As a veteran Tier1 giant, Bosch’s record is still stable.
Recently, American Automotive News (Automotive News) released a list of the world’s top 100 auto parts suppliers in 2024.
Bosch still holds the top spot, ranking first in sales to global automakers in 2023.
Under the background of the wave of electrification and intelligence and the increasingly fierce competition in the car market, Bosch is not without anxiety, but under the reform, it still holds the basic market and realizes the further growth of the business.
More importantly, in the process, Bosch has constantly changed its game and gradually laid out a new chess game for the future, which is about the Chinese market, the relevant business focus, and the core business of software.
“China’s auto market is very important”, Bosch has always made no secret of the importance of the Chinese market, especially the Chinese auto market.
A strong proof is that over the past 10 years, Bosch Group has invested more than 50 billion yuan in China, an average of 5 billion yuan per year.
At the recent 2024 Bosch Technology Day, Bosch once again expressed its “sincerity” to the Chinese auto market.
No matter in terms of market size and volume, or technological development, the Chinese market is indeed very important. ” Dr. Stefan Harton, chairman of the Bosch Group, said in an interview with the media, such as Galaxy Motors. Dr. Stefan Harton, chairman of the board of directors of Bosch group.
photo source: Bosch, he said that he saw two major trends in the Chinese market: first, in terms of smart Internet, Chinese users have a great demand for advanced driving assistance functions.
and they are willing to pay for it.
second, electrification is developing rapidly and leading in China.
According to Dr.
Mathias Pillin, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Bosch Intelligent Travel Group, Bosch is a market leader in both advanced intelligent driving and electric driving.
As far as advanced intelligent driving is concerned, based on Bosch’s global software platform, combined with cooperation with local partners in China, Bosch has accelerated the development speed and can quickly achieve mass production and delivery.
It is reported that it took Bosch only 18 months from the designated project to the realization of mass production.
In terms of electric drives or bridges, Bosch has achieved a high degree of standardization and industrialization in the Chinese market, allowing it to mass produce these standardized solutions and apply them to vehicles to rapidly scale up.
China is the fastest growing technology market in the world, and to some extent, we are setting the pace, and we need to adapt to this trend.
” That’s what Mathias Pillin said.
At present, Bosch has established a strong local R & D capability in China to support the development of its business in China.
Stefan Harton pointed out, “China is an innovation base and is a leader in the field of emerging technologies.
” In order to meet the needs of the market, we have established a software development capability in China.
Now, when we develop innovation in China, we can share it with other markets around the world.
This is change.
” Take hydrogen energy technology as an example, it is understood that Bosch has carried out the development of hydrogen fuel cell in Europe, while there is also a team in China to develop this technology independently.
Stefan Hatton mentioned that more commercial vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel cells are put into use in China than in other markets.
“in China, we work with partners such as Qingling to put hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles on the market.
Its scale is unmatched in other markets.
” Of course, he also stressed that Bosch must always maintain maximum competitiveness and rapid development in the Chinese market.
“We are not compared with Germany or the United States, but with our competitors in China, this is our pursuit.
” Bosch will support Chinese manufacturers to enter the European market.
In the Chinese auto market, it is hard not to pay attention to the trend of Chinese cars going out to sea.
In recent years, the momentum of Chinese car companies going out to sea is getting stronger and stronger, but challenges are also emerging.
On June 12, the European Union disclosed the level of temporary tariffs to be imposed on Chinese electric vehicles.
Among them, tariffs will be imposed on BYD, Geely and SAIC, which have cooperated with the sample survey, at 17.
4%, 20% and 38.
1% respectively, and a weighted average tax of 21% will be levied on Chinese electric car manufacturers that cooperate with the EU survey but have not yet been sampled.
Other Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers that have not cooperated with the investigation will be subject to a tariff of 38.1%. Source: European Commission, it is reported that the European Commission has contacted the Chinese authorities to discuss the preliminary findings and decisions of countervailing investigations and to explore possible ways to resolve the problems identified in a manner that meets the requirements of the WTO.
If discussions with the Chinese authorities fail to reach an effective solution, the above tariffs will be formally levied in the form of guarantee on July 4 on the basis of the existing 10% tariff in the European Union (the specific form will be decided by the customs of each member state).
Meanwhile, the EU countervailing investigation into Chinese electric vehicles will continue until November 2, when final tariffs, usually five years, are likely to be imposed.
In Stefan Harton’s view, this is not a good solution because it will eventually be passed on to end users to pay higher prices, adversely affecting consumers and businesses.
He said that the above tariff measures have not yet been implemented and hope that they can be properly resolved.
“I hope everyone will not get caught up in raising tariffs, because it will not do any good.
” Despite the impact of tariffs, he also mentioned that the European market has always been very competitive.
There are many differences in the European market.
For example, Germany and France are very different.
Markets in different countries have different linguistic and cultural backgrounds and different consumer preferences, which is the complexity of Europe.
But there are common principles in different markets.
For example, user orientation is just as important in Europe.
“so the question is what kind of car users need.
” In his view, the Chinese market is technologically diversified and complete.
Chinese manufacturers should think more about how to locate their customer base and how to set prices, so as to decide which of the many vehicles and technologies to invest in the European market and which market segments will eventually succeed.
Of course, he also stressed that Expo fully supports the development of Chinese manufacturers, just as it has supported European manufacturers to enter the Chinese market, it will also support Chinese manufacturers to enter the European market.
“We provide them with technology and products to help Chinese manufacturers adapt their functions to the needs of local users or assist in market access certification based on their understanding of the local market.
We will provide support when they need it.
The cooperation between us is very good, not onlyIn the Chinese market, it can also be seamlessly connected to overseas markets.
” “Bosch will not participate in all areas of the automotive industry chain”.
It should be pointed out that Bosch does not want to “do everything” in both the Chinese market and overseas markets.
We have our own clear strategy and will not participate in all areas of the entire automotive industry chain.
after all, it will require a lot of money and resources.
” Stefan Harton points out that for Bosch, business focus is very important. Dr. Marcus Hein, a member of Bosch’s board of directors and chairman of Bosch Intelligent Travel Group, said that electrification, automation, on-board computers, software services, hydrogen energy and semiconductors are Bosch’s key areas of concern.
and gained a market-leading position. Dr. Marcus Hein, board member of Bosch Group and chairman of Bosch Intelligent Travel Group.
picture source: Bosch, he added, “the development of business is not single linear, but multi-point input and convergence.
” thus driving the rapid growth of the business.
We hope to continue to invest in these focus areas and maintain innovation to lead the future development of the market.
” Of course, it can not be ignored that in the new automobile era, the boundary between mainframe factories and suppliers is gradually broken, and it seems very difficult for suppliers not to be affected by the tide of “self-research” of automobile enterprises.
In response, Marcus Hein said that there has been a long-standing discussion about the independent development of vehicle software architecture by vehicle companies.
However, according to its observation, although some vehicle companies want to do their own research, they still choose to do it together with their partners.
As he said before, nowadays, more and more vehicle manufacturers have realized that full-stack self-development and maintenance at the software level require a lot of energy and cost, and thus hope that suppliers like Bosch can provide them with some solutions.
On this basis, they will do some of their own things, otherwise they will have to rely on their own R & D and maintenance, which is very difficult.
According to him, Bosch basically cooperates with all vehicle companies.
“in the era of software-defined cars, there was a lot of work on software programming.
From the point of view of vehicle manufacturers, some of the software is not very different.
In this area, we often become the preferred partner of our customers.
In addition, we can usually play an important role and contribute to critical software systems that involve security.
In short, every vehicle manufacturer has cooperation with us, but the focus is different.
” Stefan Harton also mentioned, “We do a lot of on-board computers, but do not do interactive software, because cars and end-users interact in the car, different brands of cars tend to be different and iterate quickly.
” Bosch is more focused on hardware and underlying architecture development, while user-oriented top-level applications work with customers.
” “Software has become one of the important pillars of Bosch’s business success.
” the starting point for the design and development of new models will increasingly be software.
” The vigorous development of software will reshape the automotive industry.
” On this Technology Day, Bosch has repeatedly stressed that software drives innovation in various fields.
It is reported that Bosch currently has about 48000 software engineers, of which 42000 focus on intelligent travel solutions.
By the end of 2030, Bosch hopes to achieve billions of euros in sales in its software business.
We are standing at the dawn of the era of software-defined cars.
” Marcus Hein says this is good news for Bosch, which knows both hardware and software.
“We are one of the few companies that are fully proficient in the interaction between automotive electronics and cloud computing.
” On this technology day, Bosch’s many innovative products and solutions were unveiled, greatly demonstrating its software and hardware strength.
For example, Bosch helps fleet operators avoid vehicle failures and improve efficiency through software and service solutions such as vehicle health.
For logistics companies, Bosch’s L.
OS digital platform can promote the digitization of logistics business and the simplification of the entire operation chain.
In addition, Bosch has also developed a special software, “Electronic comfort Brake”, which can prevent uncomfortable frustration during braking.
Software-defined mobile travel will also go hand in hand with the transformation of automotive architecture, that is, the transformation of distributed information technology and electronic and electrical architecture to centralized, domain-controlled architecture.
The architecture includes a small but powerful number of computers and sensors.
At present, a car contains about 100 control units produced by different manufacturers.
In the future software-defined cars, the control functions only need to be performed by more than a dozen on-board computers.
For this reason, the function of the specific domain needs to be integrated into the modern vehicle computer.
Bosch cabin driving integration solution.
picture source: Bosch, Bosch and Qualcomm jointly launched a new car computer at the beginning of this year, which integrates infotainment and driving assistance for the first time.
For vehicle manufacturers, this not only means reducing the space and weight of installation, saving wiring harness, but more importantly, reducing costs.
Bosch has made progress in the field of advanced in-car computers: in the past three years, in-car computers have generated sales of nearly 4 billion euros for Bosch.
However, whether it is a hundred or a dozen, these diverse in-car computers and software packages must communicate with each other in order to communicate across brand boundaries.
Bosch provides middleware for this purpose, that is, translation software between vehicle physical components and application software from different suppliers.
Bosch said that just as almost every car today is equipped with Bosch parts, every car on the road in the future will run Bosch code.
“the next step will be to implement a big model to push autopilot to a higher level.
” in the Chinese market, the intelligent driving solutions of L2 + and L2 driver + are very popular with consumers, especially young consumers are willing to pay for it.
And even if the automobile market is now under great pressure of price competition, the smart driving function is still very promising.
” Stefan Harton said so.
At the same time, L3 autopilot is also imperative, hidden development opportunities.
However, at present, there are still many challenges.
Stefan Harton pointed out, “the traffic environment we live in is complex, especially in China’s urban roads, where the traffic flow is busy and complex, and people need to pay great attention to driving in it, which is even more challenging for the system.
” The system always leaves more safety boundaries and does not want to cause any personnel or vehicle accidents, which makes it impossible to fully realize L3 autopilot.
Often challenging.
Due to some completely unforeseen circumstances, the system cannot handle and exits.
We don’t want this situation to get out of control.
“, Of course, he also mentioned that highways are a good scenario for enabling high-end autonomous driving to be implemented in a relatively more controlled space, but there are still some risks.
“We need to control costs (so consumers can afford them), this is a compromise we have to make, but we will never compromise on safety and performance.
“, Mathias Pillin proposed that artificial intelligence is a changer in this industry.
According to him, a few years ago, Bosch decided to get rid of traditional computer vision and move to deep learning functions.
Now, its deep learning function on the camera has received very positive feedback.
“Our next step will be to implement the big model, because we believe that with the emergence of big language models, big models, we can advance autonomous driving to a higher level.
“, He also reminded that the key issue of artificial intelligence is to ensure security.
In addition, in terms of computer performance, artificial intelligence consumes a lot of resources, but cars cannot accommodate many large servers, so these high-performance computing devices need to be brought into cars.
“From the perspective of the automotive industry, by solving these issues, we will also add value to the industry.
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