Few times in history have there been alliances between French and German auto manufacturers, but it seems right now that BMW and Peugeot/Citroen are actually interested in building an electric vehicle alliance set to bring profits to them both and to set an European manufacturing standard.
The two companies will develop components for the hybrid cars they are up to building from now on, and then sell them to other car manufacturers, thus creating “an open European platform,” which includes battery packs and all the electronics and software needed to run on such cars.
Wolfgang Gi¼llich, currently BMW’s head of purchasing strategy, will be the CEO of this new venture called BMW Peugeot Citroen Electrification. His aims are to launch the operations in the second quarter of 2011 and begin installing equipments in actual vehicles starting 2014.
Venturing is something we’ve been seeing a lot lately, with examples like Renault-Nissan/Daimler, Tesla Motors/Toyota and now this one. It’s a sign that the progress is no longer belonging to a single entity, but rather to them all, or at least alliances of them, which helps standardization and ultimately lower prices for their final products.
