Headquartered in Hildesheim, the new company will be named EM-motive GmbH, and will produce traction electric motors for future vehicles from an engineering site close to the two parent companies in Stuttgart. A production run of more than one million electric motors is planned by 2020.

It allows the companies to share a wealth of expertise. Bosch has a long history of developing and producing electric motors, while Daimler has 20 years of experience in the field of electromobility, including fuel cells and batteries.

EM-motive will be staffed by around 100 employees, due to start working in Q4 of 2011, and headed up by directors of equal rank from each partner company. Production is expected to start in early 2012, with the traction motors fitted first to the new generation smart fortwo electric drive. Further applications in the Mercedes-Benz range will follow.