BMW and Daimler are reportedly studying the idea of working together on electric vehicle platforms, a move that could save each carmaker a fair bit of money, as Reuters reports.
According to German publications Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Auto Bild, which provided the original source of information on the matter, both automakers are apparently in talks about sharing engineering costs for compact and mid-size cars. Allegedly, the vehicles are set to feature all-electric powertrains, but could also be designed to accommodate internal combustion engines.
Going the shared routed would save each automaker US$7.91 billion (RM32.26 billion) over a period of seven years, and savings could be higher if larger models are added into the joint-platform mix, Auto Bild said. Talks are however still in their early stages and plans could possibly change. Both automakers have not commented on the reports.
The possibility of vehicle collaboration has been mentioned before – earlier this year, German news outlet Handelsblatt reported that both automakers were looking at the possibility of co-developing future compact car models, such as that found in the 1 Series and the A-Class model range. It said then that this would be part of a wider cooperation that also includes technology sharing for autonomous cars.
The latter has already come about. Last month, BMW and Daimler announced they will be collaborating to invest more than one billion euros to create a new global player providing sustainable mobility services to customers across a wide spectrum of portfolios involving car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal transport.
The cooperation will span over five joint ventures, namely Reach Now, Charge Now, Park Now, Free Now and Share Now. Each business will have its own CEO, with both automakers functioning as overseers, but not interfering in the companies’ operations.
Earlier this month, the two German companies also signed a MoU for a long-term strategic cooperation on self-driving cars. The initial focus will be on developing next-generation technologies for driver assistance systems, highway autonomous driving and parking features up the SAE’s Level 4 standard, but both parties will also look into the possibility of extending that partnership to include higher levels of autonomy covering urban areas.
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Eh…How come? How come Daimler choose BMW and not their so called big shareholder Geely?
Proton fanboys like to say their Proton X70 cars using Mercedes and AMG technology. So, why Diamler choose BMW and not Geely as their partner to develop electric cars?
Answer is very simple. In Daimler’s eyes, Geely is just a shareholder. Full stop. Daimler also announced they will not share technology with Geely
Because BMW got burned by their partnership with Toyota’s cheapo rebadge of their Z4, so they are concerned about working with Geely that have an existing agreement to provide tech to Toyota (https://paultan.org/2018/09/12/toyota-in-talks-with-geely-on-hybrid-tech-cooperation/).
Which is why they prefer to working with Mercedes, but any tech developed will soon trickle down the Geely group soon enough.
Proton X70 sales are slowing down badly. And Proton cars sales are super low.
Soon, end of the year, at max 70,000 sales
This article has nothing to do with Proton. Please wake up!
Aww so now we are back to assumptions, cool seems we are running out of content to defend the lack of any innovation from your Perodua.
Two Game Changing brands cooperate to create a Game Changing cars. Our Perusahaan Otomobil Nasional already Game Over. Habisla Proton!!
BMW and Daimler, Volvogeely collaboration.
Habis la Audi, u will be left behind
BMW and Mercedes can work together. Why can’t P2 and P1 work together also?
Answer is BMW and Mercedes both work hard.
In Malaysia, only Perodua work hard.
Proton+Geely = Game ON!
Perodua+Toyota ASEAN = Game OVER!
I like that deduction. Lolz!
Perodua work hard? Work hard to earn Malaysians money and send back to Japan, you mean.
MB, you forgot about your 10% shareholder. He already got midsize, small size, EV car to share with actually.
Where is our Iriz EV that Proton showed us 5 years ago?
Ready for mass production when the market is ready. And?
It will be an outdated car by then. No point buying an outdated car when the rival cars all better
Define being outdated by rival, since Perodua doesn’t even have an EV nor even hybrid car. The only way for Proton’s EV car to be outdated is if the industry has moved on to something else like nuclear power. So I am quite interested to hear your reply.
Perodua never intended to make an EV car. Proton did. we expected Proton to release it but wait for so long already liao! Even Kia and Hyundai now already focus on EV cars with their Niro and Kona respectively
They intended to make the EV car and the EV Iriz is ready for production. Neither Niro nor Kona has any EV tech that will “outdate” Iriz EV. So?