Products and Customers

Individual mobility is increasing worldwide, particularly in Asia and eastern Europe. Although this is a welcome development for us and our customers, it is in fact a double-edged sword.

This is because greater individual mobility means more pollutants and CO₂ emissions, greater consumption of resources, and more accidents. That’s why Bosch is striving to achieve a form of sustainable mobility which is low in pollutants and independent of fossil fuels. Working in tandem with our customers, we are researching the potential for powering vehicles by combining an internal-combustion engine with an electric motor or by using an electric motor on its own. However, to bridge the gap to these future-focused solutions and to offer consumers the best available technology today, we at the same time have to further increase the efficiency of the internal-combustion engine. As we plan for the long term but also want to offer improved solutions in the short term, we are pursuing a number of development paths in parallel:

• Our engineers are unlocking the energy-saving potential of the internal-combustion engine – potential that is still far from exhausted.
• With smart technology along the full length of the drivetrain and with hybrid solutions, we shall help the car and the internal-combustion engine become increasingly clean and efficient.
• We are adapting the internal-combustion engine to work with alternative fuels produced either synthetically or from renewable raw materials.
• After several development stages involving transitional technologies, we can see growing opportunities in niche segments for electric drives that use a fuel cell as an energy converter to replace the internal combustion engine.

Internal-combustion engines will continue to be the dominant automobile drive system for the next 20 years. Together with automakers, we are committed to boosting the energy efficiency of the drivetrain and cutting CO₂ emissions. We are working on the next phase of technical developments to meet the stricter emission limits soon to be introduced in Europe, the U.S., and the emerging markets in Asia.

So far, the necessity to cut fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions has led to increased demand for our injection systems in particular. Our customers are now turning their attention to other technologies, including thermal and vehicle electrical system management, more efficient alternators, and our start/stop system.

These components can each help improve the energy efficiency of vehicles by several percentage points. In the last few years, we have been developing these components up to series production level, with the aim of combining them with energy-efficient drives and thereby maximizing energy saving in automobiles. In conjunction with downsizing solutions, the CO₂ emissions of a standard two-liter gasoline-driven car weighing 1,600 kg, for example, can be cut from 182 to 142 grams per kilometer.

Our Flex-Fuel engine management system shows how internal-combustion engines can use alternative fuels. This technology enables gasoline engines to run on any blend of gasoline and ethanol, a fuel mix that is already widely used in Brazil.  We also offer injection technology for other alternative fuels, such as compressed natural gas. Both compressed natural gas and an admixture of ethanol cut CO₂ emissions. The next step is to adapt our systems to run on synthetic biofuels.

The ESP® electronic stability program launched by Bosch in 1995 plays a key role in improving road safety. Numerous international studies have shown that between 30 and 50 percent of fatal accidents involving cars could have been prevented with ESP®. In 2007, 50 percent of newly registered vehicles in Europe were fitted with ESP®. The European Union recommends that anti-skid protection should be made compulsory by 2011. In the U.S., legislation was passed in 2007 mandating ESP® as standard equipment for all passenger cars from model year 2012. In 2007, the International Automobile Federation FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) awarded Bosch the internationally acclaimed "FIA World Prize for Road Safety, the Environment and Mobility" for its role in the creation and provision of ESP® technology.

ESP® also forms a fundamental basis for new functions currently being developed by our engineers. One example is the Combined Active and Passive Safety (CAPS) system, which aims to further improve accident prevention. It combines active and passive safety systems with driver assistance and vehicle communication functions. We hope that CAPS will help cut the number of road fatalities – studies on predictive safety systems estimate that deaths could fall by as much as 35 percent. Our pedestrian protection system at the front of the car is designed to mitigate the impact of accidents for other road users.