New Vehicles with an Electronic Stability Programme, in Europe

Increasing numbers of new vehicles in Germany, as well as in Europe, are equipped with the Electronic Stability Program ESP. The share of newly registered passenger cars in Germany in 2003 with ESP equipment increased in comparison to the previous year from 49 to 55 percent.

A Bosch study indicates the rate of equipment with ESP in the five largest EU countries: Germany, France, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy. The result: 29 percent of all new passenger cars in this region are fitted with ESP. In comparison to the year before, this presents a major increase of five percentage points. About 80 percent of all new cars in the European Union are registered in these five countries. However, there are major differences in the rate of equipment from one country to the other. Whilst Germany boasts the highest equipment rate of 55 percent, Italy shows a mere 14 percent of ESP fitted in new cars. In France, the rate amounts to 35 percent, in Spain to 25 percent and in the United Kingdom to 20 percent. The differences are even more pronounced when it comes to the individual classes of vehicles. In Germany, practically all vehicles in the high-end and luxury class are equipped with ESP, but the equipment rate for compact cars is at a mere six percent.

A large number of studies conducted by several car manufacturers and institutions have proved in the meantime that ESP contributes dramatically to greater road safety. All these studies indicate that the large-volume installation of this safety system would reduce the number of severe accidents by up to 50 percent. The European Union considers a high rate of equipment of vehicles with road safety systems an essential issue in the achievement of a self-stipulated goal: based on the number of road traffic fatalities in the year 2000, the number of people killed should be reduced by 50 percent by the year 2010. "The benefit of ESP has nowadays become a confirmed fact", underlines Erkki Liikanen, until recently member of the European Commission, at the 10th ITS World Congress (Intelligent Transport Systems) in Madrid in 2003. "We should now as speedily as possible define measures to assure that ESP becomes the next standard safety system in all vehicles". He considers it the most important task to implement broad information campaigns to increase driver's awareness of the functioning of safety systems and thus their willingness to invest in greater road safety.

Bosch also supports these efforts on behalf of the EU. The company was one of the first to sign the European Charter on Road Safety. The Bosch Division Chassis Systems thus assumed the task of informing the public to a greater extent of the benefits of the Electronic Stability Program in cars and to promote its greater distribution in this way. Bosch offers dealerships, for example, training courses and information material. And driving tests to test brake control systems are also organized to give dealers more convincing arguments in their sales talks with customers.

Bosch is the worldwide biggest manufacturer of brake systems for passenger cars. The company installed ESP for the first time in 1995 in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class.