MUNICH, Germany — The greenhouse debate in the industrialized nations drives the growth for automotive electronics, said Franz Fehrenbach, CEO of automotive supplier Bosch Group at the International Automotive Exhibition (IAA) in Frankfurt.

The pressure from politics and society to reduce emissions and fuel consumption has been a dominating factor not only on the exhibition but also in customer projects, Fehrenbach said at a press conference at the fair. "The climate debate, while demanding, presently helps us like no other topic," Fehrenbach said.

While traditionally the concepts aimed at improving the efficiency by fine-tuning fuel injection and combustion control electronics, now the situation has changed, demanding more holistic approaches including innovative thermo management, on-board power management, more efficient power generation and start-stop systems for cars, the manager pointed out.

As an instance how 'green' requirements drive Bosch's sales, Fehrenbach mentioned Diesel engines which are said to be more fuel economic compared to gasoline engines drives. While in Europe already every second new car is equipped with a Diesel engine, this type of motor now starts to gain traction in the Americas and in Asia, with presently 35 design projects in India, 60 in the USA and more than 100 in China.

A high-growth area is also the new low-price vehicles segment, Fehrenbach said. Ín this segment alone, Bosch expects sales of €1 billion (about $1.38 billion) in 2010.

Besides fuel economy, Bosch also expects high innovation in the area of driver assistance systems where intelligent assistants will become ubiquitous and smarter, he said. "It is possible to reduce traffic accidents to almost zero," Fehrenbach said, "but only in connection with novel assistance systems." The innovation also includes car-to-car communications which will help to alert drivers and vehicles on immanent adverse road or traffic conditions.

At the press conference, Fehrenbach also demanded better batteries. "We need clearly higher power density in batteries if we want to bring electrically powered cars to be a reality," he said.

As a privately held company, Bosch is not obligated to report its financial results. Fehrenbach however explained that growth was highest in China where the company's automotive business added 30 percent and in India with a growth of 25 percent. In the USA, revenues grew 6 percent - in Dollars; in Euros the revenue stagnated. In Europe the company added 4 percent. Total group sales added up to 46 billion Euros.