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BMW and Mercedes-Benz Step Up Future Cooperation Partnership

If you can't beat your rival, then the best solution is to ally with him and share resources. Mercedes-Benz and BMW have many times discussed about possible partnerships but now it seems that they've stepped up the talks about the plan to share research and manufacturing in order to cut costs during the financial crisis, drive.com has learned. Although nothing is yet official, the two car makers might in the future cooperate in this direction on the condition this does not dilute their brands or affect in anyway their customers, senior executives confessed to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

A Mercedes-Benz spokesman refused to comment on the matter on Sunday and explained that all the information that has to be given to the public will be announced on Tuesday by senior executives at an annual financial results news conference.

As for BMW, their spokesman said the discussions were already made public and “not new”. Still, he denied that a concrete decision has been reached lately. What's more, he added that the two groups were already developing together hybrid power units and conducting joint purchasing of components.

However, the components he was speaking about were out-of-sight items under the cars' bodies. Examples of such items are air conditioner parts or seat-belt-tension springs.

As we have already told you, BMW and Mercedes Benz have been discussing for some time now about the possibility to combine resources, but these scenarios were avoided by engineers who refused to use the rivals' technologies.

But now that the economic downturn has hit premium brands and the pressure on resources is extremely high, these plans can finally become reality.
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