DRESDEN, Germany — Stefan Hartung took over as international chairman of Robert Bosch, the world’s largest auto components provider, at the start of the yr at a important second within the firm’s historical past.
Hartung is charged with steering Bosch by way of a spread of short-term challenges, akin to a semiconductor scarcity, warfare in Ukraine and the potential for a recession, whereas additionally making certain that Bosch stays an trade chief as autos electrify and turn out to be extra automated.
Final month, Bosch pledged $3 billion (all figures in USD) in funding in additional of its personal microchip manufacturing, analysis and help exercise.
In his first one-on-one interview with a U.S. information outlet as Bosch chairman, Hartung spoke with Employees Reporter John Irwin on the provider’s new semiconductor plant in Dresden. Listed below are edited excerpts.
Q: How for much longer do you consider the worldwide semiconductor scarcity will final?
A: You may’t clear up it this yr. It is unimaginable. It will likely be higher on the finish of this yr than now, however it could actually’t be absolutely solved till past then. There will probably be one other essential step subsequent yr as a result of there will probably be a change within the financial system on the whole that can impression the demand facet of the query. After which hopefully, on the finish of subsequent yr, we’ll have a a lot clearer view of learn how to transfer forward with the demand development.
As Bosch invests billions of euros in its semiconductor enterprise, does it plan to provide extra chips to different corporations, together with provider opponents?
A lot of the investments have been made to satisfy our personal demand. However in some areas, we do direct gross sales of semiconductors — particularly within the space of micro-electromechanical sensors. We’re an enormous participant within the MEMS market, and that goes not solely to automotive however into wide-scale client electronics. We spend money on MEMS as a result of it has large potential, not solely in automotive however for customers. Nonetheless, for many semiconductors, we purchase. Different folks produce for us. It varies by section.
Bosch can be investing closely in hydrogen gas cell expertise, despite the fact that it is a comparatively area of interest product. When do you see these investments paying off?
With electrification, we noticed an enormous transfer occurring that increasingly automobile producers are partaking in constructing platforms for it. However then got here the query: “OK, you might have the electrified drivetrain, however as you go to the heavier vans, how is that going to work? What number of tons ought to the battery weigh?”
Increasingly more, you had been seeing producers clearly beginning initiatives on hydrogen as a result of that’s the path for heavy, long-range vans to turn out to be CO2-free. So we began on gas cell methods.
We noticed there have been a complete bunch of elements linked to it — not simply the stack and the system, but in addition some very technically difficult elements. And we like these sorts of issues. That is what we’re good at.
Your query is about velocity. We’ll need to see. On hydrogen, we all know that you’re going to see much more autos with it, however the query is what share is it going to succeed in and how briskly will it go there? That is nonetheless an open query. However I feel since it is a CO2-free expertise, it will likely be used. I am an enormous fan of any CO2-free expertise.
As Bosch adapts to rising applied sciences, how completely different will the corporate look sooner or later?
In 15-20 years, this will probably be a unique firm, positively. There will probably be completely different product ranges, and new engine applied sciences will probably be a lot additional down the street. There will probably be far more software program engineers. There will probably be far more computational energy in every car, so there will probably be rather more software program. And which means fully completely different setups of groups and collaboration fashions.
We’ll most likely produce other partnerships on prime of that. We’ll work with extra semiconductor corporations and work extra with software program corporations and platform corporations. Our partnership system will most likely explode.
And we’ll most likely need to play rather more regionally. We’ll have stronger native footprints in the USA, in China, in Europe, and likewise be capable to serve clients in these completely different areas as a result of they will have completely different calls for.