[IK6SPEED]

BMW And Mercedes Are Merging Parts Of Their Businesses
Early discussions for additional parts sharing/platform sharing

As the industry continues to push the idea of car ownership to the back seat, two of Germany’s biggest car-makers have agreed to merge their digital mobility services into one

https://www.motorauthority.com/news/...lity-divisions

Daimler and BMW Group are preparing for a future where car ownership, especially in major cities, could become a thing of the past.

The two German auto giants in March announced plans to merge their various mobility services into a 50:50 joint-venture company headquartered in Berlin, and on Wednesday they announced that the merger has been given regulatory approval by competition watchdogs, including here in the United States.

Further details on the new mobility company will be announced in the first quarter of 2019. By then, we should also have knowledge of its name.

At its core is expected to be a single app combining numerous mobility services. For example, with the one app you'll be able to hail a ride, use a car in a shared fleet, pay for street or garage parking, locate a charging station for an EV, and much more.

he app may even integrate payments and information for public transport services. The idea is to create a simple yet comprehensive mobility solution for getting from A to B.

A few of the services that we already know are being merged in the joint-venture company are Daimler's Moovel, MyTaxi and Car2Go services and BMW Group's ReachNow, DriveNow and ParkNow services.

Crucially, the joint-venture company will also oversee all future mobility services to be developed, like a self-driving taxi service. Daimler and supplier giant Bosch will have a trial self-driving service up and running in the heart of Silicon Valley in late 2019.

It was also reported Thursday that Daimler and BMW Group could eventually start sharing parts and technology, including whole vehicle platforms. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, said the two automakers are in early exploratory talks about sharing of vehicle platforms, electric car batteries, and self-driving technology in an effort to reduce costs.


https://www.carthrottle.com/post/bmw...ir-businesses/

German car-makers BMW and Daimler have agreed to combine their forward-looking digital mobility services into a new, co-owned and evenly-split business.

These services will allow users to hail a taxi (either human-driven or automated), book a car from a shared fleet, pay for parking, find a working electric charging station or fuel station and more. We don’t yet know what the new company will be called, but it will offer a single app for its users, through which all of the options can be controlled. Cars from all the brands involved will be available - presumably including Mini.

Storing users’ payment information in a secure wallet within the app will allow other services to be added later in the scheme’s life, like payments for edibles and fuel.

The two giants are also set to combine their efforts on self-driving taxis. Daimler, which owns Mercedes and Smart, will have its own trial operating in California by this time next year. It’s not clear whether this will be rebranded under the new company’s banner.

A Bloomberg report claims that the two companies are getting even friendlier than that. The subject of parts- and platform-sharing has allegedly been tabled, with both sides open to the cost-saving idea. Among the parts shared would be batteries, self-driving technology and entire chassis, but we understand no agreement has been reached yet.

[allinon72]

BMW needs all the help it can get in the technology department, which begs the question: what will they bring to the table? iDrive itself has developed into the top of the market, but the back end that supports it is atrocious. ConnectedDrive, apps, online portals, etc are all in shambles compared to competitors. Nothing is seamless, it's all a big fragmented mess. I welcome any improvements Daimler can make.

[sspade]

Rivals team up.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/busin...ity/index.html

[The Automotive Enthusiast]

BMW and Daimler, two giants in the automobile sector, are pooling their resources in a joint mobility effort that spans autonomous cars, ride-hailing, electric scooters, car-sharing, and electric car charging. The two companies announced on Friday that their intention is to spend $1.13 billion on the venture, an eye-popping sum designed to make the rest of the industry sit up and take notice.

The move comes amid widespread uncertainty in the auto industry, with declining sales and an ongoing trade war threatening to upend the business. Against this backdrop, automakers are embracing new business models and alternatives to personal car ownership as well as disruptive technologies like self-driving cars.

BMW and Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, believe that by combining their efforts on these projects, they can dominate the field. But it’s also about spreading the risk, so no one company ends up losing too much if these alternatives fizzle out.

For decades, BMW and Daimler have been fierce competitors in the automotive space, and they will remain that way moving forward, according to Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche. “But time is changing,” Zetsche said at a press conference in Berlin on Friday. “There are people who are not interested in car ownership, but in mobility. Individual mobility, on-demand. And that’s where both companies came to the conclusion this is a field where we can be stronger together than separately.”

“Everyone was looking at the other side and saw some strengths,” Harald Krüger, chairman of BMW, added. “We can combine our strengths and become a champion. This is the vision.”

The companies first announced their intention to join forces in March 2018, but the plan required regulatory approval. Other global auto companies have paired up, including Ford and Volkswagen, which announced recently their intention to build trucks and vans together. And deals are rarely exclusive. Volkswagen and Mobileye, the computer vision firm owned by Intel, also announced a plan to launch a commercial self-driving ride-hailing service in Israel in 2019.

The cooperation between BMW and Daimler will take the form of five separate companies: Reach Now for multimodal services; Charge Now for EV charging; Free Now for taxi ride-hailing; Park Now for parking; and Share Now for car-sharing. Each business has its own CEO, and the two automakers will function as shareholders overseeing broad strategy while not interfering in the companies’ operations.

For years, both firms operated their own mobility ventures separately. BMW had Reach Now and Drive Now, car-sharing services in the US and Europe, respectively. Daimler owned Car2Go, the largest car-sharing network in the world, and MyTaxi, a ride-hailing app similar to Uber. Those services will now be rebranded under the terms of the joint venture.

At the press conference, Zetsche said the companies could offer users assurances that their data would be kept secure, amid recent questions about how tech companies are handling individuals’ personal information. Zetsche said he didn’t want to criticize tech companies but noted that BMW and Daimler have century-long histories that established “a tremendous foundation of trust” because people relied on them for safe vehicles and could be confident “of the safety of their data in our hands.”

Not all of the companies’ mobility ventures will be subject to the joint venture. For example, Daimler is planning to launch a robot taxi service with auto tech supplier Bosch in San Jose, California, in the second half of 2019. The pilot will use an on-demand ride-hailing service app operated by Daimler Mobility Services.

Likewise, BMW has promised to unveil its own self-driving electric car in 2021. And the German automaker is part of a super group that includes Intel, Mobileye, and Fiat Chrysler that is working on the development of semi-autonomous and fully autonomous technologies for production vehicles.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/22/1...illion-dollars