According to Bohr, the Automotive Technology business sector is developing differently in the various regions of the world. The dynamic developments in Asia, he said, cannot compensate for the structural problems in the North American automobile industry. However, this applies above all to the car industry. "Our commercial vehicles business is booming worldwide," Bohr stressed.

With its technology for vans, trucks, and buses, Bosch will generate sales of €6.2 billion this year. This is seven percent more than in the previous year. The currently strong business activity in the commercial vehicles segment was not the only reason Bohr gave for this. More importantly, he said, the industry is having to face ever more stringent ecological demands worldwide, and Bosch has the economically convincing answers to these demands. To quote Bohr: "The question is one of finding the point where environmental protection and profitability intersect."

Saving money with Denoxtronic: in sum, €4,300 per year and vehicle
For Bohr, one outstanding example of such an answer is Bosch's Denoxtronic – an Adblue metering system that is installed in conjunction with a nitrogen-oxide catalyst. With this system, commercial vehicles can already comply with the Euro 5 standard, which comes into force in 2008. In Germany, this will have a positive effect on expressway tolls – trucks that meet this standard will pay two cents less per kilometer traveled. In the case of a vehicle that drives 100,000 kilometers on the expressway every year, the maximum saving will be €2,000 per vehicle. At the same time, Denoxtronic helps to reduce fuel consumption by as much as five percent. This means a further saving of roughly €2,300 per year and vehicle. "Economic arguments for environmental protection such as these can hardly be beaten," Bohr said. Sales of Denoxtronic are increasing accordingly – from 100,000 units this year to 300,000 next year.

But as Bohr pointed out, a cost-effective changeover to exhaust-gas treatment is not all that Bosch has to offer. In close collaboration with its customers, it is also optimizing high-pressure fuel injection to reduce consumption and emissions even further. Here, both Bosch and commercial vehicle manufacturers are focusing more than ever on the common-rail system. Here too, Bohr said, sales are showing an upward trend – from 950,000 systems in 2006 to 1.7 million in 2009. And with emissions standards becoming tighter, common rail is also becoming established in Asian trucks. Evidence of this, Bohr said, is not least to be found in the new engineering center in Wuxi, China, where Bosch is currently dealing with 45 common-rail projects for national commercial-vehicle manufacturers. Of these projects, five have already gone into series production, and by 2008 nearly all of them will be in the market.

Multi-faceted innovation: hybrid drive, ESP and fleet management
Leaving diesel aside, Bosch offers a number of solutions that help make commercial vehicles even more efficient – above all, more economical and cleaner. Here, Bohr pointed to the development of hybrid systems and to new starters and alternators. He also gave examples from two Bosch subsidiaries: fleet management by Blaupunkt and cooler drives by Bosch Rexroth. Moreover, according to Bohr, the safety of commercial vehicles is a major concern for the industry's leading supplier. For this purpose, Bosch has developed a software function for the electronic stability program that detects the load status of vans, and thus significantly reduces the risk of rollover. This contributes to the system's market success: this year, every fourth new light commercial vehicle leaving the production lines worldwide is equipped with ESP, and in 2010, this will be every second vehicle.

In the future, Bohr said, Bosch will continue to produce innovations such as these. This year, the Automotive Technology business sector is spending some €2.6 billion on research and development. By the end of the year, it will employ roughly 160,000 associates. Of these people, 19,600 will work in research and development. True to the Bosch slogan, they are working to find developments, also for commercial vehicles, that are "invented for life."

Bosch media enquiries:

Chris Wakley / David Eden
Automotive PR
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7494 8050
Email: cwakley@automotivepr.com / deden@automotivepr.com

Bosch OE enquiries:

Beverley Daniels
Communications Manager
Robert Bosch Limited
Tel: +44 (0) 1895 878155
Email: beverley.daniels@uk.bosch.com