BMW, Daimler No Longer Want to Be Part of the Apple Inc. (AAPL) Car: The German publication claims that Apple’s talks with BMW ended last year. Indeed, Apple CEO Tim Cook was reported visiting BMW’s headquarters in Munich, Germany last year. Some key Apple executives also visited the company’s plant that makes the mass market electric i3, following which talks abruptly broke between the German luxury auto maker and Apple. Talks with Daimler, however, ended only very recently, Handelsblatt noted.
The magazine says the disagreement between the parties is majorly linked with control and data functions of the vehicle. Citing “industry sources,” Handelsblatt said that Apple is interested in retaining the vehicle’s data access and usage to its own internal cloud software. On the other hand, auto makers BMW and Daimler are stricter on customer data protection, which they both tout as a key element of their future strategy.
The news comes days after another German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine claimed an independent Austria-based automotive manufacturer going by the name Magna is a front-line runner to win the development contract for the Apple car. The publication also speculated that Apple has got together a team of 15-20 top automotive engineers who are secretly working at “a secret lab” in Germany’s capital, Berlin. Recent media reports also suggest that Apple has hired a Tesla’s former vice president of vehicle engineering, Chris Porritt, who left the company last year.
The magazine says the disagreement between the parties is majorly linked with control and data functions of the vehicle. Citing “industry sources,” Handelsblatt said that Apple is interested in retaining the vehicle’s data access and usage to its own internal cloud software. On the other hand, auto makers BMW and Daimler are stricter on customer data protection, which they both tout as a key element of their future strategy.
The news comes days after another German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine claimed an independent Austria-based automotive manufacturer going by the name Magna is a front-line runner to win the development contract for the Apple car. The publication also speculated that Apple has got together a team of 15-20 top automotive engineers who are secretly working at “a secret lab” in Germany’s capital, Berlin. Recent media reports also suggest that Apple has hired a Tesla’s former vice president of vehicle engineering, Chris Porritt, who left the company last year.