The BMW Group and the owners of the Mercedes-Benz brand, Daimler AG, are joining forces to offer customers a single source for sustainable urban mobility services, with the two German auto makers signing an agreement to merge their mobility services business units.
Subject to examination and approval by the responsible competition authorities, BMW and Daimler plan to combine and strategically expand their existing on-demand mobility offering in the areas of car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, electric vehicle (EV) charging and multimodality. Each company will hold a 50% stake in a joint-venture (JV) model comprising both companies’ mobility services. The two companies will remain competitors in their respective core businesses of automobile manufacture.
The aim of the transaction is for the JV to become a leading provider of innovative transportation services, with both auto makers aiming to shape mobility of the future by being able to offer their customers unique experiences and support their partners, such as cities and communities, in achieving sustainable urban mobility. The partners intend to offer their customers a holistic ecosystem of smartphone-enabled, intelligent, seamlessly connected mobility services, and grow this new business model sustainably, to enable a rapid global scaling of urban transportation services.
The 50/50 JV model is designed to combine services in five areas:
• Multimodal and on-demand mobility with the Moovel and ReachNow brands offering intelligent and seamless connectivity between different mobility offerings, including booking and payment, which will also offer possible solutions for the challenges of urban private transportation;
• Car-sharing with the Car2Go and DriveNow brands that currently operate a total of 20,000 vehicles in 31 major international cities for more than four million customers, with the system aiming to enable better use of cars and help to reduce the total number of vehicles in urban areas;
• Ride-hailing with Mytaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat branded smartphone applications to make an important contribution to reducing inner-city traffic by eliminating the need for personal vehicles;
• Parking with ParkNow and Parkmobile, which will offer ticketless, cashless on-street parking or help finding, reserving and paying for off-street parking in a garage, with the aim of reducing the amount of traffic searching for an available space;
• EV charging with ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions brands that will support the expansion of electromobility by offering access to the world’s largest network of public charging stations, with more than 143,000 charging points worldwide.
“Combining our mobility services as planned will create a unique digital ecosystem. This alliance will make it easier for our customers to discover the emission-free mobility of the future,” said BMW chairman, Harald Krüger. “The planned merger of our mobility services will pool our resources and sends a strong signal to our new competitors.”
Dieter Zetsche, Daimler’s chairman, added, “There will be more people than ever before without a car who will still want to be extremely mobile. We want to combine our expertise and experience to develop a unique, sustainable ecosystem for urban mobility.”
