Since three Bosch engineers gained Germany’s Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2025 for his or her hydrogen gasoline cell energy module for heavy-duty vehicles, a number of thousand FCPM-equipped vehicles are actually working globally, with next-generation techniques in improvement.
Three engineers from Bosch GmbH have gained the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2025 — Germany’s federal president’s prize for know-how and innovation — for growing a hydrogen gasoline cell energy module (FCPM) now in quantity manufacturing for heavy-duty business autos.
Christoffer Uhr, Kai Weeber, and Pierre Andrieu obtained the €250,000 award at a ceremony in Berlin on November 19, with German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier recognizing the system as a key know-how for climate-neutral mobility. It’s the Stuttgart-headquartered firm’s fourth Zukunftspreis win, following earlier awards for piezo injectors (2005), sensible sensors (2008), and ultrashort pulse lasers (2013).
The FCPM converts hydrogen and oxygen into electrical vitality, producing solely water vapor as a byproduct. Weighing roughly 500kg and containing greater than 1,000 particular person elements, Bosch describes it as probably the most complicated system in its almost 140-year historical past. All key elements — together with the gasoline cell stack, hydrogen metering valve, hydrogen recirculation pump, and electrical air compressor — are developed and manufactured in-house.
“This award is excellent recognition for all the group,” says Dr. Stefan Hartung, chairman of the board of administration at Bosch. “It exhibits the modern potential of hydrogen — and the decisive position that Bosch is taking part in in it.”
From lab to logistics
A number of thousand vehicles fitted with the FCPM are actually working globally, and in October 2025 Bosch started deploying the know-how in its personal plant logistics for the primary time. An Iveco S-Means platform truck geared up with the FCPM entered service on the firm’s Nuremberg facility, transporting manufacturing merchandise on a hard and fast route operated by freight forwarder Schäflein through truck rental firm Hylane.
The 40-ton car carries 5 hydrogen tanks holding as much as 70kg at 700 bar, delivering a complete gasoline cell system output of over 200kW and a gross car weight score of as much as 44 metric tons. The system is paired with an e-axle and two centrally mounted battery packs for vitality storage, producing a mixed system output of 400kW.
“Once we determined to make our plant visitors extra climate-friendly, it was clear that we wished a truck that includes Bosch’s FCPM,” says Alexander Weichsel, business plant supervisor in Nuremberg. “The truth that a number of thousand vehicles with Bosch fuel-cell techniques are already on the highway worldwide exhibits that the idea is proving its price.”
Bosch says the first goal of the Nuremberg deployment — which targets 12,000km per 12 months — is to build up real-world working knowledge. Every FCPM operates alongside a digital twin in digital house, repeatedly monitoring parameters together with temperature, strain profiles, and part put on. Fleet knowledge has already pushed second-generation design adjustments, together with revised cooling methods to handle localized scorching spots not predicted by laboratory modeling, and recalibrated hydrogen recirculation dynamics noticed underneath real-world loading situations.
Operational knowledge from the Nuremberg truck is feeding instantly into improvement of next-generation modules: the Compact 190 and Compact 300. The latter includes a horizontal double stack structure focusing on 300kW output with an improved power-to-weight ratio and better diploma of system integration. On the 2025 Superior Clear Transportation (ACT) Expo in Anaheim, California, Bosch additionally unveiled a compact fuel compressor able to compressing greater than 11 commonplace cubic meters of hydrogen per hour to pressures of as much as 350 bar.
Manufacturing and provide chain
Quantity manufacturing of the FCPM launched at Stuttgart-Feuerbach in mid-2023, with a second line at Chongqing, China following shortly after. The Bamberg plant provides the gasoline cell stack, whereas the Homburg facility produces elements together with the electrical air compressor and recirculation blower. The system incorporates 1.2km of laser weld seams per unit — every helium leak-tested — and is designed to suit the house beforehand occupied by a combustion engine in over 95% of present truck platforms.
In contrast to battery packs, the FCPM requires minimal essential uncooked supplies resembling lithium or cobalt, an element Bosch highlights as lowering provide chain vulnerability. Vehicles operating on the system provide refueling occasions of roughly quarter-hour and a spread of as much as 1,000km on a single tank of round 70kg of hydrogen, relying on car structure and driving situations.
In China, Bosch’s Chongqing facility has launched 80kW, 134kW, and 190kW techniques serving functions from city transport to long-distance logistics. A 300kW module is being examined in buyer autos which have collectively exceeded 3.6 million kilometers. Over 120 hydrogen gasoline cell autos now function alongside the Chengdu-Chongqing Hydrogen Hall.
Closing the hydrogen loop
Bosch can be making use of its gasoline cell know-how in reverse. In November 2025, the corporate commissioned its first in-house electrolyzer on the Bamberg website, constructed round two Hybrion proton change membrane (PEM) electrolysis stacks manufactured on-site. The two.5MW system produces a couple of metric ton of hydrogen each day — sufficient, Bosch says, to energy a 40-ton FCPM truck for as much as 14,000km. The hydrogen feeds instantly into an on-site “lifetime container” for steady endurance testing of gasoline cell modules.
Commercially, the Hybrion stacks launched in March 2025, with deliveries to companions together with Kyros Hydrogen Options, Neumann & Esser, Pietro Fiorentini, and subsidiary Hyter. Bosch secured pre-orders amounting to round 100MW earlier than the official gross sales launch. In keeping with Dr. Markus Heyn, member of the board of administration and chairman of Bosch Mobility, the corporate expects hydrogen-related gross sales income to run into the billions by 2030.
Between 2021 and 2026, Bosch has dedicated to investing roughly €2.5bn in hydrogen know-how improvement and manufacturing.
Infrastructure stays the bottleneck
Hartung has known as for quicker hydrogen infrastructure improvement. “We urgently want to begin constructing a hydrogen economic system together with the corresponding infrastructure for the manufacturing, storage, and use of hydrogen,” he says. “China and India are displaying us how this may be executed. As an business, we stand prepared with technical options — the FCPM is a primary constructing block.”
The EU’s Different Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) mandates hydrogen refueling stations each 200km alongside the Trans-European Transport Community (TEN-T) core community by 2030. As of late 2025, roughly 80 public hydrogen refueling stations have been operational throughout a Germany-Benelux-France hall, with H2 Mobility, Europe’s largest operator, planning an extra 100–120 heavy-duty-capable stations by 2026.
Nonetheless, business teams together with IRU, ACEA, and Transport & Atmosphere have warned the European Fee of a possible funding hole in 2026–2027, as the present Different Fuels Infrastructure Facility (AFIF) nears exhaustion with no confirmed successor instrument earlier than the 2028 Multiannual Monetary Framework.
The market additionally faces headwinds from battery electrical competitors. Bosch itself suspended a deliberate $200m gasoline cell manufacturing line at its South Carolina facility in March 2025, citing unfavorable market situations and delayed hydrogen mobility demand within the U.S.
The economics stay application-dependent. Gasoline cell vehicles provide payload benefits over battery electrical equivalents — with hydrogen autos shedding roughly 500lb of cargo capability versus diesel, in comparison with an estimated 4,000–20,000lb for battery electrical vehicles, in line with Clear Air Job Power evaluation. However whole price of possession at the moment favors battery electrical autos in markets the place hydrogen stays costly.
