Paul Thomas, executive vice president of Bosch Mobility Solutions, Americas, acknowledged that there is heightened awareness of climate issues this summer, and with it, more attention by the company on worker safety and comfort at its factories and offices.
“Sustainability is always on our mind. We’ve always wanted to move quickly,” he told Automotive News. “But there is some concern that we need to improve the Earth quicker than in the past.”
He told the Traverse City audience that the increasing urgency of electrifying and connecting the auto industry will present management challenges for suppliers, in terms of how they allocate capital and operate profitably.
“The balance of technology keeps me awake at night,” Thomas said. “Am I putting the right money into the right place at the right time? Do I have enough people working on both internal combustion programs and EV programs? You don’t want the people working on the old stuff to think you only care about the people working on the new stuff.”
Part of that “new stuff” is the electric bicycle market. On the way to supplying electric power drives for two-wheelers, Bosch — the biggest auto supplier in the world — has become the No. 1 producer of eBike power systems, representing $1 billion in new business, Thomas said.
To help speed up Bosch’s transformation into a diversified company of sustainable mobility products and services, the company said in May it will adopt a new corporate structure called Bosch Mobility, to take effect in January. Thomas will become president of Bosch Mobility Americas at that time, responsible for North and South America.
He said the change in structure will help Bosch navigate the industry’s rapidly changing landscape as it moves into new areas suchas hydrogen fuel cells and software services.