Tech giant Apple is in talks to acquisition McLaren and it must have Elon Musk sweating. Apparently these talks have been going on for several months. The final decision to acquisition the world famous Formula One and luxury car producer has not yet been finalized. Nonetheless this is big news for the highly anticipated Apple Car.
Rumors of the possibly of a Apple Car have been floating around for years. The company has an automotive department codenamed “Project Titan.” Yet, there is still no evidence Apple has worked on the manufacturing of the automobile. Talks with McLaren may spark a change in the narrative so far.
According to Mathew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw at the Financial Times McLaren is still denying the possibility of a full acquisition. A McLaren spokesperson told Business Insider, “There’s no takeover, no strategic investment. It’s completely untrue.”
Regardless of what McLaren spokespersons are saying the idea of a buy out may be tempting. According to the Financial Times an acquisition of the British automatic group would cost Apple a pretty $1.3 billion. In 2015 McLaren reported $617 million in revenue with $27 million as its net profit.
Apple is not new to big acquisitions. In May of 2014 the tech giant acquired Beats for $3 million. In a press release regarding the acquisition Jimmy Iovine stated, “I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple.” The questions now become does Jimmy currently drive a McLaren? And if not has he always known in his heart McLaren belonged with Apple?
Whether it’s an investment or a outright purchase Apple would get more than a simple automotive group for their money. They would also be absorbing racing technology and a highly valuable of automotive-focused engineers.
Along with owning several valuable patents there is also the McLaren Applied Technologies group. The group is responsible for research and studies materials. There is also a department named McLaren Electronic Systems. This department does extensive work with sensors and data. They are currently used to collect realtime data during races to compare to historical data.
Earlier this year Apple made another side-move in the automotive industry with a $1 billion dollar investment in Didi Chuxing, a prominent ride-hailing company. Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “From a Didi point of view, we see that as, one, a great financial investment. Two, we think that there are some strategic things that the companies can do together over time.”