Didi Chuxing has teamed up with 31 auto industry partners, including Volkswagen and Toyota, to create the Didi Auto Alliance, a new integrated transportation service initiative that will combine auto leasing and sales, auto finance, auto service, fleet operation and car-sharing, the company announced last week.
Partners in the Alliance include Chinese carmakers such as Geely and SAIC, as well as brands such as Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Volkswagen’s China units. The announcement follows a series of tangentially-related partnerships Didi has made with automakers over the past year. The Alliance will focus on creating purpose-built electric vehicles for ridehailing and other mobility solutions, Didi said in an announcement. Didi declined to provide additional comment.
When it comes to the auto leasing and sales, Didi said it would use its big-data analytics, business scale, operational expertise and network resources to help develop with its partners integrated auto solutions on its car-leasing, car-sharing and after-service platforms. But it does not appear that captives are involved in this.
“RCI Bank and Services is not involved in the Didi Auto Alliance and we are not present in China,” Amandine Monteil, an RCI Bank and Services spokeswoman told Auto Finance News. RCI Bank and Services is the captive for Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.
Separately, Volkswagen and Didi are planning to unveil a joint venture to share technology and develop shared-mobility services in China, the companies said Monday.
“At Volkswagen, we place great expectation on the development of innovative mobility services. With Didi we are exploring the first phase of the partnership by exploring mobility projects as well as smart city, autonomous driving and Robo-taxi projects,” Christoph Ludewig, a Volkswagen China spokesman, told AFN, but declined to say what aspects, if any, of auto finance will be incorporated in either the joint venture or the Didi Alliance.
Didi’s alliance plans to roll out its first car model, the D1, in the next three to five years.
