Do we like them?

Do we like Bosch?

Robert Bosch GmbH: German maker of car parts, power tools, home appliances and industrial technology, based near Stuttgart.

Our score: 6 out of 10. A big, mostly foundation-owned engineering firm with a real climate effort. The diesel scandal fine and settlement and thousands of job cuts hold it back. We'd back it, cautiously.

Bosch is one of Germany's giants. It makes car parts, power tools and appliances. Control sits with a trust tied to its founder's charitable foundation rather than the stock market. Stefan Hartung left as CEO on 30 June 2026, and Christian Fischer took over on 1 July.

The big stain is diesel. Stuttgart prosecutors fined Bosch about €90 million for negligently failing in its supervisory duties over defeat-device software. Prosecutors said the automakers' staff started the prohibited strategies and that Bosch managers cooperated. In the US, Bosch agreed to a $327.5 million civil settlement without admitting wrongdoing.

Now it's in a squeeze. Reports describe big job cuts, with figures ranging from 18,500 to 22,000 in the car-parts business, plus cuts in power tools. The profit target has been pushed back to 2027 at the earliest. That's hard on workers, though it is a business downturn rather than a scandal.

On the good side, Bosch says it has been carbon neutral on Scopes 1 and 2 since 2020 and aims to cut Scope 3 emissions 30% by 2030. Its UK modern slavery statement flags recruitment fees as a supply-chain risk, and its supplier code bans forced labour. These are mostly company claims, so we'd call it decent, not stellar.