BMW, Jaguar - Land Rover announce EV partnership

The two firms will jointly develop electric motors.

Jaguar - Land Rover has teamed up with BMW to split the costs of developing some of the components needed to power electric cars. We'll see the first results of their collaboration around the state of the 2020s.

Neither company is new to the world of electric cars. Jaguar's I-Pace crossover (pictured) went on sale in 2018, and it's expected to spawn other electric cars -- including, possibly, a road-focused Land Rover -- in the coming years. BMW released the i3 in 2013, and it will launch a crossover named iX3 in 2020. Both firms also sell several plug-in hybrid models, including the Range Rover and the 5 Series.

The aforementioned iX3 will inaugurate the next generation of BMW's electric drivetrain technology, and it's these components that future powertrains shared with Jaguar - Land Rover will be based on. While technical specifications remain few and far between, BMW explained the technology packs an electric motor, a transmission, and the required electronics into a single housing.

Munich-based experts from BMW and Jaguar - Land Rover will work together to further develop the iX3's motor. The component they jointly develop will power a majority of the EVs that BMW, Jaguar, and Land Rover will release during the early 2020s. As of writing, the collaboration stops there; the two groups will continue to design batteries independently, and they're not planning to share platforms.

If this rings a bell, remember that BMW owned Land Rover between 1994 and 2000. The Range Rover was notably available with a BMW-sourced V8 engine.