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BMW and Jaguar Land Rover to jointly develop electric car tech

FRANKFURT – BMW and Jaguar Land Rover on Wednesday said they will jointly develop electric motors, transmissions and power electronics, unveiling yet another industry alliance designed to lower the costs of developing electric cars. Both carmakers are under pressure to roll out zero-emission vehicles to meet stringent anti-pollution rules, but have struggled to maintain profit margins faced with the rising costs of making electric, connected and autonomous cars. "Together, we have the opportunity to cater more effectively for customer needs by shortening development time and bringing vehicles and state-of-the-art technologies more rapidly to market," said BMW board member Klaus Froehlich. BMW and Jaguar Land Rover said they will save costs through shared development, production planning and joint purchasing of electric car components. Both companies will produce electric drivetrains in their own manufacturing facilities, BMW said. The BMW Jaguar Land Rover pact comes as rivals FiatChrysler and Renault explore a $35 billion tie-up of the Italian-American and French carmaking groups. Nick Rogers, Jaguar Land Rover's engineering director said, "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." BMW was in talks with rival Daimler about developing electric car components but was also in discussions with Jaguar Land Rover, a company it once owned, to explore an alliance on engines. BMW already has a deal to supply an 8 cylinder engine to Jaguar Land Rover. Carmakers are increasingly open to sharing electric car parts because the technology is expensive and because customers no longer buy a car based on what engine a vehicle has. "Carmakers are much less precious about sharing electric car technology because it is much harder to create product differentiation with electric car tech. They all accelerate fast, and everybody can do quality and ride and handling," according to Carl-Peter Forster a former chief executive of Tata Motors and a former BMW executive. Jaguar Land Rover is still run by former BMW managers, including Ralf Speth the company's chief executive who spent 20 years at BMW prior to joining JLR, and Wolfgang Ziebart, the engineer who oversaw Jaguar's I-Pace electric car program, who is a former head of research and development at BMW.

Behind the scenes of BMW's 'Drift Mob,' Part 1

Generally speaking, marketing and journalism don't mix, but every now and then, what goes into the marketing of a car - the 2015 BMW M235i, in this case - is worth documenting. In that spirit, we took BMW up on its offer to bring us behind the scenes of its upcoming "drift mob" video, starring five red M235i coupes frolicking around a traffic circle in a major world city (BMW has asked us to be coy about which one so as not to blow its cover before the shoot).
The five drivers can all be considered legends of modern-day drifting and stunt driving: Rhys Millen, Samuel Hübinette, Dai Yoshihara, Rich Rutherford and Conrad Grunewald.
As the only US media outlet in attendance, Autoblog plans to follow up with a full story on the experience once BMW polishes and releases the video in a month or so. In the meantime, check out our photos of this epic practice session we captured on our first day hanging with the crew, and be sure to watch this space for more behind-the-scenes action.

BMW offering Track Handling Package for 2 Series

After getting a chance to drive the BMW M235i earlier this year, we mentioned our regret at not being able to sample the lighter and less powerful 228i Coupe. We'd like to have seen how close the latter could get to the former, noting that "there's a lot of room for upgrades with the $11,000 retail difference." BMW is closing that performance gap slightly, announcing that a Track Handling Package will join the options sheet for the 2015 228i Coupe.
The group bolts on Variable Sport Steering, Adaptive M Suspension and M Sport Brakes behind new 18-inch lightweight wheels wearing Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires. There's no change to the 240-horsepower four-cylinder, but a coupe so equipped should be able to do plenty more with the horses it has thanks to a faster steering rack, sharper handling due to additional sensors and a ten-millimeter drop in ride height, and larger brakes and discs.
BMW has used the New York Auto Show as a venue to introduce the new Track Handling Package, and it will roll onto showroom floors in July and pricing will be announced sometime between now and then. Takers can get it with both the six-speed manual and eight-speed Sport Automatic, see it in the high-res image gallery above, and read about it in the press release below.