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BMW negotiates Daimler alliance, buys out car-service partner Sixt

Sixt sells its stake in DriveNow car-sharing to BMW BMW in talks with Daimler to combine car-sharing Combining car-sharing business to aid robotaxi plans FRANKFURT — Germany's BMW has bought out partner Sixt from their joint venture DriveNow, paving the way for a broader car-sharing and driverless taxi alliance with Daimler to compete against Uber and Lyft. Car rental company Sixt said on Monday it would generate an extraordinary pre-tax profit of about 200 million euros ($248 million) in 2018 from the sale of the DriveNow stake to BMW for 209 million euros. "With DriveNow as a wholly-owned subsidiary, we have all options for continued strategic development of our services," said Peter Schwarzenbauer, BMW's board member for Digital Business Innovation. "Our experience with mobility services supports our development of future autonomous, electrified and connected fleets," he said, adding that BMW aims to have 100 million customers for "premium mobility services" by 2025. The Sixt deal comes as BMW moves closer to a deal to combine its car-sharing services with Daimler's Car2Go, a person familiar with the discussions told Reuters last week. The German carmakers want to build a joint business that includes car sharing, ride-hailing, electric vehicle charging, and digital parking services, a senior executive at one of the companies said on Monday. Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and BMW declined comment on the status of potential talks on their car-sharing business. "This is speculation, we do not comment," BMW said. The senior executive, who declined to be named because the plan is not public, said: "This will create an ecosystem which can also be used for managing robotaxi (driverless taxi) fleets." BMW would contribute its ParkNow and ChargeNow businesses to the common company, the executive said, adding that there were still differences of opinion over the valuation of Car2Go. The market for ride-hailing services currently makes up around 33 percent of the global taxi market, and could grow eightfold to $285 billion by 2030, once autonomous robotaxis are in operation, Goldman Sachs said in a recent research note. BMW and Daimler are now working on developing autonomous cars, vehicles which could enable them to up-end the market for taxi and ride-hailing services.

A weird end to a weird F1 season | 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix recap

The 2016 Formula 1 season ended with a bang that came from a direction no one expected. Lewis Hamilton put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position and then got away clean to start the race. Teammate Nico Rosberg did the next best thing, lining up in second and following right behind Hamilton for most of the race. Other than Rosberg's wicked pass on Red Bull's Max Verstappen to retake second place on Lap 20, things stayed all quiet at the front. Come Lap 32 of the 55-lap race, however, observers began to wonder why Hamilton was driving so slow. The Brit, working every trick he could think of to win the Driver's World Championship instead of just the race, dogged it out front trying to push Rosberg back into the chasing mix of Red Bulls and Ferraris. Over the next 15 laps Hamilton's race engineer repeatedly radioed ideal lap times. Hamilton only occasionally hit the times until finally saying, "I suggest you let us race." When the one-stopping Sebastian Vettel blasted his Ferrari from sixth to third, nosing up to Rosberg's gearbox, Mercedes team honcho Paddy Lowe got on the radio to instruct Hamilton to go faster. Hamilton replied that if he wasn't going to win the championship he didn't care about winning the race. Hamilton repeatedly zoomed through the first sector to keep everyone behind, then clogged up the works through Sectors 2 and 3. The problem with his plan was that the Red Bulls in fourth and fifth couldn't get close enough to threaten the trio at the front; even if Vettel had got by Rosberg, Rosberg would still win the Championship with a third-place finish. As it happened, Rosberg finished second behind the disconsolate Hamilton. Vettel took third, followed by Red Bull drivers Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, then the second Ferrari piloted by Kimi Raikkonen in sixth. Nico Hulkenberg took seventh, beating Force India teammate Sergio Perez for the last time as an intra-team rivalry. Felipe Massa closed his F1 career with ninth place in a Williams chassis that he got to take home as a gift from the team. Fernando Alonso scored the final point for McLaren, a touch of sweet for the team after the bitterness of Jenson Button retiring on Lap 12 with suspension damage. Rosberg's second place earned him 385 points for the season, enough to take the World Driver's Championship from Hamilton by just five points. Some have put the title down to Rosberg's consistency, others to his car's reliability.

Mercedes Concept GLA45 AMG is ready to run

This is the Mercedes-Benz Concept GLA45 AMG, and what we mean by that is, "This is the Mercedes-Benz GLA45 AMG." Mercedes has just unveiled the liveried 'concept' at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show, giving potential customers a very good look at the newest lunatic in the AMG asylum - a 355-horsepower, 332-pound-foot crossover that uses the same 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine found in the CLA45 AMG and Europe's A45 AMG.
Joined with a seven-speed, AMG Speedshift dual-clutch transmission and an AMG Performance 4Matic all-wheel-drive system, Mercedes promises a sub-five-second run to 60 miles per hour. That's not just quick for a crossover, that's quick full stop.
That sleek, lifted body has also been tweaked by the minds at AMG's Affalterbach facility. A new rear spoiler, side sills and front clip are the primary aerodynamic tweaks. Aesthetically, AMG has fitted the requisite "Turbo" badges, gloss-black accents (including exhaust tips and roof rails) and a set of 21-inch, AMG-spec alloy wheels to round out the overall package. Based on the spy shots we've seen, expect slightly toned down aerodynamics when the GLA45 AMG arrives in showrooms.