Bosch’s Heavy Duty Fuel Cell System - The Powerpack for Long Haul Trucks

Authors

T. Wintrich, A. Klonczynski, A. Moritz, C. Uhr - Robert Bosch GmbH

Summary

The CO2-emission legislation is getting stricter worldwide, aiming at the Paris climate agreement to keep global warming below 2°C. Especially in the segment road traffic and transportation, the necessary CO2-reduction, e.g., -30 % for CV (Commercial Vehicles) according to the current proposal of the EU-commission, will not be achieved without a significant share of electrification of the vehicle fleet. While the PC (passenger car) segment focuses on BEV (Battery electric vehicles) and PHEV (Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle), the FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) will achieve a breakthrough in the CV segment. Bosch scenarios show CV market share of 15 % in 2030 and a significant growth in the next decade. The fuel cell takes advantage of all use cases where short refuelling times and high mileages operation are required.

This paper focuses on the technical discussion of the Bosch fuel cell system for CV consisting of the core component stack and the balance-of-plant components. While the number of fuel cell suppliers continues to grow, Bosch is already collecting a large amount of real data from FCEVs in operation in all global focus regions and is already planning the next system generation. Besides a continuous reduction of costs Bosch uses its system competence and experience in the field of automotive quality to its advantage. Both is crucial for reliably achieving more than 20.000 h lifetime. Next generation fuel cell systems will have to meet increased power and power density requirements, especially under the condition of increasingly challenging installation space boundaries. The efficiency of the stack shows a central influence on system efficiency and thus on hydrogen consumption and TCO (Total Costs of Ownership). Further improvement of this parameter will extend the FCEV's long-range advantage without compromising on performance or lower weight.