Bose Shops Suspension System to Automakers in '08
November 28, 2007

BOSTON – After 27 years and $100 million in investment, Bose Corp. is ready to fit its innovative sound-wave suspension system into an upcoming luxury car – if it can find an automaker willing to joint venture with the Boston-based maker of premium audio systems.

Dr. Amar Bose, said in an interview with AutoObserver.com Tuesday at the New England International Auto Show, that the company would be going out to talk with automakers in the coming year about doing a joint venture to put the innovative suspension system into future cars. Bose said likely candidates for the system will be top-of-the-line luxury cars that are being newly developed.

Bose has been personally interested in developing a new kind of suspension system since the 1950s, one that would deliver the passenger comfort of a luxury sedan with the vehicle control of a sports car. His privately held company has been working on such a system for 27 years, investing $100 million.

"I would have been fired four or five times if I'd ran a public company and did that," quipped the 77-year-old Bose, who re-invests much of his company's money back into research.

Bose has been interested in developing a new kind of suspension system since the 1950s -- since he owned a rough-riding 1957 Pontiac and 11 years later bought a French-made Citroen with an air-oil suspension, so rough "it needed a seatbelt but it didn't have one."

"When the sun came in the back of the car it ate the upholstery so that within a year an a half it was down to the foam," said Bose, and, he added, it broke down often. Because of the unusual suspension, only two tow companies in all of Massachusetts could tow it. 

In 1980, Bose decided his company would work on a new kind of suspension system based on the vast knowledged it had acquired in producing premium audio systems. The details of the system are proprietary but, in essence, it couples linear electromagnetic motors and power amplifiers with a set of unique control algorithms to limit pitch and roll in cars. The goal is to achieve the smooth ride of a luxury car -- even smoother than current ones -- yet have the vehicle control of a sports car.

At the auto show in Boston where Bose accepted the Yankee Cup award for innovation from the local automotive press group, Bose showed a video of a Lexus LS400 equipped with the system compared to the same model without it. The difference in stability of the vehicle over bumps and rough surfaces in the video was dramatic.                                           

Testing and development is continuing, particularly in terms of reliability, but Bose is convinced the technology is ready for prime time.

Still, selling the system faces challenges. Though no price tag has been attached to it, the system is likely to be expensive and cannot be retrofitted into existing designs but must be installed in a vehicle specifically designed to accommodate it. And, Bose admits, the innovative system faces the “not invented here” challenge.

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