Daimler, BMW to invest 1 billion euros in venture to compete Uber

Harald Krüger (r), Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, and Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. (Pic Credit: Getty Images)

German automakers BMW and Daimler have announced that they will invest over 1 billion euros to compete with existing rivals like Uber and other tech firms. 

The joint venture aims to shif beyond manufacturing and car sales towards pay-per-minute or pay-per-mile systems. The focus of this venture would be to develop autonomous cars, vehicles which could enable them to capture the taxi market and ride-hailing services.

Daimler’s Car2Go car-sharing brand will be combined with BMW’s DriveNow, ParkNow and ChargeNow businesses, with both carmakers holding 50 percent stake in the venture.

The venture has five strands: REACH NOW, a smartphone-based route management and booking service, CHARGE NOW for electric car charging, FREE NOW for taxi ride-hailing, PARK NOW for parking services and SHARE NOW for car-sharing.

“These five services will merge ever more closely to form a single mobility service portfolio with an all-electric, self-driving fleet of vehicles that charge and park autonomously,” said BMW Chief Executive Harald Krueger.

He further added, “The 60 million customers we already have today will benefit from a seamlessly integrated, sustainable ecosystem of car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal transport services.”