A Battery-Powered Concrete Industry: Chatting with Bosch

Concrete Contractor connected with Philipp Gosau, Director, Product Management at the Robert Bosch Tool Corp., during World of Concrete 2026. 

Gosau shared their insight into what has been ailing concrete contractors, what manufacturers are doing to ease those challenges, their outlook for the year, and more.

Q. What has been the biggest challenge for concrete contractors? How do you think the OEMs like Bosch are going to address this in 2026?

Phillip Gosau and Jonathan Kozlowski, at the Bosch booth during World of Concrete 2026On a concrete jobsite, a lot of the applications are very demanding. The dream of a fully cordless jobsite is something that in 2026 will be bigger than ever. With our launching of our new line of Expert 18 volt batteries equipped with new tablet cell technology. We're getting longer runtime, better robustness, and a new design with a lot of exciting features. I think the longer runtime will really help to achieve that goal for concrete contractors, to have a fully cordless job.

Q. As compared to the batteries 5 to 10 years ago, how have batteries changed?

Five years ago, light equipment was all gas powered tools. Now, you see more and more companies coming out with electric solutions. What has happened is they have all broken their platform. Because they were not able to do it on their existing platform. Bosch is really committed to do to cover all applications on an 18 volt platform. This is also where the new Expert 18 volt batteries are now the next step to deliver the power and the runtime that is needed for these kind of applications.

Q. Are we able to get more power out of today's batteries than before?

Yes, absolutely. With the tablet cell technology that we have now, for example, on the 4-amp hour battery, we're getting twice the power out of it.

Q. Do you feel optimistic about 2026 and the year’s economy?

Absolutely. There's obviously challenges. We saw it in 2025 there was a lot of changes there. But for us as Bosch Power Tools, we're excited for 2026. We have over 60 new product launches coming. By the end of 2026, our range of 18 volt tools will be over 200. We have many pro-graded solutions that ensure they have the power workers are looking for to ensure productivity, and less downtime on the jobsite. We're excited about it.

Q. You launched 70 products last year and now you have 60 coming this year. What do contractors do with their old tools?

More and more workers want to change to cordless. Workers have their own preference of whether they prefer corded or cordless, but I think most of them use them till the end of the lifetime of their corded tool and then switch to cordless. But many prefer to have both. For example, concrete surface grinding. If you have access to power, you may prefer to keep your corded one. But then there's many mobile applications or punch list items on a jobsite where you just want that cordless freedom. There's a lot of regulations out there through OSHA where a cord is a tripping hazard and you just want to go cordless.

Q. Of all of the innovations, improvements, and features, what is the thing that you're most excited about?

The cordless 18-volt concrete service grinder (pictured here). We're continuing to bring the innovation that Bosch stands for. This grinder is fully loaded with kickback control (where if there's a sudden movement, the tool will detect that with sensor technology and stop), drop control (where if you drop the grinder while the blade is still spinning, the tool will shut down), it also has a break to stop the blade within like three seconds of you letting go the trigger. It provides 20 percent higher removal rate. You have now a new smart, smart surface shroud, or duster shroud which you can open up super easily, and now you're like, able to surface grind all the way up to the wall.

Q. Is there something not yet cordless that you would wish were battery-powered? What's on your wish list?

My dream is really to go from breakfast to dinner on one single charge. That's really my dream. We have a lot coming, so stay tuned.

Q. On that, where are we at right now? Are we making it to lunch or beyond?

It depends on the application and what you're doing. If you're grinding concrete, we're not there yet. But in, like many other solutions that we're seeing here, like fastening, drilling, absolutely, we're there.