EPN Automotive Electronics Blog

Broken bonds of brakes

It's difficult to imagine a major automotive supplier without brake technology in its portfolio, but it's bound to happen: the Bosch Group intends to sell its global foundation brakes business to a private equity firm. Since Bosch is not known for making rash decisions, this carve-out is certainly going to have some impact on the industry.

In the aftermarket

Modern cars are practically heaps of electronic components, and various interfaces allow for diagnostic access of the subsystems. One of the consequences is that it has become increasingly difficult to conduct even small repairs yourself, another is a booming service tools market. A market everyone wants a share of.

The second world strikes back

We got used to car and semiconductor manufacturing migrating from Europe to China, and subcontractors and EMS providers moving to obscure post-soviet states. A few years ago, Chinese companies started building infrastructure in Africa in a way, legions of western development workers weren’t able to, European and US governments ask for financial help and now the unheard-of happens: a Chinese car manufacturer opens a plant in a European low-wage country.

Bad luck for convertibles

The widely acknowledged evolution for car's engines goes like that: Combustion engine -> hybrid engine -> electric motor. A rather obvious step along the way is equipping cars with solar cells, but apart from experimental ultra-light vehicles it hasn't been done on a larger scale - yet.

Kaluga’s drive to environmental protection

Russia is famous for many things, environmentalism not among them. In that huge country even small improvements can have a large impact - especially in heavily industrialized areas.

Volks-qìchē 人民 汽车

When Homer J. Simpson met his half-brother for the first time in ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou’, he was given the opportunity to design a car for the everyday person. This resulted in lots of laughter, a bankruptcy and the brothers falling apart. Volkswagen is trying something similar in the People’s Republic of China, obviously called the »People’s Car Project«.

How to mislead the public

The German motoring organization ADAC has just published its annual Emergency Road Service statistics. In a bout of misguided patriotism, the association interpreted the results as a huge success for German cars. Even a superficial glance on the making of the report shows that this is only true by omitting a very important fact.

Back in Japan

In the weeks after the threefold disaster in Japan, many car manufacturers and automotive suppliers had to cut back their production. Yesterday, the 18th of April, Mitsubishi’s plants in the stricken country took up production again.

Joint venture for electric motors

A bold move: Daimler and Bosch plan to cooperate in the development and production of electric motors for all-electric vehicles in Europe. This is certainly good for Daimler where know-how in this area is scarce. Bosch on the other hand can but hope that its other customers don't see a conflict of interest.

Sensors against collisions

A big deal for Jenoptik, manufacturer of optical components: The East-Germany-based company just signed a long-term delivery contract with automotive supplier Magna and expands its production of sensors for the automotive industry.