Roger Fingas
BMW's newly-installed CEO, Harald Krueger, remains as interested in his predecessor in partnerships with Apple and other tech firms, reports said on Monday.
"Fundamentally, both partners need to profit from the cooperation, otherwise it will not last. And both companies need to share the same principles, for example with regard to data security," Kreuger told Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, as quoted by Reuters.
Apple and BMW have allegedly been communicating some time, to extent that Apple CEO Tim Cook and a team of senior managers visited BMW's electric car facility in Leipzig in 2014. The BMW i3 might have become the basis for an Apple-designed car, though that particular idea appears to have been dropped. Broader talks were reportedly interrupted during the changeover to Krueger.
Rumors have suggested that BMW could be a manufacturing partner for an Apple car. While Apple is believed to have several hundred people working on a potentially self-driving electric vehicle under the codename Project Titan, it lacks any deals or facilities for actually building such a product. Krueger addressed the possibility of a manufacturing link-up with Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
"Let me answer in general terms. There is something which makes BMW Group and Apple very similar. Both are companies with strong brands," he said.
BMW has previously expressed caution about sharing information with companies like Apple, worried that it might effectively become just another supplier. At the same time, technologies like self-driving systems may demand increasing amounts of help from companies like Apple and Google, which are more familiar with software.
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15 Comments
Why is the preview image of the Mercedes concept?
An aside: Why oh why do car companies think that a proper hybrid or electric car has to be godawful ugly?
[quote name="tundraboy" url="/t/188226/new-bmw-ceo-still-willing-to-talk-with-tech-firms-like-apple-hints-at-manufacturing-partnership#post_2776073"]An aside: Why oh why do car companies think that a proper hybrid or electric car has to be godawful ugly?[/quote] 1. Most people buy these cars for image; they want people to see how they're "better" than other people. 2. Ford would like a word. Their hybrids and electric cars look just like the regular models. And then there's Tesla and Fisker.
When/if BMW adopts CarPlay, I'll believe him. If he's not even willing to do that (despite his currently crappy iDrive interface), I doubt that this amounts to much more than cheap talk.
Also, there's no consumer-facing IT company with a greater focus on security than Apple. What an arrogant, vacuous statement for that guy to make.
(Edited)
[quote name="TheWhiteFalcon" url="/t/188226/new-bmw-ceo-still-willing-to-talk-with-tech-firms-like-apple-hints-at-manufacturing-partnership#post_2776081"][quote name="tundraboy" url="/t/188226/new-bmw-ceo-still-willing-to-talk-with-tech-firms-like-apple-hints-at-manufacturing-partnership#post_2776073"]An aside: Why oh why do car companies think that a proper hybrid or electric car has to be godawful ugly?[/quote] 1. Most people buy these cars for image; they want people to see how they're "better" than other people. 2. Ford would like a word. Their hybrids and electric cars look just like the regular models. And then there's Tesla and Fisker.[/quote] The Prius is more popular than the Honda hybrids even though the Hondas look nicer. When surveyed the respondents said that they wanted it known that they were driving a hybrid which is why they chose the Prius over a hybrid version of a regular Honda model.