BMW and Mercedes-Benz combine mobility services units

BMW and Mercedes-Benz are the second pair of automakers to confirm a partnership this week, after Ford and Volkswagen announced they will work together on utes and vans.

The companies announced their intent to combine mobility divisions last year, but approval from anti-trust regulators has only just come through.

Daimler, parent of Mercedes-Benz and Smart, and BMW expect to complete dotting their Is and crossing their Ts for the new 50/50 joint venture by the end of month.

For the past few years, the two luxury automakers have run their own car-sharing schemes (Car2Go and DriveNow), ride-hailing services (MyTaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clevertaxi and Taxibeat), EV charging networks (ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions), wireless parking payment systems (ParkNow and ParkMobile), and mixed mobility services (ReachNow and Moovel), aimed at blending car/bike-sharing, ride-hailing and public transport systems into one.

App platforms within the same sector will be combined, but the companies have yet to detail when this will happen, how current users will be affected, and what names they will adopt.

Most of the companies' services are located within major cities and metropolises throughout Europe and the Americas.

According to Tony Douglas, head of BMW's mobility services division: "We’re doing okay but we’re not at critical mass in the market. That’s why both parties (BMW Group and Daimler AG) looked at each other and said, ‘Well, actually we could do this together, it would make a lot more sense to take us to the next level’."

Douglas and other senior executives from both companies are keen to point out "we’re not going to work together to build cars", and their cooperation is limited to the mobility sector.

The joint venture will have its headquarters in Berlin.

Almost all major automakers have begun branching out into "mobility services" so they can be both service providers and hardware manufacturers, with increasing urbanisation and autonomous vehicles having the potential to ruin their century-old business model.

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