Robert Bosch: The man, the employer, the visionary

The beginnings 1886-1905

The history of Bosch starts with many first steps. The step into independence, onto the automotive market, into markets outside Germany, and onto the factory floor of major manufacturing.

“A shambles” — the beginnings

His apprentice and journeyman years awoke an early desire in Robert Bosch to be self-employed. In 1886, he opened a Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering in Stuttgart. The early years were beset with highs and lows, and it was only from the mid-1890s on that things took off quickly and unstoppably.

First products and services

Bosch performed all the precision mechanical and electrical engineering work that came his way, such as installing telephone systems and electric bells. When asked to build a magneto ignition device for a stationary engine in line with an existing design, he improved this and thus paved the way for magneto ignition production.

Gottlob Honold

“When Honold finished a new item and passed it to manufacturing, the Bosch world started clamoring for the finished product.”

This was how Robert Bosch paid tribute to his long-standing head of engineering, who had first started work for him as an apprentice. Besides the high-voltage magneto ignition system, he was also the brilliant creator of lighting systems, starters, and horns for the portfolio of Bosch products — until his untimely death in 1923.

The spark that set it all off — the magneto ignition

From 1897, Bosch started installing better-designed magneto ignition devices into automobiles and became the only supplier of a truly reliable ignition. In 1902, the chief engineer at Bosch, Gottlob Honold, unveiled an ever better solution — the high-voltage magneto ignition system with spark plug. This product paved the way for Bosch to become a world-leading automotive supplier.

The reproduction of a low-voltage magneto ignition device in 1887 saw Bosch start to explore the ignition of fuel mixes.