Bosch Tackles Automation, Mobility, AI in 2018

The Bosch Group reports 2018 sales of €77.9 billion ($89 billion) and earnings of €5.3 billion ($6 billion) reached the previous year’s record level.

The Stuttgart, Germany-based supplier of technology and services focuses on its activities as a major automotive supplier in a news release highlighting its preliminary 2018 results. These include:

·         Investments in automation worth €4 billion ($4.6 billion) to 2022. Bosch expects driver-assistance systems supporting Levels 2 and 3 automated driving to generate sales of €2 billion ($2.3 billion). Another development path will lead to Levels 4 and 5 autonomous driving starting at the beginning of the next decade. Some 4,000 Bosch engineers are working on automated driving.

·         Automated-driving hardware and software, which analysts predict will become a €60 billion ($68.6 billion) market over the next 10 years. This is one result of an anticipated 50% increase in personal mobility between 2015 and 2030. Bosch technology facilitating personal mobility already combines solutions and services for reservations, payment, parking, electric-vehicle recharging, administration, maintenance and infotainment.

·         Electromobility, in which Bosch aims to increase sales tenfold to €5 billion ($5.7 billion) by 2025. More than a million cars around the world are equipped with Bosch electric or hybrid components, and the company in 2019 will begin producing the e-axle powertrain solution for EVs. In China, the company has begun manufacturing 48V batteries for fully or partially electrified cars.

·         Electrifying the transportation of goods. As early as 2030, one in four new commercial vehicles worldwide – nearly one in three in China – will be at least partly electrically powered. The company’s product portfolio for emissions-free goods transportation includes electric motors for light-commercial vehicles, electrified axles for semi-trailers and, in the future, fuel-cell powertrains for heavy trucks. Bosch decided last year not to pursue battery-cell development.

·         Commercial application of artificial intelligence. One example of progress in AI is a multipurpose camera for automated driving that combines image-processing algorithms with AI methods. The result is an intelligent camera for the car that can, for example, spot pedestrians and then immediately recognize and predict their behavior. Bosch says it plans to quadruple the number of its in-house AI experts – a relatively small talent pool sought by companies across industries – from 1,000 to 4,000 by 2021.

Mobility solutions represented more than 60% of total sales by Bosch’s four operating units in 2018. The company says the sector outperformed global automotive production, with preliminary figures indicating sales rose 2.3% (4.7% adjusted for exchange-rate effects) to €47 billion ($53.7 billion). Other units are consumer goods, industrial technology, and energy and building technology.

The automotive business was the main factor driving a sales increase of 2.8% (7.9% adjusted for exchange-rate effects) to €12.3 billion ($14 billion) in North America, Bosch says.

“As an innovation leader, we want to shape change in our markets, in both a technological and a business sense,” Volkmar Denner, chairman of the board of management, says at a press briefing on the preliminary 2018 figures. “Our strategic focus on connectivity is paying off.”