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.

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.

Continental Automotive Systems has decided to recall almost 5 million vehicles worldwide after they detected flaws in air-bag deployment units. The supplier has already alerted its potentially affected customers and rolled out the recalling phase through automakers like Honda, Fiat Chrysler, and Mercedes-Benz.

European car sales rose to 9.2% in 2015. Demand in December is recorded as the strongest one in the entire year. However, Volkswagen is excluded from the strong gain.

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.

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz truck, Actros, the world's first self-driving truck, had started its road test on Germany's public highway. Daimler plans to release the autonomous truck by 2020.

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.

Nokia bids goodbye to its digital maps business as it sells its HERE maps unit to German carmaker consortium among BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz's owner Daimler, to focus on making mobile-phone network equipment.

German auto makers consortium composed of Audi, BMW, and Daimler, parent company of Mercedes-Benz, is reportedly in the final stages of discussion to acquire Nokia HERE, the mobile company's map app, for roughly €2.5 billion or $2.7 billion.

Carmaker Daimler on Saturday announced a partnership with mobile technologies company Qualcomm Inc. to explore wireless recharging of mobile phones in cars as well as recharging of electric cars without cables.

German industrial robot maker Kuka is open to further purchases after acquiring Swiss logistics group Swisslog last year, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing chief executive Till Reuter.

Tokyoites will get a chance to zip around town on Toyota Motor Corp's three-wheeled electric car-motorbike from Friday, in a trial aimed at crafting a global business model to reduce gridlock and pollution.

Ford Motor Co (F.N) wants Tencent Holdings Ltd (0700.HK) to tailor its popular chatting app for the firm's cars in China, as automakers in the world's largest market vie for drivers that care about high-tech features as much as engine size.

Technology companies such as Google are unlikely to become mass car manufacturers, even if they have the potential to disrupt an industry increasingly focused on software and automated driving, the head of German carmaker Daimler (DAIGn.DE) said on Friday.

Daimler (DAIGn.DE), maker of Mercedes-Benz and Smart-branded cars, said deliveries rose 11.4 percent in 2014, to a record 1,739,854 cars, thanks to a 30 percent sales jump in China and 25 percent higher registrations of Mercedes compact cars.