As with tiremakers, Bosch is also facing a run-up in raw material costs, but the toolmaker said it is doing all it can to avoid taking price hikes.
"Like others in the aftermarket, we face challenges in the cost of commodity products as well as transport," said Odd Joergenrud, North American automotive aftermarket president for Robert Bosch LLC. "As a result, we are taking aggressive steps to minimize these cost increases and forestall the need to raise prices to our customers."
Joergenrud said that, in less than the last 18 months, Bosch has seen substantial increases in the cost of raw materials used in the manufacture of Bosch’s many product lines: steel is up 166%, copper, lead and rubber costs have nearly quadrupled, oil costs are up 150% and platinum costs have nearly doubled.
At the same time, transportation costs have risen thanks to higher fuel prices.
To keep the impact on customers to a minimum, Joergenrud said, Bosch “established a global, cross-divisional intra-company organization for purchasing raw materials and other products needed for the manufacture of our various product lines.
“Because we supply products globally to the OEs and the automotive aftermarket, we have purchasing power that we can pass on to our customers,” said Joergenrud. “At the same time we strive to continue to provide added value in our replacement parts based on knowledge and innovation developed in our OE relationships.”