German auto component maker, Bosch, inaugurated its 9th R&D centre in Renningen on Wednesday. 1,200 associates will focus on materials and methods, and technologies, as well as on the development of new systems, components, and manufacturing processes. At the moment, these activities and the relevant units are spread at locations in the Greater Stuttgart area but now all will be under one roof. The global component supplier has invested a total of 310 million Euro in this research and advance engineering center. This is also the company's 2nd largest R&D centre. The one located in Bangalore, India remains the largest with almost 2,200 associates working there.
The new campus will provide base for the development of new products and also gathering ideas for innovative manufacturing methods. Their work will focus on areas such as software engineering, sensor technology, automation, driver assistance systems, and battery technology, as well as on improved automotive powertrain systems. In 2014, Bosch spent 5 billion Euro on research, which is 10% of its global sales, and believes the number is going to grow in the future. Bosch has also started venturing, investing and encouraging new start-ups, and the new center will also facilitate them.
For instance, the company is supporting a start up that has made a prototype which will help farmers get rid of weeds without using herbicides. 'BoniRob' is an agricultural robot, which is approximately the size of a compact car, uses video and lidar based positioning as well as satellite navigation to find its way around the field and pushes all the weeds in the farm back deep into the soil and helps to minimize the environmental impact of crop farming. While this is just the prototype, Bosch says the production version is feasible and they are very close to developing one.
There will be a lot of R&D work on battery technology for electric vehicles too. A 5 year target has been set to develop solid state cells for lithium batteries that will give double energy density, and will also reduce the cost by over 20% by 2020. Bosch claims a comparable electric car that has a driving range of 150Km today would be able to travel more than 300Km without recharging and at a lower cost.
Talking to the media, Dr. Volkmar Denner, Chairman of the board of management, Robert Bosch GmbH, said, "Bosch is using its knowledge and considerable financial resources to achieve a breakthrough for electro-mobility. The acquisition of the U.S Seeo Inc will help make this possible soon."
After Google, if any company is known for working on automated driving cars, it is Bosch. The company believes automated driving is an extremely reliable technology and more than 10,000Km of test drives have been conducted on public roads.
"Thanks to our highway pilots from 2020 we could see highly automated cars driving themselves on freeways," says Dr. Dirk Hoheisel, member of the board of management, Robert Bosch GmbH. He added this not only improves road safety, but also places great demand on technical reliability. With that being said, it is equally important for governments to establish the necessary legal framework for automated driving. "Legislation must keep pace with what is technically possible," Hoheisel added.
