Bosch is partnering with Swedish Powercell to co-develop polymer-electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel-cells. It is going to be a new line of hydrogen fuel cells for automotive applications.
After the initial development, Bosch will manufacture and bring the new fuel-cell stacks to market in 2022 ‘at the latest’, according to the press release about the new partnership.
The company is not only exploring options for different onboard energy storage technologies, it is actively working to develop fuel cells with different technologies.
In August of last year, Bosch entered into an agreement with UK-based solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Ceres to co-develop and manufacture fuel cells.
These larger fuel cells are well-suited for stationary energy storage solutions and Bosch envisions a future where neighborhoods, industrial facilities, and campuses can install a fuel cell on the order of 10kW.
These smaller units would provide local energy storage and peaker generation capabilities, directly replacing their natural gas counterparts.
The new push into fuel cells for Bosch is founded on the core belief that the automotive world will transition to new energy vehicles in the next decade.
Bosch believes that, “as much as 20 percent of all electric vehicles worldwide will be powered by fuel cells by 2030.
This belief is founded on the current landscape of EU fleet regulations that mandate CO2 emissions reductions of 15% on average by 2025 and 30% by 2030 that can only be met by vehicle electrification.
Bosch sees the biggest opportunity to attack these emissions with fuel cells in the heavy vehicle space, making the bullish push by America’s Nikola Motor Company into fuel cell class 8 trucks an attractive fish to land.
Reference- Clean Technica, Bosch PR, University of Nebraska report