VW & Rivian to Form Joint Venture

Join daily news updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or follow us on Google News!

Immediately, the Bundeskartellamt has cleared underneath merger management the formation of a three way partnership between Volkswagen and US electrical automotive producer Rivian in addition to VW’s acquisition of a minority shareholding in Rivian Automotive Inc. VW and Rivian will every maintain a 50 per cent share within the three way partnership, which goals to develop the subsequent technology of the so-called E/E structure for electrical automobiles.

This structure describes how the varied electrical and digital capabilities are designed and embedded in automobiles, together with the required management items, sensors, and so on., and the way they work together.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “At its core the cooperation project is about the way in which a large number of complex functions and components are best organised in cars and how they interact with each other. As cars become increasingly digital and connected, the question of the right system architecture is nothing less than a key competition parameter. When it comes to cooperation projects set up to develop new products and technologies in key cutting-edge sectors, particularly those involving large companies, we take a close look at competition in innovation. The project does not raise any concerns in this respect, nor does it raise any other serious competition concern’s.”

E/E structure is at the moment present process a serious change because the market not considers the at the moment prevailing architectures with many distributed management items to be enough for future automobiles. The foreseeable shift to electrical mobility implies that vehicles will comprise considerably extra electrical and digital parts sooner or later. This additionally applies to the autonomous driving capabilities and network-based value-added companies built-in into automobiles. On this context, software program is predicted to play an excellent better function sooner or later.

The mission might be cleared underneath merger management because it was not anticipated to considerably impede efficient competitors. That is the case no matter whether or not the related market is taken into account to include the E/E structure as an entire or of assorted sub-systems and sub-services. There’ll nonetheless be a enough vary of companies obtainable to automotive producers to construct E/E architectures. There is no such thing as a motive for concern that competitors in innovation within the discipline of E/E structure will probably be impeded to a major extent. Lastly, competitors within the downstream markets for automobiles through which E/E architectures are used isn’t anticipated to be significantly impeded both.

Courtesy of The Federal Cartel Office