While battery-powered electric bikes have been at the forefront of efforts to build carbon-neutral motorcycles, there has long been interest for hydrogen as an alternative green fuel, and now engineering powerhouse Bosch has endorsed the concept.
The statement includes intentions to construct 4000 hydrogen filling stations by 2030, representing one-third of all hydrogen stations worldwide. These will utilize new compressors co-developed by Bosch’s “Bosch Rexroth” subsidiary and Maximator Hydrogen, which will enable vehicles to be directly refueled with compressed hydrogen without intermediary storage tanks.
It is anticipated that this technology will reduce the cost of gas stations by half compared to existing alternatives.
Bosch, which supplies a large portion of the motorbike industry with components, including electronics and anti-lock braking systems, is already a leader in terms of its green credentials. The company has its own electrolyser to manufacture green hydrogen at its “Industry 4.0” plant in Homberg, Germany, which became carbon-neutral in 2020.
The company plans to invest approximately 500 million euros in electrolysis by 2030 – when it anticipates the electrolyser component market to be worth 14 billion euros – and hopes to launch its hydrogen generating systems by 2025.
Rolf Najork, Bosch board member in charge of industrial technology and manufacturing technology, stated, “We are bringing hydrogen-based innovations out of the laboratory and into industrial practice – onto the highways and into the factories.”
Bicycle manufacturers have long exhibited an interest in hydrogen as a fuel, either for electricity-generating fuel cells or for improved internal combustion engines.
Suzuki has long been a proponent of using hydrogen fuel cells rather than batteries to power electric bikes; the company introduced the Crosscage fuel cell concept 15 years ago and has produced multiple generations of prototype fuel cell Burgman scooters, which the Metropolitan Police even tested in 2017.
Instead of utilizing hefty, slow-charging batteries, these electric bicycles employ a fuel cell to convert hydrogen stored in a tank and oxygen from the air into electricity. Water is the sole waste product.
Honda has extensive fuel cell experience, having created a fuel cell scooter prototype, the FC Stack, in 2004. Honda also manufactured fuel cell production cars in the form of the 2008-2014 FCX Clarity and its 2017-2021 successor, also named Clarity, which were leased to a small number of customers, primarily in California, one of the few regions in the world with an established hydrogen filling station network.
Yamaha and Kawasaki have recently announced plans to jointly investigate the development of hydrogen as a fuel, extending a lifeline to the internal combustion engine. Kawasaki has already demonstrated a preliminary step in the process of converting the supercharged H2 four-cylinder engine to hydrogen power by unveiling a version of the engine with direct fuel injection in 2013.
Any future hydrogen-fueled combustion engine will employ forced induction and direct injection to pack sufficient air and hydrogen into the combustion chambers at the proper air-to-fuel ratio.
However, the presence of nitrogen in the air means that oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are typically present in the exhaust, therefore they are not completely emissions-free. Nevertheless, a hydrogen-fueled combustion engine has the potential to cut tailpipe emissions to a negligible fraction of the existing levels.
