Automotive provider Bosch expects hydrogen tech—together with each gasoline cells and hydrogen inside combustion—to play an enormous function sooner or later trucking trade.

The corporate expects gross sales of $3.5 billion from gasoline cells, hydrogen combustion engines, and electrolyzers that make hydrogen, in keeping with a press launch issued final week that introduced the beginning of fuel-cell module manufacturing at Bosch’s Stuttgart-Feuerbach facility in Germany.

These first fuel-cell modules will go to Nikola, which plans to start out manufacturing of its Tre Class 8 fuel-cell semi truck in Coolidge, Arizona, later this yr. Nikola additionally has a license to fabricate Bosch gasoline cells at that location. Bosch additionally plans to fabricate fuel-cell elements at its personal U.S. plant in Anderson, South Carolina.

Bosch hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain for semi vehicles

The corporate expects that globally one in 5 new vehicles weighing greater than six tons can be bought with a fuel-cell powertrain by 2030. However Bosch can also be investing in hydrogen combustion that, as an alternative of feeding hydrogen right into a gasoline cell to generate electrical energy, merely burns it in an internal-combustion engine rather than diesel or gasoline.

Bosch plans to launch a hydrogen combustion engine in 2024. The corporate claims to have 4 orders for “manufacturing tasks” up to now, and expects six-figure gross sales volumes by 2030.

“A hydrogen engine can do every thing a diesel engine does, however on high of that, it’s local weather impartial,” Markus Heyn, chairman of Bosch mobility, mentioned in a press release. That leaves out the emissions which are a byproduct of hydrogen combustion, nonetheless. Hydrogen combustion engines nonetheless produce pollution like NOx—the well being and local weather hazards of which had been highlighted within the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal.

Bosch hydrogen internal-combustion engine

Bosch was implicated as a provider to VW for diesel-powertrain elements, however in 2019 the corporate put the diesel scandal behind it with an announcement to assist EVs and fuel-cell autos. However in 2021 it additionally mentioned that it might proceed to take a position in combustion-engine tech into the 2040s. This mission cements why.

Bosch’s curiosity in hydrogen for large purposes like industrial vehicles is supported by some evaluation. Some high power consultants like these on the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) count on inexperienced hydrogen to scale up this decade, offering a provide of hydrogen that can be really cleaner than diesel. Along with fuel-cells for trucking, hydrogen might steadily substitute different liquid fuels for airplanes, trains, and different massive transport the place batteries aren’t sensible.

Not everybody agrees that hydrogen will go huge this time. Some see the broader availability of megawatt charging for battery-powered semis as making all of the hurdles of a hydrogen infrastructure not definitely worth the bother.