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Bosch is entering the hydrogen age of mobility. At its Stuttgart-Feuerbach location, the supplier of technology and services has now begun volume production of its fuel-cell power module.
chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH
Nikola Corporation, based in the United States, will serve as the pilot customer with its Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell electric truck, which is scheduled to enter the North American market in the third quarter of 2023. “Here in Stuttgart-Feuerbach, in the plant whose history goes back further than any other Bosch plant, the hydrogen future is about to happen,” said Dr. Stefan Hartung, the chairman of the board of management of Robert Bosch GmbH, at the Bosch Tech Day 2023. “Bosch knows its way around hydrogen, and Bosch is growing with hydrogen.” The company operates along the entire hydrogen value chain, developing technology for its production and application. By 2030, Bosch plans to generate sales of roughly 5 billion euros with hydrogen technology.
A fuel-cell power module comprises several hundred individual parts, weighs more than 500 kilograms, and has a surface area of roughly 1.5 square meters.
In its solutions for the hydrogen economy as well, Bosch is relying on a global manufacturing network and the prowess of its German locations. For example, the Bosch plant in Bamberg, Germany, will supply the Feuerbach factory with the fuel-cell stack. And important system components such as the electric air compressor and the recirculation blower come from the Bosch plant in Homburg, Germany. “Bosch is one of the very few companies that are capable of mass producing technology as complex as fuel-cell stacks. We don’t just have the required systems expertise, but also the capability of quickly scaling up new developments to mass production,” said Markus Heyn, member of the Bosch board of management and chairman of Bosch Mobility.
Production of the fuel-cell power module is not only starting in Feuerbach, but also in Chongqing, China. The components it requires will come from the Wuxi plant. In addition, Bosch is also planning to manufacture stacks for mobile applications in its U.S. plant in Anderson, South Carolina.
Stationary solid-oxide fuel cells can be used for the distributed supply of power and heat.
Only with hydrogen can there be a climate-neutral world. For Bosch, that is crystal-clear. The company therefore strongly advocates the establishment of a hydrogen economy, and is stepping up its investments in hydrogen. Between 2021 and 2026, Bosch will have invested a total of nearly 2.5 billion euros in the development and manufacturing of its H2 technologies.
However, the further prospects for the hydrogen business depend on the political environment. Hartung especially believes that Europe must do much more to create a counterweight to the rapid pace of developments in other regions of the world, such as the United States. More specifically, the Bosch chairman has four demands of German and European policymakers: “First, we have to step up the pace of hydrogen production in the EU. Second, global supply chains have to be set up, and third, hydrogen has to be used in all sectors of the economy.” As a fourth point, he stressed the importance of quickly setting up infrastructure for distributing hydrogen in Europe.
Bosch not only plans to use hydrogen, but also to provide smart technology for its production. For this purpose, Bosch is developing the electrolysis stack, the central element of an electrolyzer.
At all events, Bosch is ready, and applying automotive experience to the hydrogen economy like no other company. This is why the company is also in demand in H2 production. At the start of 2023, Bosch started constructing prototypes for electrolysis using proton exchange membranes – in other words, the reverse of the energy conversion method used in mobile fuel cells.
Bosch is exploring several options for the use of hydrogen. Stationary solid-oxide fuel cells can be used for the distributed supply of power and heat. In a pilot project at the hospital in Erkelenz, near Cologne in Germany, Bosch wants to use this technology to achieve overall efficiency of 90 percent. The micropower plant there will initially run on natural gas, but can be converted to green hydrogen.
Apart from the fuel-cell powertrain, Bosch is also working on the hydrogen engine, developing systems for both port and direct injection of hydrogen. This solution is particularly suitable for heavy vehicles on long hauls with especially heavy loads.
Today, the fuel cell has reached the necessary level of maturity to play an important part on the road to climate-neutral mobility.
The fuel cell-electric drive can be used in any vehicle segment – not least because the available product portfolio is designed to satisfy the most specific of requirements. Bosch offers its customers an extensive array of individual components and modules as well as system integration with software and connectivity solutions that deliver the highest levels in quality and flexibility.
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