VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Volkswagen, its Audi and Porsche luxury brands, BMW, Daimler, and Ford’s European division have joined forces to build more electric car charging sites across Europe. The joint venture wants to create 400 charging sites next year in order to boost the demand on electric vehicles.

BMW revealed today that the refreshed 2017 BMW i3 will get 94 Ah cells, which will bump battery capacity up to 33 kWh (from 22 kWh today) and will increase range substantially to “up to 114 miles,”

BMW and Baidu are both moving on separate ways as they ended their research and business ventures for greater horizons.

GoPro launched its developer program, calling for companies and manufacturers to integrate their own products or services with GoPro. Under the program, third-party companies can now create apps, accessories, and mounts for GoPro’s products.

The German carmaker's venture capital arm announced Wednesday to make strategic investment in RideCell. BMW established i Ventures in 2011 to target mobility service startups.

HERE was a Nokia map service purchased by German car makers consortium last year. This Wednesday, Daimler confirmed Microsoft and Amazon is in talks with the consortium.

BMW becomes the first car to integrate a unique free feature into its vehicles, the IFTTT (If This Then That) services. This feature provides its customers with a host of personalized services through a newly built platform called BMW Labs. The customers are now able to automatically open garage doors while pulling into the driveway. They can send auto-alerts to spouse upon picking up kids from school, and even get the exact location of the parking spot in a Google Maps link.

Takata Corp is reportedly planning to meet its major clients in order to discuss its business forecasts. The US transport authorities announced a fresh recall of about 5 million vehicles subsequent to the recent death caused by the Japanese firm's airbag inflators.

BMW reveals its new M2 at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show. The car is priced at $52,695, and a $995 destination charge.

BMW North America faces a penalty of up to $40 million by U.S. auto-safety regulators for recall failures. According to US News, U.S. safety regulators have fined penalty with German automaker BMW AG with $40 million for a reason of not fast fixation of their Mini brand cars that failed federal crash tests.

The BMW i8 Spyder was first seen as a concept in the Beijing Auto Show back in 2012, but now, CEO Harald Krueger said a production version of the car will be introduced very soon.

The Mercedes-Benz cars manufacturer Daimler had released its third quarter report for record sales and revenues. The car cited strong progress in Western Europe which is its biggest market, but its feat was surpassed by the sales it made in China.

The recent scandal that Germany faces has revealed the loose sanctions that its government has for the German automobile industry, what with the latter being the nation's poster child with its combined contribution of 413 billion euros revenue from the three biggest carmakers: Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler in 2014 alone. Whether it is justifiable or not has raised a moral issue argued upon these days with "just how many lives have perished because of this?" as the primary argument.

Volkswagen's manipulation in emission norms is rocking Germany following the latest resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn. Analysts forecast that the recent developments at Volkswagen will have an impact on business and politics in Europe's largest economy.

BMW, the German automaker is investing millions in a new parking startup based in San Francisco. BMW through its investment unit, BMW i Ventures is investing an undisclosed amount in an on-demand parking company called ZIRX. The news was confirmed by ZIRX CEO and co-founder himself, Sean Behr.