The past several years have been challenging for the world’s largest automotive supplier, Bosch. While Bosch produces many of the components used in vehicles for everything from driver assistance to communication systems, the accelerating transition to electrification and automation has forced it to rethink its future business as prospects for internal combustion fade. Today, Bosch North America announced it will be investing $1.3 billion in hydrogen technology by 2025.
As Bosch, like other automotive suppliers, tries to adapt to a changing mobility landscape, it has reorganized its massive product development organization. In 2020, Bosch announced that it would combine all of its software development teams across the company into a single organization, the Cross-Domain Computing Solutions unit. This software organization has more than 17,000 employees globally.
But Bosch is still heavily involved in hardware and has been working on hydrogen fuel cell systems for some time. The company was an early investor in Nikola Motors. Bosch is supplying the fuel cell system and electric propulsion being used in some of Nikola’s upcoming long-haul trucks. The German supplier also produces the four electric motors used in the Rivian R1T and R1S as well as offering a range of electric drive units with integrated gearboxes and power electronics for commercial vehicles.
The expanded investment in fuel cells brings the total expenditure to more than $1 billion through 2024. Fuel cell systems are more complex than just the stack that takes in hydrogen and oxygen and produces electricity and water. In addition to developing the stack, Bosch is expanding its efforts to produce other supporting components.
However, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are only useful if hydrogen is available which is why they are currently only sold in California where there are more than 40 refueling stations. While hydrogen rarely exists in isolation in nature, it is the most common element in the universe including in water where each molecule contains two hydrogen atoms. One of the cleanest methods of extracting hydrogen is through electrolysis of water. This process is essentially the reverse of the fuel cell.
Passing water through an electrolyzer where electric current is applied will break the water molecules and form oxygen and hydrogen gas. Bosch is leveraging its fuel cell expertise to develop electrolyzer systems with a $600 million investment by 2030 with half by 2025 when it plans to begin production.
Bosch plans to pursue opportunities under the $9.5 billion department of energy Clean Hydrogen Initiative funded from the recent infrastructure bill. The supplier will evaluate locations for deployment of its electrolyzers that can utilize renewable energy sources. This is likely to be especially important for enabling long-haul trucking where batteries are too heavy to be practical for the required range and payloads.
Finally Bosch is applying its technical expertise to stationary decentralized solid oxide fuel cells that can run on either hydrogen or methane/biomethane. While natural gas-powered cells aren’t completely emissions free, these fuel cells are much more efficient with 85% efficiency when first deployed.
Whether using fuel cells or batteries, electric vehicles require robust thermal management systems to keep all of the components operating at their most efficient and ensure durability. Bosch is developing a new flexible thermal unit to improve this functionality.
Back in 2010, Bosch and many of its automaker customers were hoping that diesel engines would be a cost-effective solution to reducing carbon emissions from transportation. Bosch was (and is) a major supplier of diesel systems including fuel injection and exhaust after-treatment. By the end of 2015, when it was discovered that Volkswagen and other automakers had been cheating on diesel emissions the demand for diesel components collapsed in favor of a shift toward electrification. Today’s announcements reflect that pivot.
