A couple of months ago, there were rumors that Apple could be interested in acquiring McLaren, presumably to aid in their electric/self-driving car efforts. The company later denied the rumors, claiming that McLaren and Apple were not in discussions over potential investment. However it seems that this might not have been the full story.According to an interview with McLaren’s CEO Mike Flewitt over at Reuters (via MacRumors), it seems that both companies did meet up to talk, but nothing concrete came from it. Flewitt was quoted as saying, “There wasn’t a bid from Apple. They visited. We talked. We talked about what they did. We talked about what we did. They toured. It never matured to a definitive proposition.”
Basically the original statement from McLaren was true to a certain extent as apart from this talk, it seemed that this was all there was to it. It also confirms that both companies did meet up as per the previous rumors. We’re not sure why neither company decided to go ahead with further discussions, but perhaps given that Apple has shelved their car plans for now, perhaps it makes sense that they did not want to invest any further.
Right now the rumors are claiming that instead of making their own car, Apple could instead be focusing on creating software for vehicles. There are also rumors to suggest that Apple could be looking towards using augmented reality for their software as well.
Filed in . Read more about Electric Vehicles, McLaren and Self-Driving Cars.