Daimler and BMW Looking to Take the Relationship Further: Report

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Despite representing one of the great automotive rivalries, Daimler and BMW aren’t immune from the need to seek out cost savings in a rapidly evolving landscape. The two automakers have already teamed up on matters like components purchasing, and last year combined their respective car-sharing ventures.

However, sources close to the companies claim Daimler and Bimmer want to take it further, potentially sharing vehicle platforms and electric vehicle batteries.

Bloomberg reports that the potential partnership stems from less-than-rosy financial forecasts and the pressure to build numerous EVs and invest in self-driving tech. Going it alone means serious costs for an automaker, and the timing is bad. New vehicle sales are cooling off in the West (the East, too, at least in late 2018). While the payoff wouldn’t be felt for some time, teaming up on The Next Big Thing would help future-proof a company’s finances.

The sources claim the partnership could yield joint vehicle platforms, EV battery packs, and autonomous technology. However, talks are still in the early stages, they say. The tech side of things would be limited to gear that’s not brand-specific.

Unlike fellow German Volkswagen, Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz brand and BMW aren’t planning to bury the globe in EVs, though a number of electric products loom on the horizon. Mercedes-Benz wants 10 EVs in four years; Bimmer wants 12 between now and 2025. Some of the latter company’s products would be electric versions of existing models, such as the X3. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz wants an all-electric S-Class.

As talks continue on that front, the automakers’ combined mobility efforts could breed new services for consumers, the sources claim.

[Image: Daimler AG]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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 6 comments
  • Heino Heino on Dec 20, 2018

    How will they harmonize no turn signals?

  • Tylanner Tylanner on Dec 20, 2018

    Germany has never really unified but global competition is forcing previously unfathomable compromises...and if you have to compromise you'd rather have the benefits go 2 hours down the autobahn than halfway across the globe...sounds like a critical mass of engineering and manufacturing to me...should be very interesting.

  • Hreardon Hreardon on Dec 20, 2018

    Looks increasingly like good ole' Sergio was right on a lot of things. Similar to this, I think that what we're going to see out of Ford-VW is essentially Volkswagen licensing MQB and MEB architectures to Ford. Thanks to the flexibility in the toolkit design, Ford's investment footprint shrinks dramatically, and they can leverage this for both petroleum and EV products. Volkswagen group's advantage over MB+BMW right now is that they have the scale for FWD, RWD, AWD, and EV platforms. It's going to be much harder for MB+BMW to navigate the EV transition than it will for VW.

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