Executives say the corporate is tapping into its automotive experience in pursuit of dominating the house and changing into the Tesla of e-bikes, because it had been. Launched in 2009 as an organization startup, e-bikes have turn out to be a major and rising section of Bosch’s mobility division.
“What’s interesting is the parallels to the passenger car mobility segment,” mentioned Tim Frasier, regional president of the corporate’s Cross-Domain Computing Solutions, North America. “The strength of Bosch is our design and technical competence, but the important part is we take what we have within one domain, specifically in automotive, and we’ve used that to support other means of mobility.”
As with automobiles, the following frontier for e-bikes is connectivity. That theme was on full show this week through the CES know-how present in Las Vegas. While Detroit-based General Motors Co. unveiled the anticipated Chevy Silverado EV and different automakers touted their newest EV know-how, Bosch went for a motorcycle experience.
The provider, sometimes related to automotive elements and energy instruments, used the stage to take its new eBike Smart System for a spin. Bosch’s e-bike system consists of an electrical drive unit, battery and show put in on bicycles of all differing kinds and types. Trek is its largest buyer, and cargo and supply bikes are its quickest rising class.
The idea of e-bikes has developed from slapping a cumbersome motor onto a motorcycle body into smooth, modular designs for business and leisure use. E-bikes, together with electrical scooters, have turn out to be an more and more in style type of mobility that has sprouted numerous startups and impressed critical R&D funding by major automakers from GM to Volkswagen.
“It was not a sexy product, it was not integrated (and) it looked horrible,” Claudia Wasko, normal supervisor for Bosch eBike Systems, Americas, mentioned of the earliest e-bike iterations. “What happened over time … the drive unit became much smaller, the battery became integrated, you cannot see it any longer. Every kind of category got electrified.
“Everybody’s driving e-bikes. It’s cool.”
The global market size for e-bikes hit nearly $17 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to $52 billion by 2028, according to market research firm Fortune Business Insights. While Europe remains the largest market for e-bikes, sales have surged in the U.S. to more than half a million units in 2020.
Wasko said Bosch is among the global market leaders of proprietary e-bike systems, with more than 100 customers globally, including Trek, Cannondale and Scott Sports. She said Bosch has more than 20 percent market share in North America and is the dominant e-bike company in the core markets of Switzerland and Germany, where Bosch keeps its global headquarters.
The company declined to disclose revenue, percentages or number of employees for its eBike Systems unit, which is part of its metro Detroit-based Mobility Solutions business. Research and development of eBikes is done primarily in Germany, with administrative and sales work in California and assembly in Hungary.
Unlike a decade ago, Bosch has lots of company as the e-bike space has become cluttered with competitors. There are hundreds of e-bike companies around the world, from well-known brands such as Jeep and Yamaha to dozens of startups, many of which fold before getting off the ground.
Even big automakers have had varied success on two wheels. GM launched its Ariv e-bike in mid-2019 before pulling the plug less than a year later due to the downturn of business caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the company.
Bosch said it aims to differentiate itself by offering riders continuous customizability.
“What’s now actually new to this technology is the connectivity, so we’re including a digital layer,” Wasko said. “We are merging the bodily expertise of driving an e-bike with numerous digital conveniences, like personalization, like connectivity, like providers.”
The newest generation of Bosch-equipped e-bike — launching in the U.S. and abroad starting at $2,000 to as high as $13,000 — centers on the eBike Flow mobile app connected to the bike via Bluetooth. It allows users to adjust and save settings such as torque, maximum speed and assistance. Like a smartphone, the bike can be updated over the air.
“That makes the system good as a result of it should regularly evolve after the acquisition,” Wasko said.
Another new feature is the anti-theft system. If someone tries to steal the bike, its motor will turn off, an alarm will sound and a notification will be sent to the owner through the app, which also tracks the bike’s location.
Among features being tested for potential future application is a safety system being developed by Royal Oak-based software company Tome in partnership with Bosch, Ford Motor Co., GM and other automotive companies.
The software, in development for the past five years, is an AI-based Bicycle to Vehicle (B2V) communication system that aims to keep cyclists safer by being visible to a car even when its driver doesn’t see them, said Jake Sigal, founder and CEO of Tome. Sigal was among Crain’s 50 Names to Know in Information Technology in 2016.
“The know-how relies on the present wi-fi messages {that a} car can ship to different automobiles or infrastructure — known as fundamental security messages and private security messages,” Sigal said. “That’s the work that Bosch has been concerned in with Tome … is determining what the necessities are of those messages. It’s very technical in nature.”
Bosch and Tome are hopeful the federal government’s recent focus on alternate forms of mobility will boost sales and safety. Though stalled in Congress, President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill includes a proposed $4.1 billion for e-bike tax credits, and the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill includes grant funding for beaconing, similar to the car-to-pedestrian technology being developed by Tome.
“One of the boundaries to shopping for an e-bike is, in fact, it is nonetheless an enormous funding,” Wasko said. “We actually assume that now we have to additional proliferate e-bikes right here within the U.S.”