Episode 234: Bosch President Paul Thomas
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Company
Bosch
Bosch is a big company that makes parts and systems for cars and other machines. They help improve safety and technology in vehicles.
Concept
autonomous control
Autonomous control means that a vehicle can drive itself without needing a person to steer or make decisions. It's like having a robot driver that uses technology to understand the road.
Term
SYNC
SYNC is a system in Ford cars that lets you use your voice to control things like music and navigation. It's like having a personal assistant in your car.
Term
autonomous vehicles
Autonomous vehicles are cars that can drive on their own without needing a person to control them. They use technology to see their surroundings and make decisions while driving.
Term
smart cockpit
A smart cockpit is the part of a car where the driver sits, equipped with advanced technology like touchscreens and voice commands to make driving easier and more enjoyable.
Term
vehicle motion management
Vehicle motion management is a system in cars that helps control how the car moves to make the ride smoother and more comfortable for passengers.
Term
six degrees of freedom
Six degrees of freedom means a vehicle can move in all directions: it can go up and down, side to side, and forward and backward, plus it can tilt and turn. This helps make rides smoother.
Term
dampers
Dampers are parts of a car's suspension that help smooth out the ride. They control how the car moves over bumps and keep it stable.
Term
braking components
Braking components are the parts that help a car slow down or stop. This includes things like brake pads and discs that work together to make the car safe.
Term
suspension
The suspension is the system in a car that helps it ride smoothly over bumps and keeps the tires on the ground for better control.
Term
steer by wire
Steer by wire means that instead of using physical connections to steer the car, it uses electronic signals. This can make steering more precise and allow for new features.
Term
brake by wire
Brake by wire means that the brakes are controlled electronically rather than with fluid and mechanical parts. This can make the brakes respond faster and more efficiently.
Term
software-defined vehicles
Software-defined vehicles are cars that use a lot of computer software to control how they work. This means they can get new features and improvements through updates, just like your phone.
Term
redundancy
Redundancy in cars means having backup systems to keep things safe. For example, if one part of the braking system fails, there are other parts that can still help stop the car.
Company
Kodiak AI
Kodiak AI is a company that works on self-driving technology for trucks. They create systems that help trucks drive themselves, which can make them safer and more efficient.
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The automobile is one of the most important inventions that revolutionize the modern world.
In America, the rich history of car culture runs deep.
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from industry leaders and innovators to car-obsessed celebrities.
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and around the bend on Cars and Culture on SiriusXM Business Radio.
Welcome into a new year and welcome to episode 234 of Cars and Culture with Jason Stein.
You're on SiriusXM Business Channel 132. Great to have you along for the ride again this week.
Most of the technologies that shape our daily lives are invisible.
We don't see the sensors that keep us safe. We don't see the algorithms that manage complexity.
We don't see the infrastructure that makes modern mobility, manufacturing and energy
actually work. But we depend on them constantly, especially in the automotive space.
Very few companies operate more deeply inside that invisible layer of the modern world than Bosch.
Bosch touches nearly everything that moves, everything that's manufactured,
and increasingly, all that's intelligent. From vehicles and factories to energy systems
and consumer products, Bosch sits inside the systems that keep society functioning,
quietly, reliably, and at massive scale. Which means Bosch also sits at the center
of some of the most important transitions of our time. The shift from mechanical systems to
digital ones, from human control to assisted and autonomous control, from linear manufacturing
to intelligent, adaptive production, from analog infrastructure to connected software-defined
infrastructure. This isn't change at the surface. It's change at the foundation. And that raises
new questions. How do you introduce intelligence into systems that must never fail? How do you
innovate quickly in industries that demand extreme reliability? How do you lead transformation
when the customers, partners, and regulators all move at different speeds? And how do you build
trust in a world where technology is everywhere, but confidence in institutions is not? Those are
the questions my guest today spends his time with. From the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,
he's Paul Thomas, president of Bosch North America. And he leads Bosch Across Mobility,
Industrial Technology, Energy, Building Technologies, and Consumer Goods in one of the
most dynamic and demanding markets in the world. Paul's job is not just to adopt new technology,
it's to integrate it responsibly at scale across complex ecosystems of customers,
suppliers, employees, and communities. So today, we'll talk about what it really means at all of
those levels. How Bosch thinks about AI, automation, and software, not just as products, but as
responsibilities, and why manufacturing is becoming one of the most important technology
frontiers. This is a conversation about technology, trust, and transformation. From the Consumer
Electronics Show 2026, CES in Las Vegas, this is Cars and Culture. Hi, I'm Paul Thomas,
and this is Cars and Culture with Jesus Night. Well, we're at CES in Las Vegas 2026, the place
where technology really stops being theoretical and starts to become real. And what a pleasure
to sit with you, Paul. Thanks for being on the program. Thanks for being with me.
It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. And I always enjoy coming to Las Vegas as well to see what
is happening in the world a little bit, what our competitors are doing, and also with some of our
partners are showing. How many CES is for you? Yeah, I've been to about seven CES to this point,
and each year they get more and more interesting because I start to narrow or expand my views on
certain things, you know, specifically into robotics or specifically into different things
that you see in the industry. Or I see personally that I like to get involved. Yeah, this show is
really morphed. I mean, I remember back in the automotive, you know, the first installation
of automotive here was in a parking lot outside the convention center when Microsoft got together
with Ford and they talked about Sink, Mark Fields, former head of North America at the time was
was introducing some of the revolutionary additions to the vehicle. And now, I mean,
it's a must attend if you're in the automotive space, whether supplier or automaker or related,
right? Yeah, I think that the technologies that you see have to be part of an ecosystem, right?
The mobility fits in beautifully to an ecosystem that you and I deal with every day, right? So,
whether you're driving, whether you're parking, whether you're eating, whether you're, you know,
with your family, there's certain things that have to start being connected. Otherwise, it gets
frustrating. Yeah. And I think the world's getting to a point where, you know, digitalization is
important, right? And you can't ignore it. You can't ignore it any longer, no matter your age.
Even if you have, you know, parents, they have to be part of the digital technology. Otherwise,
it's tough. Yeah, there's no more pushing back on technology. I don't want to be a part of
technology anymore. Yeah, I think if you've, and that's what that's what's great about CES is
it's at least what we're trying to use CES for and what we're trying to do is have technologies
that you don't have to push against, that they feel real natural, in essence, and that they actually
help people versus just try to make money. Yeah, yeah. This, this has become a place where it's an
intersection of physical machines, digital intelligence. That's right where Bosch is. And I
know you expect software and services, that whole side of the business, to exceed 6 billion euros
by the end of the decade. Two thirds of that coming from mobility. You're right at the epicenter of
that. But I know that your message here at CES, simple, but it's profound. Software alone doesn't
change the world. Hardware alone doesn't either. But when those two things come together, that's
really where progress happens. Yeah, it brings me back when I was a younger engineer in my life,
we always talked about the fusion of hardware and software. And it was always one of these things
where it was a great thing to have. But there was never the software nor the, the relationships
amongst all of the different partners to make it work. One person wanted to protect his hardware,
one person wanted to protect his software. So you had very elegant solutions either on the software
side or the hardware side, but never could you find a solution that they could deliver together.
And I think now with the ability to develop software faster with AI, the ability to have
hardware that's now robust, cost effective, and reliable. When you bring those together,
this fusion has become a reality, which I think is super cool. And finding ways to
find the best ways to fuse technology between software and hardware, and doing it in a way
that doesn't create any critical errors, right? If you're dealing with safety components,
you've got to look out for all that. And being responsible for that collaboration of software
and hardware is extremely challenging. But that's what's rewarding. You can have a software engineer
that can develop a solution that uses a piece of Bosch hardware, or he says, you know what,
the Bosch hardware works, but so does competitor X. And that's great. And that's something that's
changing. I think we'll see it not only in mobility, but you'll start seeing it in other
areas. If you look at certain connectivity topics like matter, you know, you move from Bluetooth
to matter, the things where everything has to be connected somehow. And these, these, these barriers
are coming down. And it's fun to accept it. It's fun to watch it work and not be skeptical.
You know, looking at the energy, all of this needs as well is very, very interesting topic.
Yeah. The energy from the energy from the people that develop it, but also the energy to operate.
Right. Right. Yeah. When you, you generally look at your, your chat GPT or things, I mean,
the amount of compute power that's required to bring a sensor in a piece of hardware together,
it needs more energy. Right. Right. So the energy becomes critical. And you start looking at things
like silicon carbide, or you start looking at things that how do we reduce the energy in a
house or a vehicle so that we can add all of these features without driving energy usage up.
Is that where the biggest leap is going to take place over the course of the next five to 10
years? Yeah. I mean, my personally, I mean, this isn't market research based, but I think that
energy will become extremely more relevant here going forward in the next five to six years,
just because all of the data people are processing, you need to be able to power it. Right. Yeah.
And energy doesn't come without cost, whether it's coal based or whether it's fossil fuel or
you could use the word nuclear, whatever you want to use, it's still complicated.
And then distributing it, whether you use fuel cells or hydrogen, whatever, it hasn't been an
easy task for anyone. I think that people will continue to progress on this fusion that you
brought up. And I think that's super important. And then making sure you can power all of that.
I hope to be really 140 year old company this year, Bosch is, it's now positioning itself as a
leader in AI and software, digital services, it's no longer just an engineering company,
it's no longer just a part supplier, you know, some sort of former notions through those 14 decades.
How do you describe what Bosch is becoming in plain language?
You know, so I've been with them for 30 years. Right. I've seen the start of our software business,
I've seen the creation of our hardware business and making it more profound.
I think that the company, you know, has, we have a strong history, right, in inventing for life.
And I think inventing things in house will remain super important for us. So the number of patents
we create, what's going to become more relevant for us and much more important is how we bring
that technology to the market now. And I think we've had, there's some epiphany moments in our
companies, you know, past about certain technologies that have found their way to the market, where
we've been market leaders, and we've been able to retain those positions. Those are harder to find
now. And I think the company is going through a great revolution of saying, how can we now
take our great hardware expertise, billions and billions of products manufactured to
super high tolerances? How can we now translate that into using that advantage along with the
software skill sets that we have? I mean, we have over 400,000 people that work for the company
globally. So we've got a lot of smart people working on a lot of good things. And you saw
today on the manufacturing side, I don't think there's many companies positioned as well as us
that have made as many parts as we have had, and have been challenged with the industrialization of
clean rooms, been challenged with the industrialization of high tolerance welding,
semiconductor production, everything we do that can feed into a very robust
manufacturing process, which can make us more efficient, make sure we're around for another
150 years. Is it primarily an industrial company, a technology company, or something entirely new?
I think it's hard to put a definition in our company right now. I think that we want to be a
successful company that serves all the different areas we work in. So we're in industrial technology,
we're in appliances, we're in consumer goods, we're in power tools, we're heating, cooling,
we're in building security and technology. I think we are a very strong multination that wants to
bring all that together. I think we love our industrialization. And if someone asks us to make
parts for them or develop something, we can do that. But we also realize that our responsibility
to be able to manage that hardware is becoming more and more relevant. When you think about
Bosch from the engineering company perspective, and even a technology platform company,
the next iteration of it may not look anything like it does today, thanks to
agent of AI, thanks to many of the things that you've talked about here at CES.
What could it morph into? I mean, the platform's out there, and you can move in whatever direction
you want across it. I think the company will always be based upon the values of our founder.
Rather lose money than trust, invent things that are better for people. So we'll never
vary from those those directives, which I think are super important for us. We also, as you know,
don't have, we're not a company that has to manage to the stock market. So we don't make
short-term swings or we don't make changes that affect our people dramatically. We do have
challenges, right? We do have to manage what the market's offering to us. The market's a
super big challenge right now. As you know, I mean, volumes in the automotive industry
are plateauing, right? You see challenges in the power tool market. You see challenges in
home appliances everywhere right now. So I think the company won't morph into anything different
than we are now. We'll just be better at what we do. And we have to do it with better tools,
better software, get to the market faster than our competition, but do it in a way that
might not be the same as we've done. And our leaders, myself included, are all working towards
things along those ways and make sure that we don't have to reduce workforce dramatically to
meet our financial targets, but also to continue delivering the products. And that's the balance.
So will the company morph? I think we have to change the way we go to the market,
but we won't change the way that we are beliefs on how to do that, right?
CES, you're showing an AI-based cockpit. It understands language, visuals, context,
almost like a co-pilot. It was kind of described that way as a co-pilot.
When do you think drivers will experience this in everyday vehicles? And I guess what
problem does it solve first? Is it safety, convenience, or connection?
Yeah, I mean, if you ask me that question on a global basis, I would say that certain
consumers are already using it. But if you spend time in China or in Shanghai, I mean,
there's already use cases for smarter cockpits, not because United States citizens don't like
technology as fast, but the speed of adaption of things like this is happening faster in
countries than it is in the U.S. I think that we will start seeing, and you already see it today,
you have technologies from some OEMs which help you drive a little bit smarter, right?
On the highway, you can take your hands off the wheel, you have a level two plus
autonomy, and people are really reacting well to that. And once it became more affordable,
more people started to use it. So I think the affordability question will be a good one for us.
If we can introduce technology in the region that's affordable, and consumers don't think
they're spending too much money to use it, we'll start seeing a greater adaption of smart AI and
cockpit technology. And the way that the software is being developed now, and I mentioned it even
maybe earlier today, is if you're not creating bespoke solutions for car after car, but you're
creating a general solution, it will become more cost effective. And we're just not there yet.
I think the electrical architectures are coming along, and the vehicles to be able to handle the
high compute that we have, the hardware is there, the ideas are there. I mean, there's
certain automakers that, I mean, we can name a few of them on one hand, that are already in kind
of more of a consumer focus. We'll see the others catch up. And I think that consumers are ready
for it. I mean, if you do a lot of the surveys that we do, you see that they're ready for a safer
vehicle. You see that they're ready for a vehicle that has better fuel economy. You'll see a vehicle
that needs less service going along the ways or one that can predict their service topics.
So I do think that consumers will start adapting this and we have the responsibility
to make it affordable and make it available. Do consumers trust the technology more today,
or is that level of trust increasing? I think it's increasing. I mean, you can even see in
Las Vegas this week, you see a lot of autonomous vehicles. Advertise, you can scan them and get
rides, pretty significant, pretty easily now. I think the trust will come. I think the trust
will come. I think that there's a lot of trust in when you show them what the car or what the
vehicle is seeing, what the smart cockpit is providing. Some of them may think that the car
can drive better than them. Well, and related, you're also showing vehicle motion management,
which is it controls a vehicle across six degrees of freedom, if you will, to reduce
motion sickness, improve ride quality. That's a very human problem to solve. It must be just as
important, Paul, to have the autonomy and the software feel comfortable, not just capable.
Yeah, I think what I like to do is, I don't know what type of vehicle you drive, but when you get
in a certain vehicle, certain vehicles have a certain feel. And you would say that that's the
DNA of a vehicle. That used to cost a lot of money to say the steering feel or the braking
feel or the cornering feel was all based upon certain dampers and hardware and speed of control.
And if you had a great calibration engineer or someone that knew how a steering wheel was supposed
to feel, I think that the ability now to tailor that to the way an OEM wants the vehicle is a
lot easier now, because it's not hardware-based. So you just have to spend a lot of money on
what type of braking components you need. Exactly. Like I want the car to stop this fast. Well,
then you need a bigger braking system. Or now you can have a smaller braking system and the
software now can make it feel more sporty or stop or stop differently. So I think that's coming.
And that's why this vehicle motion management control is so important. And even when you get
into the suspension side, do you want it lower? Do you want it higher? How does the
vehicle act in corners? How does it act when you're on an open road? So that is definitely with
the steer by wire and brake by wire technologies where you can now really, you can touch everything
the vehicle is doing from six figures of freedom. It's really cool. So related to brake by wire and
steer by wire, you expect over 7 billion euros in cumulative sales by 2032. That's not flashy tech.
It's foundational. And is by wire the unsung enabler of software-defined vehicles?
I think that it opens up other possibilities. So you can still have a beautiful software-defined
vehicle without steer by wire and brake by wire. What it offers you then is flexibility, right? So
you don't have a lot of the hardware that you can eliminate, especially on the steering side.
On the braking side, there's redundancy and other topics you can have with brake by wire. There's
also elimination of hydraulics and certain components that you won't need in the vehicle. So
it's a progression. I mean, we're seeing a lot of customers make the move, but there's also
challenges related to how reliable it can be in load situations, right? So it's hard to overcome,
but you can also find combinations where you have a brake by wire system in a vehicle along with a
hard steering system or vice versa. So I think we'll see the progression of it. And you may see
maybe one, the front might be brake by wire, the rear might be conventional braking. You might see
steer by wire in certain vehicles, specifically when you get into autonomy vehicles or vehicles
that don't need steering wheels or you don't want steering wheels on, you've got to have them.
So it'll be a progression and we want to be a great provider of that technology.
In the U.S., you've announced a deep partnership with Kodiak AI around redundant platforms for
autonomous trucks. Why does trucking feel like the place where autonomy becomes economically real first?
Yeah, I mean, I have a personal point on this and I also have a Bosch point.
They both kind of intersect at one area. As trucks always, if you have a known route,
the truck has to get from point A to point B. And when you have a known route and you have a vehicle
that is instrumented and you have a load that is well known, that's where autonomy makes total
sense. And that doesn't differ between my beliefs and the company's beliefs. And that's where I
think the advantages of Class 8 commercial trucking can happen. Now, last mile deliveries, we'll see
how that operates. I mean, you see Amazon doing a lot of things with last mile deliveries, whether
they're trucks or other devices that deliver product. But I think in Class 8 vehicles, having
this known route with a known point A and a known point B, where you need uptime and drivers might
not want to do that. At the end of the day, drivers need to love their job as well. And is a driver
really going to love driving the same route every day back and forth, nine hours a day? Maybe not.
Maybe you take that driver and you teach him how to be a software reviewer and he's observing nine
trucks driving and using his skill set and stuff to deliver AI models to help the trucks do better.
So that's where I see this really starting. And it's glad with Kodiak that we do it on the commercial
vehicle side so that we see a big Class 8 opportunity. After the break, I'll continue my
conversation with Paul Thomas, president of Bosch North America. To see more cars and culture
interviews, visit the Cars and Culture YouTube channel, subscribe, comment, and check out
hundreds of conversations with the creators, collectors, and culture makers who are driving
the industry forward. Welcome back to the program.
Welcome back to Las Vegas and CES 2026. I'm your host, Jason Stein. Great to have you with us.
Now the continuation of my conversation from Las Vegas with Paul Thomas, president of Bosch
North America. To see more cars and culture interviews, visit the Cars and Culture YouTube
channel, subscribe, comment, and check out hundreds of conversations with the creators,
collectors, and culture makers who are driving the industry forward. A little more on AI. There's
manufacturing co-intelligence using agentic AI, really to optimize factories. You showed
something during your press conference of a factory floor optimization. Talked a lot about that.
When you say agentic AI, what does that mean in practical terms for workers who are on the factory
floor? Yeah, so I mean, agentic AI gives you the way I like to, I call it conversational AI.
Okay. Right, where you have an agent that might understand the hardware of the machine they're
working on. You might have another agent that understands the software of the machine they're
working on. And the operator would ask the agentic team, my machine went down. And then the AI agents
would then say, talk to each other and say, here's the failure mode. Agent one, is it hardware? Agent
two, is it software? And the agentic AI really comes through that when our operators ask questions,
the agents, whether it's software, hardware, let's call it hydraulics or air or pneumatics,
whatever's being delivered to the machine can then talk to each other. And those that problem
solving at the agentic AI level then gives, let's say, a most likely solution. And of course,
then the operator has to perform certain things to make sure that that's operative. And that helps a
lot. And as we talked about in the press conference earlier today, I know that the listeners weren't
part of that. That's improving our accuracy of failure modes by more than three times. So having
this agentic AI talking gives us better answers faster. And in that way, we hear a lot about the
improvements that AI will make in the workforce, how it will change business. How do you see it
adapting and or asking a different way? How do you see it changing the way?
A big question. Yeah, I think that there's great usage for AI. I mean, if there was ever
something that you was boring, you didn't like to do, or you could make errors on taking a big
table of numbers and comparing numbers and saying which one is the outlier or large data
models where you're trying to find patterns, AI is amazing at that. And even programming simple
robotic features like for having robots to pick up certain bottles used to have to program
the line of motion to the bottle. Now you just tell the robot from an AI standpoint, pick up the
bottle. It does those things. So I think there's benefits in that. There's also a great responsibility
with it in that you can rely on it to send you in the right direction, but not only you can't
rely on it to do everything. And I think that's what if you ask me personally as a leader, that's
where I'm really trying to find the great balance. When you use AI, you use it to make people's jobs
easier. So this efficiency topic we brought up earlier, as the company moves to a more
efficient organization, they see why. And they're happier, they're more enriched with the job they
do. And AI is doing things that they don't like. I use it a lot in my life personally and professionally.
And I find that it helps with things, but only to a certain extent. And then the human factor has
to come into play. Like you can ask it to analyze some software for safety relevant, but you're like,
okay, is it doing the right thing? And are the inputs? Where's it getting this data from and
things along those lines? Or in my blood test report. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know,
there's other industries that are really finding great benefits as well. I mean, in healthcare,
if you look like a radiologist, for instance, you know, they used to be a radiologist would get an
X-ray and have to look at it. Now AI can at least help that radiologist find certain things. And
maybe the radiologist can do more work and not make mistakes because they're standing up so late
working on things. So we're finding that the amount of mistakes that are made using AI when
you're looking at large data or large error proofing things really improve the errors become
less. Your tech compass survey shows 70% of people think AI is crucial for the future.
But 57% also wish there was a pause button. How do you lead innovation when people are excited
and anxious at the same time? I think it's all about education. We do a lot of things within
Bosch where we have thousands of people cohorts that go through our AI training and what that means.
We also then provide hack-a-pounds for AI where we bring different functions, whether it's our
communications team or legal team or manufacturing team or logistics team. And we say solve real
world problems with AI and then tell everyone how you did it. And we give rewards for people that
do a great job in that. So I think everyone's scared of AI if they don't know what it is.
But when you use it and you instruct and teach and people see the benefits,
then I think the 57% can start improving because people know that they want to use it.
If they don't know what it is, then that scares them. Yes, but fear factor. And I think everyone
worries about AI eliminating their job. I think that can happen in certain instances. I mean,
certain jobs definitely will be, I'll use the word, maybe more efficient call centers,
things along those lines where you have agentic things on simple problems like directing calls
to certain things, but other things that can't be replaced. Let's talk about a few other interesting
things here since we're at CES. Origify. Am I saying that correctly? Origify. You show this,
it gives products a digital identity based on physical surface patterns, essentially a fingerprint
for authenticity. In a world of, and you cited the example on stage, are the sneakers that I've
just bought or might buy real? Is the watch real that I may purchase? In a world of deep fakes,
of digital uncertainty, is trust becoming one of the most important technologies of all and
tell me a little bit about how Origify may change that? Yeah, I think it's a great concept,
whether it's counterfeit media, whether it's counterfeit products, whether it's counterfeit news,
that will always be a question I think in people's minds with the technology available today. I mean,
dancing politicians, you can see every day. You know sometimes you know when it's fake,
and there's not a lot of care and control right now on what's real versus what's,
we'll use the word fake for the time being. I think counterfeit products specifically
what Origify is looking for is getting to product level, understanding, and I think
on a physical product, the human eye won't be able to decipher as well as something that's
doing a pattern based recognition. You know there was a movie I watched the other day,
real interesting, I won't reference it, but someone had had a fake handbag and they met
the owner of the handbag company and the girl said I want you to see my handbag and the owner
of the company said that's not real, and this is how I know that because the stitching was the wrong,
like so there's certain things that general people will find that they'll believe is real,
but Origify really can get into the what the original intent of the product was meant to be,
and so it's an early idea of what we need to do and how we can do it. I think it
offers a good trend in the world today whether it's digital products, physical products,
you know, or something you're buying from a local vendor. You're also transforming,
because it's Bosch, you're transforming the kitchen, and here in Las Vegas you brought out a
a TV chef and had had him cook some steaks in front of journalists.
What do you learn from what you're doing in the home that can be applied in other parts of the
business? I think all of us all of us have a house or we have a place that we live in right,
so you want to make that frictionless, and what you can do with technology in the home,
you know, I've always been a proponent of a connected house, right? I've gone through many
different variables, right, of what a connected house looks like. Buy this Don, we'll do this,
use this hub, don't use that hub, and I think what becomes more important is the technology you have
fit within the suite of products that you have, and I think what we were able to show today with
our 800 series induction cooktop is that if you're not the best cook, or you don't have your eyes
on your meal all the time, there is technology that's simple that can help you, and it's already in
the product you've bought already, right, so I think integration of smart functions into products,
first thing having to buy a separate hub or do something different, and I'm sure you'll see that
across all of our across competitive products as well, but how smoothly you integrate that,
it doesn't make sense, like I think it was cool today that Marcel who we brought on,
I mean if you put a pan on a stove, it'll regulate the temperature of the pan
so that you don't burn the food that you're cooking, to me that's kind of cool,
and I think those are the little things that will happen, even if you look at some of our
espresso machines or some of our other products that we have, they're getting smarter, and they're
in your house, so you want them to be smart for you, and I think that's what's encouraging for me.
I think it was two years ago here at CES, there was the concept of my
smartphone will know that I'm on the route in the morning to work, so it will ping the local
coffee shop, which will have the coffee brewing by the time I arrive, it'll be ready when I'm there.
I think those Dreamscapes, they're amazing, like you can draw them up,
between you and I, I have a real problem with those Dreamscapes sometimes,
because I think they're very generic, and I really like to see this automation become very
personalized, and it being able to do what you want it to do, not what someone tells you the
best thing of the technology is, that's the worst thing that I believe can happen, if someone gets
in a car and it starts telling them where a coffee shop is, and they're like, I don't even care
about a coffee shop, I mean that's not what's important to me, what's important to me is where
is the hole in the road that I need to avoid, so I don't smash my tire or my rim, so I think there's
a lot of things that become very personalized, Jason, which I really think is what makes consumers
want it, what makes you want it or me want it is something that helps you. You referenced 30 years
at Bosch, you have seen, you are leading Bosch in North America through enormous technological
and cultural changes, what has surprised you the most about leading during this transition?
I think what I find is that the flexibility of our employees to really understand
that portfolio change has happened, that market dynamics create reasons for us to have to change,
and to really operate in scenarios that sometimes no one has control over, and I think in the past
you really, not in the past, but maybe what's called old school leadership was this is the way
that it is, and the market was very predictable, and you could predict what could happen, so you
look like a good manager because the market was very stable. Over the last 15 years you don't
have the answers to everything, so what I'm really encouraged by is that our associates are really
energized by scenario planning, I'm doing this because of this, and if the scenario changes
you'll know why I need to change my direction, and that's been very encouraging for me to watch.
We have a very low attrition rate at our company, if you talk to a lot of our workers, a lot of
people have 12, 15, 20, and some people may say, Paul, wow that's a disadvantage, you want people
that move around and learn different things, you can learn so much within Bosch, so in my 30 years
I've worked in automotive, I've worked in power tools, I've been on the manufacturing floor,
I've worked in quality, I've lived in multiple different countries, so you can fundamentally
at our company learn everything you need to do because we are so multinational, and what I really
appreciate our associates doing now, our employees, is dealing with scenarios and really wanting the
company to succeed, and in my 30 years I've never seen anyone sabotage our company, which is amazing,
right, we've never seen workers do something wrong on purpose, and that's I think a strong
testament to how much they love the company and what we stand for. When you look 10, 20 years ahead,
what do you hope Bosch will be remembered for during this period? Yeah, I mean when I started 30
years ago, what I liked about the company is what I hope exists today, that we're able to
not make knee jerk reactions to market dynamics, that we treat people with dignity, that we treat
people with respect, and that we continue to develop technology. I don't want to be a company
that always has to buy technology, I want to be a company that develops technology on our own, so
we fund all the technology we develop, we fund it on our own, we don't go to external markets,
and I'd like to see the company be able to maintain its independence, its financial independence,
its technology independence, and not be bound by a shareholder or a stock market that says you
have to do this to create more value, we want to create it from ourselves, from what they,
that's what I'd love to see. Finally, you announced today that you'll be back in what's known as the
big game, a big game with a pig skin involved. That was a significant move last year, positioning
the company from a marketing perspective into a broader audience, obviously a big play for a big
game. What did that do for you? Why are you coming back? Yeah, I think that generating brand
acknowledgement in the US is super important, it's something that you can't do with
one big game or even two big games, it's got to be something that is well thought out and a very
strong commitment from our company. We are known as a strong brand throughout the world and I think
reinforcing our brand recognition in the US isn't a short-sighted thing to do. I think it's great
that we're doing it, of course it's a significant investment that we need to make for our company,
and of course we want to see increased sales from it, we want to see increased product placement
from it, we want to see increased partnerships from it, but it's nothing that we're saying,
if we do this we're only going to do it one year and if it fails we're not going to do it again,
it's something that is a well thought out idea for us to improve the Bosch brand in the United
States to show that we're not just a dishwasher supplier, that we're not just an auto parts supplier,
but that we are a software hardware company that brings solutions to life and we want people to
really feel like the more Bosch products that they use, the more they improve their lives,
that's our, what you said, I mean North America is an enormously important growth market for you.
Yeah I mean right now North America represents somewhere, depending upon exchange rates and
things anywhere between 17 to 21 percent of the Bosch global turnover and we want to be 20 to 25
percent of the Bosch global turnover, but by creating value right and entering into new markets,
like you'll see in our Super Bowl ad, sorry in our big game ad we had last year,
we had our power tools featured, we had our home appliances featured, but it wasn't in a way that
was very product oriented, it was more brand oriented, and I think we'll start to see more and
that we want to be a brand that people trust and a brand that people want to use. Thanks for
spending time with me at CES, I appreciate it. And I want to compliment you, I've been listening
to you in my life for the last 15 to 20 years as well, it's really an honor to spend time speaking
with you and I really appreciate everything you've done, not only for the automotive industry,
but everything you do to generate interest and knowledge throughout the world, thank you.
Thank you Paul, I appreciate that, thank you.
About this episode
Paul Thomas, president of Bosch North America, discusses the company's pivotal role in the automotive and technology sectors during a conversation at CES 2026. He highlights Bosch's transition from traditional manufacturing to integrating AI and software into their products, emphasizing the importance of reliability and trust in technology. The discussion covers innovations like AI-based cockpits and vehicle motion management, as well as Bosch's commitment to sustainability and efficiency. Thomas also reflects on the challenges and opportunities in the evolving automotive landscape, including the future of autonomous vehicles and the significance of brand recognition in North America.
Original notes
Bosch President Paul Thomas
Cars & Culture with Jason Stein
SiriusXM
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40:13