Apparently out of nowhere, rumors of a possible connection between BMW and Mercedes appeared last month. Reports from Germany Manager Magazin And the Great Britain Autocar suggested that the two luxury giants examined an unlikely partnership, and Stuttgart allegedly sat on the source of four-cylinder petrol engines from Munich.
However, Mercedes is now flat and denies the story. At the IAA Mobility Show in Munich, Chief Technology Officer Markus Schäfer spoke the reports and told Motor1 Italy The three-point star does not use the B48 engine from BMW:
“This has no truth. We have developed our own new family of modular engines, the fame (family of modular engines), which covers all shifts and is already ready to meet EU7, China 7 and US regulations.”
The alliance is to be born out of necessity. According to the first reports, Mercedes searched for a compact petrol engine for plug-in hybrid applications, since its M252 was apparently not fully suitable for phevs. It was also assumed that the engine with EVS is incompatible with the help of range expansion technology. In these cars, the gas engine serves as a generator to load the battery on the go, similar to the i3 Rex.
It was therefore rumored that Mercedes turned to BMW. The move would have accelerated the development, reduced the costs and brought PHEVs on the market faster and at lower prices. And it was not just compact cars like the CLA and GLA that were supposedly in the row for BMW current. Both the C-Class and the E-Class were viewed together with other models as candidates for the B48.
Schäfer has now brought the speculation to rest and emphasizes that the company has no plans to rent hardware from another car manufacturer, especially not its greatest rival. The improvement seemed questionable from the start, since the existing partnership of Mercedes with Geely. The Chinese car manufacturer has a joint venture with Renault, who is known as a horse and focuses on electrified combustion engines.
Realistically speaking, it is far more sensible for Mercedes to work with Geely than with BMW. I can hardly think of two less likely manufacturers who come together. Nevertheless, as the saying says, there is no smoke without a fire, so there may be some truth behind these early reports. We’ll probably never know.
Source: Motor1 Italy
