The rollout of advances in car technology such as electric power and autonomy is taking much longer than expected, according to Bosch.
Member of the board of management Markus Forschner said that the technology company and automotive industry supplier had been affected by a decline in automotive production in 2024, by as much as 6.7% in the EU and UK.
In addition, he told Bosch’s annual press conference: “Technologies of the future, such as electromobility, fuel cells, and automated driving, are taking much longer than the industry expected to become established, and this process is playing out with major regional differences.
“China is now leading the way in these areas of future importance, and is the world’s biggest vehicle producer with more than 31 million vehicles – which for the first time puts it ahead of Europe and North America combined.”
Forschner said that although Bosch had seen some growth in sales relating to electromobility and automated driving, this had been slower than expected, contributing to Bosch failing to achieve its margins in its most recent financial results.
Chairman of the board of management Stefan Hartung explained how the slow pace of technological change had affected Bosch – but added that he expected this to be a short-term problem.
He said: “Even though demand for the latest generation of combustion engines is helpful during the transitional phase, the other side of the coin is that our facilities for e-mobility, in which we have invested heavily, are not being used to full capacity.
“Sooner or later, however, electromobility will come out on top, and Bosch has the right expertise and products.
“This year alone, we will start large-scale production with about 50 projects around the world and especially in Europe and China. We have already supplied a total of more than 17 million powertrain components for battery-electric and hybrid vehicles, which includes 5.5 million electric motors.”
Hartung added that another important growth area for Bosch was the use of AI in mobility, in assisted as well as automated driving.
He said: “Bosch’s advantage is that we combine federated learning with the huge amount of traffic data we’ve recorded all over the world with the help of our sensors.
“In federated learning, several decentralized servers train a shared AI application without the need to exchange the data itself. Thanks to this, we comply with regional data protection regulations and can develop global AI solutions more quickly.
“We have already used this technique when we developed our multifunctional camera with great success, and will also use it for the next generation camera.”
