BMW, Daimler frustrated with carsharing, eye investment cuts, sale - report

Only eight months after launching their combined car sharing with great ambitions, BMW and Daimler have grown highly sceptical of the business, write Markus Fasse and Franz Hubik in business daily Handelsblatt. The companies are in crisis mode due to slowing sales, trade disputes and Brexit troubles and now consider investment cuts or a partial sale of their mobility services unit that combined Daimler's Car2go and BMW's DriveNow. BMW and Daimler are unlikely to give up on their mobility joint-venture, "but it is likely to be managed with far less ambition than originally planned," the authors write. Daimler sources told the paper it was "hard to imagine" the company would stick to plans to invest half a billion euros into the business given that it will make losses in the foreseeable future. Neither Daimler nor BMW publish financial details of the cooperation. Unnamed sources at Daimler and BMW also said the companies are looking for minority investors.

BMW and Daimler in February unveiled their combined ride-hailing, parking, and electric car charging business, in a bid to counter new rivals like Google and Uber. The companies said they planned to create 1,000 new jobs and have earmarked more than one billion euros to expand the merger of Daimler’s Car2Go and BMW’s DriveNow.