Bosch aims to generate sales running into billions by decade end, says Chairman

Bosch wants to generate sales running into billions with software, by the end of the decade, says Dr. Stefan Hartung, chairman of the Bosch board of management, at the Bosch Tech Day 2024 in Renningen.

“Across the company, our extensive domain expertise allows us to put lines of code directly into products. The software in our products is technology that is ‘Invented for life,’improving our customers’ lives,” he noted. 

"The triumphant march of software will fundamentally revolutionise the automotive industry," Hartung added. 

Dr Markus Heyn, member of the board of management of Bosch and chairman of the Mobility business sector said, “Bosch technology will mean that cars grow older more slowly.” And not just cars. Trucks, motorbikes, and e-bikes will also get new safety and convenience functions via an update.

Since the debut of the smart system for e-bikes at the end of 2021, Bosch has rolled out roughly 70 new features and modifications via the eBike Flow app – from an alarm and tracking feature to new riding modes.

Policymakers can also play an important part: in the field of artificial intelligence, which is becoming increasingly important for software development, companies need planning certainty. That also goes for the AI Act recently passed by the European Union. “The EU must now rapidly translate the AI Act into standards, for while regulation is necessary, it must not unnecessarily throttle the pace of technology or even prevent innovation,” Hartung noted.

SDVs and charging vehicle infrastructure 

Software-defined mobility will also go hand in hand with changing vehicle architecture: away from a domain-specific IT and electronics architecture to one that is centralised and cross-domain, with just a few computers and sensors that are nonetheless very powerful. At present, there are roughly one hundred control
units from various manufacturers at work in one car. In a future software-defined vehicle, control functions will be performed by less than one dozen vehicle computers. To achieve this, domain-specific functions will have to be combined in modern vehicle computers.

In this context, Bosch and Qualcomm jointly presented a new vehicle computer at the start of the year. For the first time, it combines infotainment and driver assistance functions. For automakers, this not only means a reduction in installation space, cables, and weight, but also and more importantly lower costs. In the control units alone, the saving gained by merging infotainment and driver assistance can be as high as 30 percent. With advanced vehicle computers in general, Bosch is already on the path to success: over the past three years, the company has generated sales of just under 4 billion euros with them.