Mahabharata

Bosch Automotive

A product history

Journal of Bosch History

Supplement 22 | Supplement 2 | Journal of Bosch History

The magneto ignition device for motorized carriages that was first delivered 

to a customer in 1898 marks our first major milestone as an automotive 

supplier. There were numerous other important milestones on our way to 

becoming a global automotive supplier with a wide range of automotive 

systems, components, and services. Examples include the diesel injection 

pump, the Jetronic electronic gasoline-injection system, the ABS antilock 

braking system, the ESP® electronic stability program, and common rail. 

Today, our products help a lot to cut fuel consumption and emissions, and 

to make driving safer and more comfortable. Bosch technology can be found 

in virtually every vehicle on the road, whether helping to stabilize vehicle 

dynamics in critical situations, automatically maintaining a safe distance

from the vehicle in front, finding the most economical way to reach a destination, or improving visibility at night.

With his finely honed entrepreneurial instinct, Robert Bosch was quick to 

latch on to good ideas. He then used his technical flair and commercial 

expertise to turn them into high-quality products that represented excellent 

value for money. The principles that he formulated and lived by still shape 

our company, our values, and our actions today. They help us turn challenges 

into opportunities. Examples in automotive engineering include recognizing 

the potential for growth in Asia, realizing the potential of the electric car, 

supporting the associated emergence of new concepts of mobility, as well 

as participating in the trend toward smaller vehicles.

Although Bosch is now a technology and services company that is active in 

many other areas, our automotive business sector has always been at the 

heart of what we do. No other business sector can look back on such a long 

or multifaceted history. The purpose of this brochure is to relate this history, 

and I hope it makes for interesting reading.

Best regards

Bernd Bohr

Member of the Board of Management 

and Chairman of the Bosch Automotive Group

Foreword

Title illustration:

Bosch and automotive 

technology are inseparably linked. The title 

illustration from 1955 

shows Bosch testing 

equipment at work, 

checking the ignition 

system of an Opel 

Olympia Rekord.