BOSCH India

1886–1920

The company started in a backyard in Stuttgart-West as the Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik on 15 November 1886. The next year Bosch presented a low voltage magneto for gas engines.

From 1897, Bosch started installing magneto ignition devices into automobiles and became a supplier of an ignition system. In 1902, the chief engineer at Bosch, Gottlob Honold, unveiled the high-voltage magneto ignition system with spark plug.In 1901, Bosch opened its first factory in Stuttgart. In 1906, the company produced its 100,000th magneto. In the same year, Bosch introduced the 8-hours day for workers. In 1910, the Feuerbach plant was founded and built close to Stuttgart. In this factory, Bosch started to produce generators and headlights "Bosch-Light" in 1914. the system had been presented in 1913. The onset of motorization in road traffic meant that the company grew very rapidly after 1900. While Bosch had a workforce of 45 in 1901, it had already grown to more than 1,000 by 1908.In 1913, Bosch founded an apprentice workshop in order to recruit qualified young people for the production of automotive electrics. Bosch's international development began in 1898 with the opening of a branch in London, followed the next year by Paris, Vienna, and Budapest. By 1909, Bosch was represented by trading partners on every continent: in 1906 in New York and Johannesburg , in 1907 in Sydney , in 1908 in Buenos Aires , in 1909 in Shanghai , in 1910 in Rio de Janeiro , and in 1911 in Tokyo . Bosch opened the first factory outside Germany in Paris in 1905, and the first on another continent in 1912 in Springfield, Massachusetts .In 1917, Bosch was transformed into a corporation and remained so until 1937, when Robert Bosch became the sole owner again after buying back his shares. In the process, the company became a limited liability company .

1920s -1945

After the First World War, Bosch lost most of its international holdings, including its U.S. factories. The company had to largely rebuild its international activities. This included opening up further South American and Asian regions. In 1922, for example, Illies & Company established a sales office for Bosch goods in Calcutta, India. In the years that followed, Bosch concluded contracts in Asia with sales partners in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and what is now Indonesia, for example, and on the American continents with partners in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador.In the 1920s, Bosch expanded its product range to include numerous automotive technology products that were required for cars in everyday use: electric horn , direction indicators , windshield wipers .And in 1927, Bosch launched injection pumps for diesel. Bosch bought the gas appliances production from Junkers & Co. in 1932, as a part of a diversification strategy. In 1932, the company developed its first electric drill and presented its first car radio. In 1933, Bosch presented its first electric fridge for private households.The year 1933 marked the beginning of the darkest chapter in Bosch's corporate history. On the one hand, the company was systemically relevant as a motor vehicle supplier during the Nazi era, and the management behaved loyally toward the regime. On the other hand, with Robert Bosch's support, the company supported oppositional and anti-regime activities with the utmost secrecy.

Nazi collaboration

In late 1933 negotiations between Robert Bosch AG and the Nazi Party began on relocating parts of armaments production to Germany's interior. Bosch founded two such alternative plants in 1935 and 1937: Dreilinden Maschinenbau GmbH in Kleinmachnow near Berlin and Elektro- und Feinmechanische Industrie GmbH in Hildesheim. Both plants were used exclusively for armaments production. These "shadow factories" were built under great secrecy and in close cooperation with the Nazi authorities. In 1937, Bosch AG became a limited liability company .

The Bosch subsidiary Dreilinden Maschinenbau GmbH in Kleinmachnow employed around 5,000 people, more than half of whom were forced laborers, prisoners of war, and female concentration camp prisoners, including many women from the Warsaw Uprising. They had to produce accessories for German Luftwaffe aircraft. In Hildesheim, a secret plant for the entire electrical equipment of tanks, tractors, and trucks of the Wehrmacht was built. In 1944, 4,290 men and women worked in the Trillke factory, 2,019 of whom were forced laborers, prisoners of war and military internees. During the Second World War, a total of 2,711 people who had been deported to Germany from the occupied countries had to work at the Bosch plant in Hildesheim.In the last years of the war, no new German tank ever drove without the starter elements from the Bosch factory in Hildesheim. Bosch also had a monopoly position in the outfitting of German Luftwaffe aircraft.During the war, production was further decentralized, Bosch produced in an ever larger number of factories, and relocated parts of its production to 213 plants in more than 100 locations.On 12 March 1942, the company's founder, Robert Bosch, died at the age of 80.

Angela Martin and Ewa Czerwiakowski interviewed numerous former forced laborers and concentration camp prisoners of Dreilinden Maschinenbau GmbH and Trillke-Werke as part of a Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt project, researched the history of the two shadow factories, and published several books and exhibitions on the subject.A few months later, on October 11, 1933, Robert Bosch had written to the German foreign minister insisting on the continuation of international understanding, especially the Franco-German understanding that was close to his own heart. Without success, Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, the predecessor institution of today's UN, on October 14, 1933. As the dictatorship solidified, such official interventions proved futile, if not dangerous. Therefore, activities were essentially limited to two options: Supporting the resistance and helping Jews. In April 1937, Bosch engaged the former mayor of Leipzig, Carl Goerdeler. The latter, officially as a business advisor to the company, traveled abroad many times over the next two years to warn politicians about Hitler's war plans.He later belonged to the "Bosch Circle" around Albrecht Fischer, Paul Hahn, Theodor Bäuerle, and WIlly Schloßstein, all of whom were confidants of Robert Bosch and Hans Walz and critical of the Nazi system. With the help of this circle, Goerdeler supported the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944. Because of his participation in the preparation of the attack, Goerdeler was sentenced to death and executed in Berlin-Plötzensee on February 2, 1945. Aid for Jews was provided primarily on the initiative of Hans Walz, the head of the company, with the backing of Robert Bosch, mostly in the form of cash donations that were used via the "Jewish Central Office" to finance the emigration of persecuted Jews, in many cases illegally.

21st century

In 2001, Bosch acquired the Mannesmann Rexroth AG, which they later renamed to Bosch Rexroth AG. In the same year, the company opened a new testing center in Vaitoudden, close to Arjeplog in north Sweden. A new developing center in Abstatt, Germany followed in 2004.

In 2002, Bosch acquired Philips CSI, which at the time was manufacturing a broad range of professional communication and security products and systems including CCTV, congress and public address systems.Important inventions in these years were the electric hydraulic brake in 2001, the common rail fuel injection with piezo-injectors, the digital car radio with a disc drive, and the cordless screwdriver with a lithium-ion battery in 2003.

Bosch received the Deutsche Zukunftspreis from the German president in 2005 and 2008. A new development center was planned in 2008 in Renningen. In 2014, the first departments moved to the new center, while the remaining departments followed in 2015.

In 2006, Bosch acquired Telex Communications and Electro-Voice.

In 2009, Bosch invested about 3.6 billion Euro in development and research. Approximately 3900 patents are published per year. In addition to increasing energy efficiency by employing renewable energies, the company plans to invest into new areas such as biomedical engineering.

China has developed into an important market and manufacturing base for Bosch. In 2012, Bosch had 34,000 employees and a revenue of 41.7 billion Yuan in China.

2012 – Purchased SPX Service Solutions

2012 – Bosch sold its foundation brakes activities to KPS Capital Partners, that led to the establishment of Chassis Brakes International

2013 – Bosch announced it would exit its solar business

2014 – Bosch entered talks to acquire Red Bend Software.

2014 – Bosch takes over 100% of the shares from the former BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH joint venture

2014 – Bosch received the 2014 U.S. Smart Partner award for Physical Security from Ingram Micro Inc.

2015 – Bosch takes over 100% of the shares of the former ZF Lenksysteme GmbH joint venture

2015 – Bosch purchases Seeo, Inc, a start-up working on solid state lithium ion batteries.

Role in emission cheating software

In 2006, Volkswagen executives asked Bosch for help in developing software for their emission defeat devices. Volkswagen is one of Bosch's biggest customers. Volkswagen engineers provided detailed specifications to Bosch, which wrote the necessary code. Bosch was apparently concerned about the legality of software and asked Volkswagen to assume responsibility if the fraud was discovered, but Volkswagen refused.Starting in 2008, Bosch supplied approximately 17 million motor control and mixture control devices containing illegal software to various manufacturers both domestically and globally. With such software, the automobiles fitted with Bosch's devices emitted more nitrogen oxides than allowed under regulations.On 1 February 2017, Bosch agreed to pay consumers in the United States $327.5 million as compensation for its role in devising the software. Bosch also provided emissions software for Fiat Chrysler's 3.0 L V6 diesel engine used in 100,000 model year 2014–2016 Grand Cherokee SUVs and Ram Trucks and agreed to pay affected consumers $27.5 million as part of a broader settlement in January 2019. In May 2019, Bosch paid another $100 million fine for its connection to the Dieselgate scandal.

Role in Astongate greenwashing campaign

In 2020, Bosch funded the creation of a 20-page report entitled Decarbonising Road Transport: There Is No Silver Bullet, which was widely debunked for promoting misleading information about the CO2 emissions created in the manufacture of electric vehicles, following the UK's declaration to ban the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles from 2030.The report compared the emissions created in the production of the all-electric Polestar 2 car, which it claimed would emit 24 tonnes of CO2 over its life, with a petrol-powered Volvo XC40, which the report claimed would create 14 tonnes of CO2. Based on the comparison of these two cars alone the study promoted by Clarendon Communications claimed that all electric vehicles would need to drive 50,000 miles in order to offset the emissions from manufacture – when, in reality, a typical EV need only drive 16,000–18,000 miles in order to offset the emissions from manufacture.While Bosch was a key funder of the report, the scandal became known as Astongate given the relationship between British automotive manufacturer, Aston Martin and Clarendon Communications, a shell company posing as a PR agency which set up to promote the report, and which was registered to James Michael Stephens – the Director Global Government & Corporate Affairs at Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd.In January 2021, Volkswagen filed a $1.2 billion class-action against Bosch and Continental AG after VW was forced to reduce production due to a lack of automotive microchips. On January 26, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that Bosch won on all claims.In January 2020, Bosch Packaging Technology became Syntegon.In June 2021, Bosch christened its newly built semiconductor manufacturing plant in which it invested $1.2 billion, its largest-ever spending on a single project.In April 2022, Bosch announced to acquire Five.ai, an autonomous driving startup.in April 2022, Bosch announced it had acquired the Dresden-based MEMS micro speaker producer, Arioso Systems. The company will form part of Bosch Sensortec GmbH.In July 2022, Bosch said the company is looking to invest approximately 3 billion euros into its semiconductor chip production and R&D over the next four years. They will be opening two new facilities for manufacturing a computer chip development in the cities of Dresden and Reutlingen. Chairman Stefan Hartung said the company is not interested in building cutting-edge semiconductor facilities but focuses on 40 and 200-nanometer chips used in the automotive industry.