Bosch Ltd. said it was working towards pilot deployment of hydrogen-based vehicles by 2025-26 in India.

“We as a country are not going to lag behind any of the advanced countries in the deployment of hydrogen-based vehicles,” Guruprasad Mudlapur, Joint MD and Chief Technology Officer of the engineering, automotive components and technology firm said while addressing the media on Thursday. “We should start to see some pilot deployments by 2025-’26 timeframe,” he added.

Bosch recently said it would invest €500 million globally in this area to develop components for hydrogen electrolysis.

Speaking on the occasion, Soumitra Bhattacharya, managing director, Bosch Ltd. and president, Bosch Group, India, said hydrogen was an area on which his company was focussing.

“Electrolysers help convert water into hydrogen. We were not doing that before, but we will now start doing that. So, we get into that aspect as well,” said Mr. Mudlapur.

According to him, Bosch already had had a full portfolio over the last 7-8 years, and it was now being deployed in pilot volumes all over the world. For instance; there were pilot vehicles running in China, Europe and the U.S., he said.

“For India… this is something we are working on together with original equipment manufacturers, and also with ecosystem developers,” he added.

The quantum of electronic components in automobiles had been on a constant rise and therefore, the demand for semiconductors had also gone up significantly, said Mr. Mudlapur.

He said auto production had continued even as even as the chip crisis continued, although automakers were not running at maximum capacity. Emphasizing the growing demand for chips, he said about 75% of an ECU (electronic control unit, a small device in a vehicle’s body) comprised imported components, of which 50% were related to semiconductors.

“Therefore, the dependence on semiconductors is very high and it is only growing,,” he added.

Q4 net profit declines

Bosch Ltd reported a 27.3% decline in net profit to ₹350 crore in the fourth quarter ended March, owing to lower earnings from auto and consumer goods sectors. Revenue from operations grew 2.9% to ₹3,311 crore from a year earlier.

For the full year, net profit grew 152%, while revenue from operations climbed 21.2% to ₹11,781 crore.

The company’s investments, including capital work-in-progress in 2021-22, amounted to ₹635, crore with a major chunk going into its Adugodi smart campus in the city.