BMW and Daimler are joining forces to merge the business units of their mobility services, meaning the pair will link up on the existing services they offer in car sharing, ride hailing, parking, charging, and multimodality.

The joint venture, which each company will own 50 per cent of, will combine the pairs the companies’ respective Moovel and ReachNow mobility services; their car sharing outlets of Car2Go and DriveNow; their ride hailing offerings through MyTaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat; the ParkNow and Parkmobile parking services; and charging via ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions.

“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 Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of management at BMW. “We remain competitors when it comes to the best premium vehicles. The planned merger of our mobility services will pool our resources and sends a strong signal to our new competitors.”

Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of management at Daimler and head of Mercedes-Benz cars, added: “We will not leave the task of shaping future urban mobility to others. 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.”

The pair hope to gain approval for the joint venture from the relevant competition authorities at some point this year. Both BMW and Daimler promise that initially services will not be affected for their customers.