Six days, over 3,300 kms and through multiple climate zones to the Arctic Circle. It is by no means a normal drive, but it does demonstrate the lengths that the Bosch development team will go to, to successfully test its new hydraulic brake-by-wire system for the first time on public roads.

Brake-by-wire systems completely eliminate the mechanical connection between the brake pedal and the brake system. The driver’s brake request is transmitted to the brake-by-wire system purely as an electrical signal. For this fundamentally new approach, Bosch offers a robust and efficient solution with two independent hydraulic brake actuators, a by-wire brake actuator and an ESP. 

As a leading company in braking and steering systems, Bosch is working on innovative by-wire solutions including this hydraulic brake-by-wire system, which is planned to be launched on the market from later in 2025. In addition to the hydraulic solution, Bosch is also developing a purely electromechanical system. The company has already received orders from various vehicle manufacturers and expects that by 2030, more than 5.5 million vehicles worldwide will be equipped with brake-by-wire.

The brake-by-wire system is being developed at the Bosch development centre in Abstatt near Heilbronn. The long-distance journey led the development team from the southwest of Germany via Hamburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm and a short detour to the Arctic Circle to the finish at the Bosch winter test centre Vaitoudden in Arjeplog, in northern Sweden. Bosch has specifically applied for and obtained approval for public roadway use for the test vehicle in several countries, based on an extensive safety concept.

“Our hydraulic brake-by-wire system has worked perfectly on the journey. With our first long-distance test, we impressively demonstrated that we can bring a real brake-by-wire system safely and successfully from the test track to the road", explains Hagen Kuckert, project manager for the by-wire brake actuator at Bosch in Abstatt.  “We performed thousands of braking operations during the journey, were able to obtain important insights and data on the behaviour of the brake system in a wide variety of traffic situations and compare them with our previous simulations. All this is incorporated into the further development work to further optimize our hydraulic brake-by-wire system."