Bosch celebrates 100th anniversary of the spark plug

Robert Bosch Incorporated has marked the 100th anniversary of founder Robert Bosch’s innovation of the high-voltage magneto combined with a spark plug. The system, which is the forerunner to all modern spark-ignition systems, was patented in Germany on January 7, 1902, and was supplied to Daimler-Motorengesellschaft in Bad Cannstatt on September 24, 1902. Production totalled a few hundred units a year until the opening of the first spark plug factory in Stuttgart in 1914. Current annual Bosch spark plug production is 350 million.