Facing the new cycle of intelligence, how should Tier1 position itself, especially in the Chinese market? This time, as a global auto parts giant, Bosch has given the answer.
In response to technological changes such as electrification, the evolution of electrical and electronic architectures, and software-defined vehicles, Bosch has restructured and restructured its business with the aim of creating more efficient cross-domain solutions that can quickly and flexibly serve existing and new customer needs, while facilitating further business growth. Wang Weiliang, President of the Board of Directors of Bosch Intelligent Mobility Group China, said.
From January 1, 2024, the Bosch Automotive & Intelligent Transportation Technology business will be officially renamed "Bosch Intelligent Mobility Group" after the reorganization, which is a major structural adjustment, integrating electric drives, automotive electronics, intelligent vehicle motion control, intelligent driving and other businessesThe group model operates independently
At the same time, the Board of Directors of Bosch Smart Mobility Group China was established to oversee the management of relevant business units and teams in China. Bosch Smart Mobility Group currently has more than 35,000 employees and 24 production sites in China, with sales of more than 100 billion yuan.
In fact, compared with about 20% of Bosch's total business in China (including non-automotive business), the contribution of the automotive business from China has reached 25%, which also highlights Bosch's strategic focus of "further rooted in China and technology empowering car companies".
And at the 9th Bosch Smart Mobility Innovation Experience Day held last week,Wang Weiliang led the board members of the Intelligent Mobility Group China to make a collective appearance and clarified the core positioning of the future business: "Bosch will never build a car. (This is the biggest difference between Bosch and Huawei).
According to Wang Weiliang, the establishment of the Bosch Smart Mobility Group and its operation as a company is the first time in the 138 years since Bosch was founded. "Although a lot of it is an integration of old businesses, from a company's point of view, we are a startup company that is just getting started. ”
The establishment of the board of directors in China means that Bosch China will have more local decision-making capabilities. "We will make more decisions locally (in the past, many decisions had to be made at Bosch headquarters) and respond more quickly to the needs of our customers in China. ”
At the same time,For the first time, Bosch proposed a full-stack technology structure for the future automotive industry with five verticals and nine horizontalsIn the words of Wang Weiliang, the company hopes that this new architecture definition will become another classic technology map that Bosch has contributed to the industry after the evolution of electronic architecture.
What is Bosch's market positioning under this overall structure?
Full-stack hardware and software capabilities and flexible product portfolios are the strategies set for this foreign Tier1 that is deeply rooted in the Chinese market (and to some extent, the most localized).
Among them, Bosch is accelerating the creation of solutions at all levels from the product application end to the operating platform, and flexibly provides products that integrate software and hardware or decouple software and hardware according to customer needs.
The decoupling of software and hardware is a response to the trend of Chinese car companies to continuously strengthen independent controllability and even self-development, and at the same time, it is also a strategy to deal with the emergence of Chinese competitors in various segments.
For example,Taking Bosch's traditional strength, chassis systems, as an example, the Bosch local team has developed a new vehicle motion control systemIt is a software and system solution that covers the vehicle motion management of degrees of freedom, and cooperatively controls all vehicle motion actuators such as braking, steering, power and suspension.
An open architecture that supports the integration of third-party actuators is one of the cores. As we all know, Bosch has been the leading market share in ESP, EPS and brake-by-wire (two box, one box) market segments for many years.
However, with the strong rise of foreign peers and local Chinese companies, Bosch also needs to respond to the new situation of the industrial chain and make corresponding changes. "Our customers are our customers, our partners, and our competitors; In the face of this new form, Bosch has become accustomed to it. ”
Innovation was the most frequently mentioned keyword at this press conference. "An era of change, an era full of challenges, will inevitably enter an era of innovation. ”In Wang Weiliang's view, the layout and large-scale delivery of intelligent global product lines are also the cornerstone of innovation.
For example, for the different E/E architectures of OEMs, Bosch's local team has developed parking software solutions. The AI model of the scheme is trained based on Chinese parking scenarios, which can optimize the performance of parking functions in multiple scenarios, including dead-end road parking, narrow parking space parking, and three-dimensional parking space parking.
In addition, the new third-generation multi-function camera EVO version developed by the local leader was also unveiled during the event, with nearly four times more AI computing power than the previous generation of products, and the upgrade of the perception algorithm based on deep learning has greatly improved the distance and accuracy of target and lane line recognition.
On the high-end intelligent driving track, Bosch's high-speed NOA has been officially released on January 20, 2024, and the first batch covers Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and other provinces and cities.
According to Wu Yongqiao, President of Bosch Intelligent Driving and Control Systems China, urban NOA will indeed usher in explosive growth in three years. Bosch's capabilities in the power domain, chassis domain, steering domain, intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, and intelligent computing are the latecomers.
At the same time, in Wu Yongqiao's view, Bosch is one of the best choices to establish the needs of functional safety and application scenarios suitable for localization and globalization in China.
Although Bosch China started the development of NOA functions late, it was one of the first manufacturers to use the QNX operating system based on the Orin-X platform, not Linux. This means that there are more advantages in the subsequent functional safety and even network security.
For Bosch, we will always be an enabler, we do not build cars, we create value for customers. What to do in such a difficult time as the present? I (Wang Weiliang) and my colleagues in the company said: Stay up, get through it and we will win. Don't feel miserable, because the future is bright.
This confidence also comes from Bosch's market performance.
Compared to the previous year, Bosch's smart electrification business achieved double-digit rapid growth in 2023. At the same time, Bosch continues to increase its investment in local R&D and manufacturing capabilities in key areas in China.
In March 2023, Bosch invested about RMB 7 billion in the R&D and manufacturing base for core components of new energy vehicles and autonomous driving in Suzhou, the first phase of which will be completed by the middle of this year.
In addition, Bosch Huayu Yantai Phase IV project will also be put into operation in the second half of 2023, with an investment of RMB 700 million, and plans to add nine new production lines to produce electric power steering systems.
At the same time, helping Chinese car companies go overseas is also regarded as Bosch's unique advantage.
For example, Bosch has great advantages and resources to support customers in expanding into overseas markets. This includes global R&D and manufacturing experience, in-depth involvement and understanding of overseas market access regulations, evaluation testing systems, and industry standards.
According to the data, Bosch's Intelligent Driving & Control Systems division has supported more than 60 models to go overseas in 2023, and has helped two models of an OEM successfully obtain a five-star safety rating in Euro NCAP 2023 in terms of vulnerable road user protection and safety assistance.
In addition, other locally developed solutions such as steering systems and intelligent cockpits are also exported to overseas markets under its own brand. From the perspective of cost reduction and efficiency increase, Bosch's century-old high-quality, high-level, and large-scale manufacturing capabilities are also outstanding advantages.
In addition, on this Innovation Experience Day,Regarding the layoff plan recently announced by Bosch headquarters in Germany, the relevant person in charge of Bosch China said that it is mainly affected by the transformation of the automotive industry, especially in the process of transforming from traditional internal combustion engines to electrified mobility, and the number of jobs required is decreasing.
At the same time, Bosch hopes to maintain and improve its competitiveness by streamlining its personnel structure. "At the moment, these plans will not have any impact on businesses and jobs in China, as the situation in the two markets is different. ”