German carmakers Daimler and BMW are considering a strategic cooperation in the field of autonomous vehicles. The parties want to start developing joint products in this field to reduce development costs. The parties also want to set up an industry standard.
This reports German Handelsblatt based on anonymous sources within Daimler and BMW. Both parties want to continue to operate independently of each other, but join forces on a strategic level. Daimler and BMW, incidentally, would not confirm being in talks with each other about such a strategic cooperation.
High development costs make collaborations interesting
Daimler and BMW have traditionally been competitors. According to Handelsblatt, the fact that the parties are nevertheless now entering into a collaboration in the field of autonomous vehicles is not surprising. More and more carmakers would be moved to such collaborations by the high development costs of autonomous vehicles. In addition, car manufacturers have to compete with IT companies such as Google's Waymo and transport services like Uber, which have an edge in this field.
Daimler and BMW are therefore not the only parties joining forces. Ford and Volkswagen, for instance, also recently announced that they are entering into a strategic cooperation. The parties report exploring opportunities to work together on electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and mobility services. By joining forces, Ford and Volkswagen expect to benefit from both economies of scale and efficiencies and improve their competitive position.
The parties expect to bring the first joint products to market in 2022. The initial focus will be on medium-sized pick-up trucks for the global market and vans for the European market.
Mercedes bets on electric vehicles
Mercedes also announced this month that it will invest more than a billion euros in seven battery plants for electric vehicles worldwide. The first factory will be realised in Jawor, Poland. In these factories, battery cells purchased by Mercedes from external parties will be assembled into batteries. The remaining six plants will eventually be built in Germany, the United States, China and Thailand.
An analysis of publicly available data by Reuters shows that Volkswagen leads by far in terms of investment in electric vehicles. Car manufacturers worldwide are expected to invest $300 billion in electric vehicle technology over the next five to 10 years. Almost a third of this amount - some $91 billion - will come from Volkswagen.
China becomes major player
Almost half of these investments are focused on China, Reuters analysis shows. This endorses the picture emerging from the Global Automotive Executive Survey 2019 by accounting and consulting firm KPMG, for which more than 1,000 automotive executives and nearly 2,000 consumers were surveyed. Executives surveyed foresee China becoming the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the near future. At the same time, car production in Western Europe is actually declining; less than 5% of cars worldwide are expected to be produced in Western Europe by 2030. https://www.maakindustrie.nl/en/nieuws/china-aan-leiding-in-elektrische-mob...
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Handelsblatt
Source: Ford
Source: Mercedes-Benz
Source: Reuters
Source photo: Pixabay / Bru-nO
