A recent report coming from the German magazine Handelsblatt indicates that both Daimler and BMW have dropped its talks with Apple Inc for its car project over the issue of controlling customer data.
The news about the mysterious Apple Car with the code-name "Project Titan" have been hidden in a paywall, but with the good graces of some of The Verge staffers, certain details that led to the break-down of talks between the German and American companies have surfaced.
The Verge report says: "Apple wants the car to be closely built into its own cloud software, while the German carmakers have made customer data protection a key element of their future strategy."
The report posits that BMW opted out of the discussions over helping Apple with its development of its car or car-technology last year, after the computer company's officials toured the German carmaker's technically advanced BMW i factory.
The Cupertino, CA-based company did not confirm if it is working on an electric and semi-autonomous car. However, if this is true, it would need a veteran car maker to help it go through the very expensive and tricky technology of car manufacturing.
With its talks with BMW and Daimler Benz bogging down, its list of potential partners is dangerously getting shorter.
Tim Cook, Apple CEO toured the Munich headquarters of BMW last year and its senior officials visited the car maker's Leipzig factory to see how BMW's i3 electric car is made. But a little later, BMW and Apple ended their negotiations.
There is still one auto-maker that is in the running to make the Apple Car - Magna, a Canadian-Austrian manufacturer.
Meanwhile, Frankfurter Allgemeine, a German publication, reported recently that the American tech giant has developed a "secret lab" in Berlin where it has "poached" or assembled a team of about 15 to 20 engineers collected from a few German car companies. Could this team be the one to do it?
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