BMW And Mercedes Could Co-Develop Next-Gen 1-Series And A-Class

German automotive giants BMW and Mercedes-Benz might end up co-developing their next-generation C-segment models, the 1-Series and the A-Class, as part of a greater alliance that could also include sharing autonomous car technology.

According to German newspaper Handelsblatt, the automakers need to first figure out costs so that they can go on to invest billions in self-driving systems and avoid falling behind any rivals or newcomers such as Waymo.

By sharing a compact car architecture, BMW and Mercedes could save billions in investment costs, according to insiders with knowledge of these discussions, although if something does materialize, the first joint compact car models would likely not be launched before 2025.

One major issue to overcome is the fact that BMW and Mercedes engineers might actually resist the idea of a joint venture, which would make matters more difficult for upper management execs, as reported by Automotive News Europe.

Up until now, Daimler and BMW have worked together on projects such as Nokia’s mapping company Here (with Audi also involved). They have also merged their short-term rental services Car2Go and DriveNew in an attempt to bite off a bigger chunk of the mobility market.

Should the two go through with jointly developing future 1-Series and A-Class models, we imagine that fans of either brands might join engineers in taking issue with it, although technically and financially, things could end up working out well.