Last week I told you that Apple negotiated with BMW to use technologies from the BMW i3 to produce his future car, but the discussions stopped during this year, and those from BMW they seem to have stopped.
Last year Tim Cook visited the factory where it is produced BMW i3, various managers of the company doing the same thing, and it seems that there were detailed discussions between them and senior members of BMW regarding the process required to manufacture such a car.
Those from Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), they would have been impressed by the way BMW i3 was developed, more precisely the appreciations going towards the fact that BMW would have given up the traditional way of building cars and approached things from a completely different perspective both for the bodywork and for the interior and engine.
Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), works in a similar way and is interested in how it can produce an electric car, but it wants to do this without the help of BMW, and at this point the Germans put an end to the discussions, not wanting to become a simple technology supplier for Apple .
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook went to BMW's headquarters last year and senior Apple executives toured the carmaker's Leipzig factory to learn how it manufactures the i3 electric car. The dialogue ended without conclusion because Apple appears to want to explore developing a passenger car on its own, one of the sources said. Also, BMW is being cautious about sharing its manufacturing know-how because it wants to avoid becoming a mere supplier to a software or internet giant.
Basically, BMW wants an extended partnership with Apple to produce an electric car and is not willing to just license its technologies for its manufacture, but the Apple company does not work in this way, or at least it has not done it with any product launched in the last years.
Apple wants to control the entire manufacturing process of a product, from components to software, but in the case of a car, it has to license technologies from third parties, and if BMW will not be willing to help, then other manufacturers certainly will they will come to help.
"Apple executives were impressed with the fact that we abandoned traditional approaches to car making and started afresh. It chimed with the way they do things too," a senior BMW source said. The carmaker says there are currently no talks with Apple about jointly developing a passenger car and Apple declined to comment. However, one of the sources said exploratory talks between senior managers may be revived at a later stage.
Although Tim Cook is a BMW owner and a BMW fan, if Apple will not be able to be in total control over the production process of the car it is developing, then there is little chance that a possible partnership with BMW will be concluded, although no one excludes this possibility.
Apple has more than 700 people involved in the development project of an electric car, it has hired numerous experts in the development of automobiles and as things stand now, Apple could present the electric car in two or maybe even three years.
