Two of Europe’s biggest car makers are to form an alliance to help them better develop electric vehicles.
Jaguar Land Rover and BMW have announced a collaboration which will see them share their knowledge and expertise on electrification, a partnership which will help provide massive economies of scale. The development of electric vehicles comes with huge overheads and the union will see the companies share some of the costs of developing the next generation of electric drive units (EDUs).
Both companies have already made huge strides in the area of electrification, Jaguar’s I-Pace being the world’s first premium battery SUV, and this year won three World Car of the Year awards.
Jaguar Land Rover’s engineering director Nick Rogers said: “The pace of change and consumer interest in electrified vehicles is gathering real momentum and it’s essential we work across industry to advance the technologies required to deliver this exciting future.
“We’ve proven we can build world beating electric cars but now we need to scale the technology to support the next generation of Jaguar and Land Rover products.
“It was clear from discussions with BMW Group that both companies’ requirements for next generation EDUs to support this transition have significant overlap making for a mutually beneficial collaboration.”
The Land Rover and BMW partnership is a reunion of sorts for the two European powerhouses, the German company having owned the English company before selling it to Ford in 2008.