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Jon Excell
Editor
The Engineer
A compelling glimpse of a complex future
Often vague, sometimes noncommittal and frequently contradictory, auto industry crystal-ball gazing isn’t always particularly helpful. While one OEM will confidently talk up the “inevitable” dominance of the EV, another will favour the hybrid. While some predict the demise of the IC engine, others see years of continuing dominance for the incumbent technology.
But this week in Germany - at its biennial international press gathering - Bosch Automotive set out a technology roadmap that was both comprehensive, compelling and complex.
It’s hardly surprising, the company is one of the world’s largest automotive tier suppliers and its survival and growth depends on covering every base and second-guessing the appetites of tomorrow’s drivers.
Bosch has been running the event for a number of years now, and while it’s always an intriguing bellwether of change in the auto industry this year’s presentations were full of disruptive technologies that not so long ago would have caused even the most broad-minded commentator to splutter into their coffee.
Outlining the priorities of an r&d program that will this year alone will benefit from 3.2 billion euros, the company’s chairman Bernd Bohr predicted that the continuing development of driver assistance and safety technologies will usher in an age of autonomous motoring, that a range of hybrid systems will pave the way for an era of “electromobility” and that growing markets in the developing world will drive down the cost of automotive technology.
Despite a heavy focus on electromobility, there was also plenty to excite and reassure fans of the combustion engine. Indeed, Bosch predicts that continued advances in engine optimisation will soon lead to efficiency savings of around 30 per cent on today’s most advanced engines. One particularly intriguing technology demonstrated on the company’s Boxberg proving ground was a start-stop system that temporarily switches off a car’s engine and allows cars to coast. The company claims that vehicles fitted with the technology will use 9 per cent less fuel.
Interestingly, as the technological priorities of the car industry change, Bohr noted that the lines between the automotive sector and other areas of industry are becoming increasingly blurred. In Bosch’s case, the firm’s well known power-tools expertise is proving increasingly useful in its work on electric vehicles and battery technology. But the need to look beyond its traditional areas of expertise is perhaps a lesson that the UK’s resurgent car industry would also do well to heed.
Readers' comments (5)
George Noon | 10 Jun 2011 3:55 pm
The idea of a car switching off and coasting is a novel idea for saving fuel, But you then have the question what happens to the servo assist on the brakes? Also on cars with electric power steering when the engine is not running the steering is virtually inoperable. I hope that they have got some solutions to these.
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Robert Taylor | 10 Jun 2011 5:07 pm
...and hydraulic power-assisted steering driven by a pump from the fanbelt!
Power could be tapped off for these functions whilst coasting by a gearbox / propshaft driven servo as was done by Rolls Royce in 1924.
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S. Martin | 12 Jun 2011 2:16 am
There are many issues which need addressing with electric cars, particularly the misinformation surrounding them. This is mainly the spurious efficiency, and environmental claims made by many. How many claim no emissions? well the vehicle has to be manufactured and disposed of, here are the emissions. In the only environmental survey of a vehicles lifecycle emissions did E/V's all come bottom for lifecycle emissions.
What they really mean is no tailpipe emissions, but much higher lifecycle emissions, but lets not tell the public the truth.
Motors are very toxic to manufacture and its not reducing their environmental impact, merely moving it elsewhere. Efficiency is another issue, manufacturers quote maximum projected ranges instead of the maximum range, and minimum range. Many users were caught out in their first winter when cold temperatures reduced their range by one third to half which is not good.
Here are just two factors which need dealing with, there are many more.
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Anonymous | 12 Jun 2011 10:04 am
Turning the engine off while coasting doesn't sound new to me, fuel to engines is being turned off in most modern engines when off the throttle going down hills and slowing down and hybrid cars use electric motors to keep the car coasting at a constant speed. What's so new in the bosch technology in this area?
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Malcolm | 13 Jun 2011 9:51 am
I believe coasting is standard practice for economy run competitors. Having the vehicle computer control it seems a good idea. Whether drivers will feel comfortable with it is another thing. There was a Saab with it many years ago. We know that consumption varies a lot between drivers so how about the computer being programmed with smooth driving features.
Anyone who lives or works in a city would be pleased by the cleaner air and quieter movement of electric cars. I say we should encourage them all we can.
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