General Motors Corp., DaimlerChrysler AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke AG will spend more than $1 billion combined to develop a shared gasoline- electric system for autos that will compete with hybrid leader Toyota Motor Corp.
BMW, the biggest luxury car brand, last year joined the project to develop a new generation of hybrid autos that was first announced in December 2004 by GM, the world's largest carmaker, and DaimlerChrysler, No. 5 globally.
The three automakers are making their hybrid push a decade after Toyota first began selling Prius cars and are spending half the $2 billion some Toyota officials have said it spent on hybrid research in the 1990s. Toyota, the world's No. 2 automaker, has sold more than 600,000 hybrids worldwide. Honda Motor Co., the world's second biggest maker of hybrids, is quadrupling production of the fuel-efficient cars in Japan.
``Toyota and Honda have a competitive edge over their rivals,'' said Fumiyasu Sato, chief executive officer at Milestone Asset Management, a Tokyo-based investment adviser. ``It's not going to be easy for other companies to catch up.''
GM, DaimlerChrysler and BMW had previously declined to disclose investment amounts in their hybrid partnership.
The cost of the jointly developed system includes at least $300 million for a transmission, Andreas Truckenbrodt, executive director of DaimlerChrysler's hybrid program, told reporters at a dinner in Traverse City, Michigan, yesterday.
``It costs a lot of money, and we're sharing resources,'' Truckenbrodt said. The three companies are to provide additional details of their system tomorrow at an industry conference in Traverse City, he said.
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