Report: Apple negotiating to buy automaker McLaren

Washington Post

The auto industry and the tech world may be about to get a new power player: Apple reportedly is in talks to buy the highperformance car company McLaren, according to the Financial Times.

The two firms have been talking for several months about plans to have Apple make a strategic investment in the McLaren Technology Group or buy it outright, the article said, citing “three people briefed on the negotiations.”

McLaren Technology Group includes McLaren Automotive, McLaren Racing and McLaren Applied Technologies.

Apple declined to comment on the report. McLaren did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rumors about Apple’s oft-reported and never officially confirmed car project, reportedly codenamed Project Titan, have been swirling for years. Speculation that the tech giant would make its own car cooled earlier this year after Apple hired a high-ranking executive from BlackBerry’s QNX car software company — a move that Bloomberg reported indicated that Apple was focusing more on designing car software. At the time, that report raised the idea that Apple might work with or buy a car manufacturer.

Many Apple watchers have advocated for Apple to buy Tesla, but Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has called such a deal “unlikely.” Musk has also scorned Apple’s car efforts, telling a German newspaper that he refers to Apple as “Tesla graveyard” because the tech firm hires so many engineers that Tesla has let go.

But Apple could be very attractive for McLaren, which has struggled to reach profitability. The British carmaker may be best known for its very high-end luxury supercars and its Formula One team, though it also has made forays into wearable technology, health care and electronics.