After four years of development work, the BMW iX5 Hydrogen has been on the road as a pilot fleet for around six months. The vehicle is equipped with high and medium pressure lines "made by Veritas AG". An important step in the process of the pilot fleet was, among other things, the EC 79 approval of the high-pressure lines by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA).

Connection as a Unique Selling Point

From the very beginning, the development team at Veritas AG relied on a ball-cone connection instead of a cutting or clamping ring for the high-pressure lines for the BMW iX5 Hydrogen. Veritas has the manufacturing technology on the market under the brand name GLEVERLOC®. “One of the unique selling points of the GLEVERLOC® system is the use of an innovative manufacturing step. This enables us to create a surface in the area of the connection that is important for the tightness that is free of scratches, longitudinal grooves or other damage that affect the tightness. As a result, with the GLEVERLOC® system we - or our customers - achieve leak rates that are well below the upper limits required by law,” says Dipl.-Ing. Sergio Pascuzzi, who is responsible for materials in pre-development at Veritas AG.

Lines for fuel cell vehicles have been in the portfolio for a long time

Veritas has been supplying customers with lines for their fuel cell development and test vehicles since the mid-1990s. The portfolio includes, among other things, lines for cooling water and those for the cathode and low-pressure anode circuit. In addition to its activities in the new field of electromobility, Veritas continues to supply a wide variety of systems for vehicles with conventional drives to various OEMs at home and abroad.

National Hydrogen Strategy Drives Development

The development of the high-pressure lines at Veritas is taking place against the background that the need for hydrogen-based drives will increase sharply in the coming years, especially in commercial vehicles. Bosch has recently started series production of hydrogen drives for commercial vehicles. The system will be used in a truck from the US company Nikola. The Gerlingen headquarters expect that around one in five new commercial vehicles will be powered by hydrogen by 2030. Development is also in full swing at other manufacturers and is being driven not least by Germany's ambitious national hydrogen strategy, which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Transport.
In der Gerlinger Konzernzentrale rechnet man damit, dass bis zum Jahr 2030 rund jedes fünfte neue Nutzfahrzeug mit Wasserstoff angetrieben sein wird. Auch bei weiteren Herstellern läuft die Entwicklung auf vollen Touren und wird nicht zuletzt von der vom Bundesverkehrsministerium geförderten ambitionierten nationalen Wasserstoffstrategie Deutschlands getrieben.