BMW’s chief financial officer has confirmed the German firm wants to strengthen its ties with PSA Peugeot-Citroen.
Friedrich Eichiner told a newspaper in Germany that the two firms would forge closer ties with PSA but he also distanced BMW from reports it would forge close bonds with rival Mercedes.
PSA and BMW already share engines, which BMW uses in its Mini range.
“Talks with PSA are about cooperation for components,” said Eichiner. Speaking about BMW and Mercedes, he said: “We wouldn't do ourselves a favour if the cars looked more and more alike.”
Eichiner refused to put a figure on how well BMW would perform through the economic downturn of 2009, but he did warn a further slump in the car industry could happen.
He did expect BMW to post a profit in 2009, but vehicle sales were likely to end up 10 to 15 per cent down on 2008’s levels.
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Re: BMW/PSA to form closer ties
I think these 2 are a great tie up. there is almost no overlap between their products so any saving they can make by sharing technology is unlikely to lead to losing sales to each other. It would be very interesting to know what sort of stuff they are thinking about sharing though. It might give us a clue to some of their future products.