BMW, Jaguar Land Rover will jointly develop EV parts

FRANKFURT -- BMW Group said it will develop its next-generation electric motors, transmission and power electronics with Jaguar Land Rover, unveiling yet another industry alliance designed to lower the costs of developing electric 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," BMW r&d boss Klaus Froehlich said in a statement.

BMW aims to have 12 full-electric models by 2025. Currently the BMW brand's sole battery-powered model is the i3 hatchback. Jaguar Land Rover's first EV is the Jaguar I-Pace.

BMW and Jaguar Land Rover said they will save costs through shared development, production planning and joint purchasing.

A joint team of BMW and Jaguar Land Rover experts in Munich will be tasked with further developing BMW's fifth -generation eDrive technology that will debut this year on the iX3 battery-powered crossover. The X3 variant will be built in China and exported to the U.S. and Europe.

Both companies will produce electric drivetrains in their own manufacturing facilities, BMW said.

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."

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 designed the iPace. Ziebart is a former board member responsible for development and BMW.

BMW already has a deal to supply an 8-cylinder engine to Jaguar Land Rover.

Jaguar Land Rover said it would redouble efforts to cut costs after it posted a $4 billion loss earlier this year, hit by a downturn in demand for SUVs in China and a regulatory clampdown on diesel emissions.

BMW bought Britain's Rover Group, which included the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, for 800 million pounds in 1994. BMW sold Jaguar Land Rover to Ford in March 2000 for $2.7 billion. In 2008 India's Tata Group bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford for $2.3 billion.