One for all

At 8 a.m. on September 21, 2026, a truck driver – we’ll call him Alex – sets off from Hannover to Munich. After the trailer has docked with the truck – fully automatically – Alex drives the truck toward the freeway, supported by the lane-keeping assistant and predictive emergency braking. Once on the freeway, the highway pilot takes over and maneuvers the 40-ton truck into a convoy, or “platoon.” In a platoon, the vehicles are all electronically connected and linked together, so that acceleration, braking, and steering actions all happen in sync and the trucks stay a constant safe distance apart. Thanks to a head-up display and the monitors of the side-view mirror replacement systems, Alex can keep a constant eye on what is happening. On the way to Munich, he uses other digital services, such as predictive diagnostics, automatic parking space reservation, and the TraQ system for constantly monitoring his cargo.

Exactly ten years earlier – in 2016 – Bosch demonstrated this vision of a day in the connected life of a future truck driver at the IAA Commercial Vehicles in Hannover. The concept study, Vision X, also featured a cockpit with a realistic animation that allowed visitors to follow Alex’s journey. “Vision X was a milestone for Bosch, since we had never presented a show vehicle of this complexity at a trade fair before,” says Anton Beer, the vice president marketing in the Commercial-Vehicle and Off-Road business unit (CVO). “And also, this was a very special project because it involved seven Bosch divisions.”

Offering customers such integrated solutions is the mission of the dynamic new CVO business unit, which was set up in early 2016. The idea is to have just one point of contact per customer – and to apply this principle across the entire Bosch product range. “We are a sales organization with integrated systems development, collaborating with all the relevant divisions,” says Johannes-Jörg Rüger, the CVO president. In the case of Vision X, this meant working with all internal parties to quickly define the various needs and requirements for the truck of the future. As Beer explains, “The technical solutions that we encounter on our journey with Alex are ones we have come up with in collaboration with internal partners.” Management and realization of the project was the responsibility of CVO.

The business unit is good at collaborating across organizational boundaries, as it demonstrated at the bauma 2016 trade fair in Munich – in this case with the Drive and Control Technology division. But it is equally good at collaborating with partners from outside the company, as the joint Genius Cab project shows. This driver’s cab of the future for construction and agricultural machinery was realized in cooperation with external partners. Within the project, the goal was to maximize system integration as well as reduce development time and costs by efficiently leveraging synergy effects. “Each participant proposed innovations in a transparent process – with as few contracts as possible,” says the CVO project manager Katharina Axtmann. The elements Bosch contributed included the core of the electronic concept (the body computer), the direct wiper drive, side-view mirror replacement displays, and ultrasonic sensors. This integrated approach provides a host of benefits for customers, including increased security, maximum user-friendliness, a relaxed driving experience, and improved maintenance.