MUNICH, Germany — Conventional car engines will dominate the market for decades, automotive tier one Bosch believes. The company sees a potential for fuel efficiency improvements in the range of 25 to 30 percent for Diesel and gasoline engines.

According to Bernd Bohr, chairman of Bosch's vehicle technology segment, electric cars will not gain significant market share before 2020. The company is working in parallel on improving fuel efficiency for conventional drives and on electrical drives.

Currently, 400 engineers at the Stuttgart (Germany) based company are working on electrifying the powertrain; until year-end 2009, the company plans to add another 100 engineers in this segment.

The main focus of Bosch's R&D activities is the lithium ion battery. The company offered numbers: a lithium ion battery large enough to give a car a range of 200 km today weighs 250 kilograms and costs some 17.000 euros (about $23.500) — far too much to give the technology a chance to be accepted in mass markets. For this reason, reducing weight and price are the number one topic for the researchers and designers.

Despite its efforts in developing electrical drives and related batteries, Bohr predicts that for at least the next 20 years the internal combustion engine will represent the mainstream. Globally, the market share of Diesel engines will rise slightly from 25 percent to 28 percent in the time frame until 2016. Fuel direct injection for will triple its market share to 16 percent, Bohr said at a press event. This technology enables designers to build smaller and more efficient engines with power levels comparable to today's cars but without requiring a turbo charger.

With respect to safety components, the company currently is adding the finishing touches on the combination of the electronic stability program ESC (or ESP, in Bosch parlage), with radar and video sensors. This combination will yield in the design of an anticipatory automatic emergency braking system. Such as system will be available before year-end 2009, Bohr said.

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