instead of Lithium Batteries for This Reason

JAKARTA - Geely boss Li Shufu, confirmed his company's commitment to the development of methanol-based alternative fuels at the 2026 China Smart Electric Vehicle Development Forum. He said that lithium-based battery electric vehicles have the potential to weigh up to twice as much as methanol-powered vehicles with equivalent capacity.

Launching from Autohome, Monday, April 13, Li also highlighted a number of recent policies from the Chinese government that began to expand support for alternative energy beyond battery-based electric vehicles. One of them is a guideline released in July 2024 regarding the acceleration of the transformation to a comprehensive green economy.

Where, it includes the development of charging infrastructure, battery exchange systems, hydrogen, to methanol. Not only that, in October 2024, six ministries in China also issued policies that encourage the development of an integrated renewable energy base.

This approach combines various energy sources such as wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol. According to Li, this step is the beginning of the large-scale substitution of domestic energy in the country.

In his presentation, Li said that methanol has a much higher energy density than lithium-ion batteries, even more than ten times higher. Based on this, he assessed that methanol-fueled vehicles are able to carry a load similar to battery electric vehicles, but with a weight that is only about half.

He also assessed that the large weight on battery-based electric vehicles also had an impact on increased energy consumption, especially in heavy transportation use. Although he admitted that electric vehicles have been widely adopted in China, Li assessed that there is still a gap for alternative technologies to develop.

Geely itself has been developing methanol vehicle technology for more than 20 years. The first official trial program for methanol vehicles in China began in 2012 under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, before entering a phase of national evaluation and expansion.

In 2019, eight Chinese central government agencies issued guidelines encouraging the use of methanol vehicles in regions deemed appropriate. Since then, 39 cities in 20 provinces have implemented more than 80 policies supporting the development of this fuel vehicle.

Geely's methanol strategy has also entered the production stage to motorsport. One of the latest submissions shows a methanol plug-in hybrid variant of the Galaxy Starshine 6 sedan equipped with a 1.5-liter engine with 93 kW of power, proving the integration of this technology into passenger vehicles.

On the other hand, Geely is also testing in the racing world. The company previously launched a methanol-powered motorsport program after undergoing winter testing, with a so-called engine fully compatible with M100 methanol fuel, to test performance in extreme conditions.

Li places methanol vehicles as a relevant solution for the commercial transportation and heavy transport sectors, where weight, operating cost, and emissions are the main considerations. He added that methanol-fueled vehicles offer advantages in reducing carbon emissions throughout the life cycle, especially when combined with the production of methanol based on renewable energy.