Last week, rumors surfaced on the interwebs that BMW and Tesla are meeting to discuss a potential partnership on carbon fiber and battery technology.
At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had said in an interview with Der Spiegel that Tesla is talking to BMW on “whether we can work together in battery technology and charging stations”. In addition, he said BMW has “a relatively inexpensive carbon fiber production”, which could be interesting for Tesla.
Now according to German newspaper “Wirtschaftswoche“, citing well-informed BMW sources, the Munich-based automaker says the discussions were informal. Some even went further to say that Tesla might be using BMW’s name for PR purposes, especially after Daimler and Toyota sold their Tesla shares in October.
Same newspaper says BMW did not see presently how the company could benefit from Tesla.
Musk had announced plans to build a battery factory in Germany but BMW doesn’t see itself as a partner in that: “We do not own a factory for battery cells,” says Munich. Battery cells are not an unique feature and can be purchased from suppliers. “The joining of the cells to a battery and the control of the battery, it was however the actual innovative performance,” adds the folks in Munich.
For now, the two companies seem to dance around each other while trying to figure out what the electric vehicles market will look like down the road. While the two electric automakers are not currently competing directly, a future, larger BMW electric vehicle could compete with the successful Tesla Model S. In its turn, Tesla is also preparing a 3 Series killer operated by batteries.
