According to a recent report by Financial Times, the technology giant Apple has expressed keen interest in purchasing or at least in making a heavy investment with the popular automaker, McLaren.
This news comes in the wake of another report which suggested that Apple is planning on climbing back to its blossoming aspirations of automaking, which went so far that they had to lay off the staff that was associated with the autonomous car project, ‘Project Titan’.
The news can be interpreted in a way assuming that the acquisition of McLaren, will allow Apple to expand its nuts-and-bolts automotive engineering aspect of the highly rumored, still in the sketches stages of the Apple Car Enterprise. This will allow the company to focus on the software development, design, and marketing. And if this happens, the Apple-McLaren pairing would be quite a match made in heaven.
Here is What McLaren has to Say about These Apple Rumors
When McLaren Automotive was contacted regarding the rumors, the CEO of the company confirmed in a report to Bloomberg, that McLaren is not in any kind of discussions with respect to any sort of a potential investment with the tech giant Apple at the moment. However, it is still not clear if this is applicable only to the McLaren Automotive alone or if it extends further to the entire group of McLaren Technology. This shall be evident only when the additional updates are provided by either of the companies.
The word McLaren makes everyone immediately think about supercars which are driver-focused and racing machines, but not the autonomous podcars for the people, which is most expected from Apple. But the fact is that McLaren is not just an automaker. The company has many divisions, a wide range of subsidiaries, and a lot of other interests that are covered by under the umbrella of McLaren Technology Group. The company’s vast experience in automaking, for example, its complex vehicle controlling systems and the carbon-fiber manufacturing process will lift huge burdens off the Apple team which is trying its hands at creating these facets in-house.
The report by Financial Times suggested that if at all a complete takeover does happen, the final deal can be valued from $1.5 billion up to $2 billion. The figure is less than the whopping $3 billion that Apple had paid to Beats Electronics in 2014, for making its headphones. Certainly, Apple is not falling short of any cash liquidity at the moment.
All these rumors are to be taken with a grain of salt until there is confirmed news rolling out from either of the involved companies. However, this will not stop the car lovers from imagining how an Apple that is built by McLaren would look like. That is one way to make the Apple Car seem more interesting and a much-awaited automobile. Maybe Ron Dennis could convince them to keep the steering wheel instead of making the car automatic and up to date in all aspects.