US authorities give a green signal to BMW and Daimler’s joint mobility company

The BMW Group and Daimler AG are planning the next steps for their joint mobility company, following approval by the responsible competition authorities. The basis for this is the approval of the US competition authorities, which was received on December 18, 2018.

This means that all antitrust authorities involved have given the green light for the new joint venture, which is owned in equal parts by the BMW Group and Daimler AG.

The joint venture will focus on ensuring the personal freedom of customers in the field of urban mobility. Geared towards this vision of future urban mobility, a new mobility offering will be created that is easy to access, intuitive and focused on the needs of the user.

On their urban journey, customers will move through a seamlessly connected and sustainable ecosystem that combines CarSharing, Ride-Hailing, Parking, Charging and Multimodality from a single source and is available with just a few taps. The idea is to create the most attractive, most comprehensive mobility solution for a better life in our connected world.

Now that the approval of the competition authorities has been received, the goal is to close this transaction by January 31, 2019.

Once this major transaction closes, the new mobility company will present next steps in the first quarter of 2019, in conjunction with the BMW Group and Daimler AG.

The equally-owned joint venture will comprise the following activities and services:

1) Multimodal and on-demand mobility with moovel and ReachNow:

The well over six million users will benefit from intelligent and seamless connectivity between different mobility offerings, such as carsharing, bike rental, taxis and public transport, including booking and payment. The multimodal platform will also offer possible solutions for the needs of urban private transport, including providing cars as a service.

2) CarSharing with Car2Go and DriveNow:

Car2Go and DriveNow operate a total of 20,000 vehicles in 30 major international cities. Carsharing enables better utilisation of vehicles and thus helps reduce the total number of vehicles in cities. More than four million customers already use these carsharing services.

3) Ride-Hailing with mytaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat:

A total of 15.9 million customers and around 250,000 drivers already use the services of mytaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi (all in Europe) and Beat (South America) - making Intelligent Apps GmbH one of the leading ride-hailing providers in Europe and South America. Innovative offers such as mytaximatch, which allows people who do not know each other to share a taxi at the tap of a finger, also make an important contribution to reducing inner-city traffic.

4) Parking with ParkNow and Parkmobile Group/Parkmobile LLC:

Ticketless, cashless on-street parking or help reserving and paying for off-street parking in a garage: Parkmobile already reaches a total of more than 27 million customers in Europe and North America and offers digital parking solutions in over 1,100 cities. Innovative digital parking services reduce the time and amount of driving involved in finding a parking space. This reduces traffic significantly, as cars searching for parking spaces currently account for around 30% of road traffic.

5) Charging with ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions:

Easy access (incl. location, charging and payment) to the world's largest network of public charging stations. Combined with parking privileges in cities, this will support the expansion of electromobility, by helping people integrate this drive technology more easily into their mobility needs.