Bosch Paints Bleak Global Vehicle Sales Picture for Next Few Years

Car and commercial-vehicle sales will remain depressed for the next few years exacerbated by the slowdown in consumer demand for battery-electric vehicles.

That’s the opinion of Tier 1 supplier Bosch’s CEO, Stefan Hartung, who says he envisions very little growth in vehicle markets worldwide this year and next.

Speaking to Reuters reporters at this week’s IAA Transportation commercial-vehicle fair in Hanover, Germany, he says: “Demand on the car market (globally) is lower than the industry expected five years ago.”

Hartung adds European automakers expect to produce a few million fewer vehicles than projected in 2019 and it will take several years for demand to recover.

Hartung says that although BEV sales were growing compared to last year, they are doing so at a slower pace than expected with consumers globally shifting to transitional technologies such as hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains.

However, he says Bosch will continue pursuing its electrification strategy accepting that corrections to the market were normal.

The fall-off of consumer demand for BEVs, which most industry-watchers blame on affordability and a lack of adequate public charging infrastructure, is forcing automakers to scale back on targets.

At the same time, the threatened invasion of cheap BEVs from state-subsidized Chinese automakers is making the market still more fraught for legacy automakers.