One of the biggest news when it comes to the future automotive industry this year was the unification of the mobility companies set up or purchased by Daimler and BMW in the past few years.
Announced back in March, the birth of joint operations of the two otherwise long time rivals will bring together the logistics and customer pool of car2go and DriveNow into a single giant mobility services company.
To operate in a joint headquarters in Germany’s capital, Berlin, the group will start operations as soon as early 2019, at first in Europe and later on in the United States and elsewhere.
Initially, completing the unification of the entities into a single company was planned for late 2018, but due to unspecified transaction delays that is no longer possible in the time left.
The new company is to be owned in equal percentage by both BMW and Daimler. Its main area of business will be car sharing operations, powered by a total of 20,000 vehicles in 31 major international cities.
Taxi services will combine the power of mytaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat, while electric vehicle charging will be taken care of by ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions via 143,000 charging points worldwide.
BMW and Daimler plan to make money together out of parking meters as well, and they will bring together under the same leadership ParkNow and Parkmobile Group.
“Both automobile manufacturers want to shape the future of mobility in order to offer their customers unique experiences and to support partners such as cities and municipalities along the way to achieving sustainable urban mobility,” said in a statement Daimler.
“In this way, the two partners are addressing the challenges of urban mobility as well as customers’ requirements and, together with cities, municipalities and other interest groups, are helping to improve the quality of life in metropolises."
To operate in a joint headquarters in Germany’s capital, Berlin, the group will start operations as soon as early 2019, at first in Europe and later on in the United States and elsewhere.
Initially, completing the unification of the entities into a single company was planned for late 2018, but due to unspecified transaction delays that is no longer possible in the time left.
The new company is to be owned in equal percentage by both BMW and Daimler. Its main area of business will be car sharing operations, powered by a total of 20,000 vehicles in 31 major international cities.
Taxi services will combine the power of mytaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat, while electric vehicle charging will be taken care of by ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions via 143,000 charging points worldwide.
BMW and Daimler plan to make money together out of parking meters as well, and they will bring together under the same leadership ParkNow and Parkmobile Group.
“Both automobile manufacturers want to shape the future of mobility in order to offer their customers unique experiences and to support partners such as cities and municipalities along the way to achieving sustainable urban mobility,” said in a statement Daimler.
“In this way, the two partners are addressing the challenges of urban mobility as well as customers’ requirements and, together with cities, municipalities and other interest groups, are helping to improve the quality of life in metropolises."