Whereas there was drama in regards to the rocky launch of Nikola Corp.’s gas cell-powered Class 8 freeway truck, the corporate’s gas cell provider, Bosch, is on schedule with the truck’s energy supply.
Bosch shouldn’t be solely constructing the hydrogen gas cells for the vehicles in its Feuerbach manufacturing unit, additionally it is constructing lots of the elements used to construct the cells, avoiding reliance on different suppliers. For instance, the Bosch plant in Bamberg, Germany provides the gas cell stack that mixes hydrogen and oxygen to make electrical energy for the automobile’s motor.
Different system elements similar to the electrical air compressor and the recirculation blower come from Bosch’s plant in Homburg, Germany. “Bosch is among the only a few firms which can be able to mass-producing know-how as complicated as fuel-cell stacks,” mentioned Markus Heyn, member of the Bosch board of administration and chairman of Bosch Mobility.
“We don’t simply have the required techniques experience, but additionally the aptitude of shortly scaling up new developments to mass manufacturing,” he mentioned. Along with the Feuerbach plant, Bosch will construct cells for the Chinese language market in Chongqing, China.
On the Stuttgart, Germany announcement for the launch of manufacturing, Heyn pointed to Bosch’s 2.5 billion Euro funding within the growth and manufacturing of hydrogen gas applied sciences between 2021 and 2026, with two-thirds of that expenditure going particularly to gas cell manufacturing. By 2030, the corporate forecasts that 20 % of recent vehicles six tons or bigger might be gas cell powered.
“Our enterprise alternatives are monumental, and the results of this entry into the hydrogen financial system on jobs aren’t any much less vital,” Heyn mentioned. “Even now, we’ve greater than 3,000 folks at Bosch engaged on hydrogen applied sciences, greater than half of them in Europe.”
The fuel-cell energy module is essentially the most complicated system Bosch has ever developed. A fuel-cell energy module made in Feuerbach includes a number of hundred particular person elements and weighs greater than 1,100 lbs.
Considerably, the corporate plans to fill the brand new gas cell jobs with employees who at present construct combustion-related merchandise that may section out over time. “We will fill many of the vacancies arising within the rising hydrogen enterprise from inside the firm, and particularly with individuals who have up to now labored in our powertrain enterprise,” mentioned Heyn. “Greater than that, we are able to switch experience from one space to the opposite.”
That’s as a result of lots of the abilities wanted for making Bosch’s combustion-related merchandise, similar to gas injectors, are transferrable to gas cell manufacturing. “For instance, laser welding is one thing we’re acquainted with from injector manufacturing,” he mentioned. “And whether or not in coating know-how or leak testing, a know-how switch is feasible.”
Within the instance of high-speed laser welding, Bosch makes 1,200 meters of welds in every stack of cellular fuel-cell techniques which can be hydrogen-tight. “This can be a course of that solely exists at Bosch,” Heyn claimed. On the matter of laser drilling, Bosch makes greater than 200 million holes – 6,000 a second – in every stack of its stationary fuel-cell system.
Moreover, the corporate is well-positioned to combine complicated elements into an entire system due to Bosch’s expertise with sensor know-how and sophisticated electronics, Heyn said. This is the reason Bosch will succeed within the gas cell market, he added. “Loads of firms can construct electrolysis stacks within the laboratory, however solely only a few are able to mass producing such stacks.”
Bosch’s longstanding know-how in manufacturing such complicated merchandise has led the corporate to want to make as lots of the elements that go into the ultimate product. “That is the explanation why we manufacture a lot in-house,” mentioned Heyn. “Over the long run as effectively, we would like greater than half of the gas cell powertrain by worth to be created internally. Not least, this additionally includes our conventional power in making special-purpose equipment. This implies we are able to cowl greater than 50 % of the manufacturing gear we’d like.”
Along with the Nikola Iveco truck that Bosch confirmed with its gas cell on the announcement, the corporate says it has orders from three different truck makers for full gas cell energy techniques and extra orders for gas cell elements such because the gas cell stack, the hydrogen metering valve, and the electrical air compressor that pushes air by means of the stack.
The mixed output of Bosch’s Bamberg and Wuxi vegetation will attain one gigawatt of gas cell energy by the mid-2020s, Heyn mentioned, with an preliminary manufacturing quantity of a number of thousand techniques annually.
