Bosch team wins innovation and advanced technology award with fuel-cell power module

The Bosch team responsible for developing the FCPM, led by Christoffer Uhr, Kai Weeber, and Pierre Andrieu, has now received the German Future Prize 2025 in honor of this work. The German federal president’s award recognizes the system as a key technology for climate-neutral mobility.

“This award is outstanding recognition for the entire team. It shows the innovative potential of hydrogen – and the decisive role that Bosch is playing in it.

“The technology is ready. What’s needed now is the political will to systematically drive forward the development of an efficient hydrogen economy. Only then can fuel-cell power modules become an everyday technology for commercial vehicles. We in the industry have done our part”, says Dr. Stefan Hartung.

The award-winning FCPM converts hydrogen and oxygen into electrical energy. This means commercial vehicles can cover long distances completely CO2-free – provided they have green hydrogen in the tank. Their only remaining emission is water vapor. In this way, Bosch is playing a significant part in achieving climate neutrality in freight transport. Heavy trucks are responsible for more than one-quarter of CO2 emissions from road traffic in the EU, but they are also indispensable for the transportation of goods and freight. “With the fuel-cell power module, Bosch has shown that hydrogen technology is suitable for large-scale production and can play a major part in decarbonizing road transport,” Hartung says. “This powertrain system combines engineering skill, experience, and systems expertise – and it marks an important step toward sustainable mobility.”

Several thousand trucks fitted with the Bosch system already in use worldwide

Large-scale production of the FCPM started in 2023 at the Stuttgart-Feuerbach plant, and shortly afterward also in Chongqing, China. With more than a thousand individual parts, the FCPM is one of the most complex systems in Bosch’s almost 140-year history – and at the same time one of the most pioneering. From the stack to the recirculation pump and the air compressor, all its key components are developed and manufactured in-house. The powertrain module itself can be installed in trucks where the combustion engine was previously located. Instead of diesel tanks, the trucks feature pressurized tanks for the hydrogen. Refueling times are comparable at around 15 minutes. Depending on the vehicle layout, and when driven economically, it is possible to cover up to 1,000 kilometers on a single tank of around 70 kilograms of hydrogen.

Several thousand trucks fitted with the Bosch FCPM are already in use worldwide. The modules already out in the field are generating valuable development data: many systems exist both physically in the vehicle and as a digital twin in virtual space. Parameters such as temperature, pressure, and wear can be continuously monitored and incorporated directly into development work on the next generation of the powertrain system. FCPM technology can be used not only in trucks but also in bus powertrains and maritime propulsion systems. What’s more, it can provide decentralized CO2-free electricity to data centers. Bosch also uses the same technology in reverse in its PEM electrolysis stacks (PEM = proton exchange membrane) to produce hydrogen from water and electricity – another important building block in the hydrogen value chain. Following the market entry of its electrolysis stacks in April, the company recently put an electrolyzer featuring its own electrolysis technology into operation for the first time at its Bamberg site.

Bosch was nominated five times for the German Future Prize between 1998 and 2013, and teams from Bosch or with Bosch involvement received the award three times: in 2005 for piezo injectors, in 2008 for smart sensors, and in 2013 for ultrashort pulse lasers. With the German Future Prize 2025 for the fuel-cell power module, Bosch has written another page in this ongoing success story. The award demonstrates not only the company’s technological strength but also its vision for the future: a world in which hydrogen and fuel cells play a decisive part in decarbonizing the transportation sector.