BMW and Toyota to strengthen collaboration

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), and Norbert Reithofer, chairman of the BMW, have announced the planned expansion of their existing cooperation initiated in December last year. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at a long-term strategic collaboration in four fields: joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and de
July 3, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Akio Toyoda, president of 1686 Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), and Norbert Reithofer, chairman of 1731 BMW, have announced the planned expansion of their existing cooperation initiated in December last year. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at a long-term strategic collaboration in four fields: joint development of a fuel cell system, joint development of architecture and components for a future sports vehicle, collaboration on powertrain electrification and joint research and development on lightweight technologies.

Reithofer and Toyoda also signed a joint statement to reconfirm their companies’ shared intention to strengthen the long-term, strategic collaboration between them.

In March 2012, the BMW Group and TMC signed a binding agreement on collaborative research in the field of next-generation lithium-ion battery cells. In addition, the BMW Group and Toyota Motor Europe entered into a contract in December last year, under which the BMW Group will supply highly efficient 1.6 litre and 2.0 litre diesel engines to Toyota Motor Europe starting in 2014.

This latest MoU represents the companies’ agreement in December last year to identify and discuss other possible collaborative projects.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cable cars come of age in trans-continental expansion
    April 30, 2015
    David Crawford explores a high-level option of public transport. Sharing its origin with that of ski lifts at winter sports resorts in the European Alps, urban aerial cable transport is attracting growing interest as a low-footprint, low-energy alternative to conventional public transport that can swoop over ground-level traffic congestion.
    Read More
  • Xerox and Mitsubishi present united front at World Congress
    October 10, 2016
    It’s been a year since Xerox and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Mechatronics Systems (MHIMS), a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) which took over the company's ITS business in November 2015, signed a memorandum of understanding to explore globally, on a case-by-case basis, potential ITS opportunities.
    Read More
  • Toyota proving ground tests co-operative ITS
    February 25, 2013
    Opened in November 2012, Toyota’s intelligent transportation systems (ITS) proving ground is being used to run a number of interactive tests between specially-equipped Toyota vehicles. Located at the company's Higashi-Fuji Technical Centre in Susono City, Japan, the ITS proving ground is a 3.5-hectare site that faithfully replicates a real urban environment, complete with intersecting streets, pedestrian crosswalks, and traffic signals. It is equipped with optical beacons, government-allocated 760 MHz trans
    Read More
  • Deadlines approach for Europe’s automatic crash alert system
    September 15, 2016
    The EU-co-funded I_ HeERO (Infrastructure_ Harmonised eCall European Pilot) project is working to ensure the readiness of national networks of call centres - known as public safety answering posts (PSAPs) - to deal with automated crash alerts arriving via the continent-wide 112 emergency phone number. Following on from its HeERO and HeERO2 pre-deployment predecessors, which enjoyed €16m (US$17.76m) in EU funding, the new initiative runs from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2017. It has €30.9 million (US$34.
    Read More

Highlighted Content