Skip to main content

Bosch is detonating mini-explosions in electric cars to make them safer

Bosch wants to blow up your electric car one small explosion at a time after you crash it. This sounds violent — almost unnecessarily so — but it could help save your life if you’re involved in an accident behind the wheel of an EV.

The German research firm explained hybrid and electric cars pose different threats to passengers and first responders than gasoline- or diesel-burning vehicles involved in a similar accident. The high-voltage system they rely on to move is connected by wires which can get severed by damaged sheet metal, for example. Cut wires can transfer current to the car’s body, rather than channeling it to the motor that drives the wheels.

Recommended Videos

Bosch’s solution to this problem relies on semiconductors strategically integrated into the electrical system and digitally linked to the airbag sensors. The sensors trigger the airbags if they detect an impact, and they simultaneously tell the semiconductors to blow out a cable connection by setting off a mini-explosion that guillotines high-voltages cables and isolates the cut end. This ensures the current stays in the battery instead of zapping, say, the steering column.

Integrating Bosch’s semiconductors into a modern hybrid or electric car is relatively easy. They’re about the size of a fingernail, and they weigh a few ounces, so they can be installed just about anywhere, even in a car not designed with this technology in mind. Integrating them into the car’s electronic brain is fairly straightforward, too.

Bosch believes this explosive technology could save lives as hybrid and electric cars become increasingly common on the world’s roads. Emergency rescue crews agree.

“Faced with the growing number of electric vehicles that could potentially be involved in collisions, such systems are absolutely essential if we are to fulfill our mission of helping and rescuing victims of road accidents as rapidly and safely as possible,” opined Karl-Heinz Knorr, the vice president of Germany’s firefighter association (DFV).

Bosch’s role in the automotive industry is to develop technology, not to build the cars that benefit from. When and where its explosion-based safety device reaches the market depends largely on the automakers racing to bring EVs to the market.

Ronan Glon
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
VW previews its next electric car in trippy camouflaged form
Front three quarter view of a camouflaged Volkswagen ID.7 prototype.

The Volkswagen ID.7 is VW's next electric car, and while it won't be fully revealed until later in the year, the automaker provided a sneak peek at CES 2023.

VW said the production ID.7, which will be revealed in the second quarter of this year, will be influenced by the ID.Aero concept first shown in China in 2022. The camouflaged prototype VW brought to CES has the same general shape as the ID.Aero. It's a streamlined sedan that VW claims will have up to 435 miles of range as measured on the somewhat lenient European WLTP testing cycle.

Read more
How to charge your electric car at home
Close up of the Hybrid car electric charger station with power supply plugged into an electric car being charged.

One of the biggest perks to owning an electric car is charging it in the comfort of your own home, rather than requiring stops at a gas station every week or so. That means that if you stay on top of charging, and don’t take super long trips, you’ll never really have to worry about when and where to "fill up."

But there are a number of ways to charge up at home, and they’re not all for everyone. In fact, some options are far better than others — and getting the right charging gear for your needs is definitely worth doing.

Read more
Check out Spectre, Rolls-Royce’s first all-electric car
Rolls-Royce's Spectre, its first all-electric vehicle.

Rolls-Royce Introduces Spectre: The World's First Ultra-Luxury Electric Super Coupé

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has taken the wraps off the Spectre, its first all-electric vehicle.

Read more