Apple’s Potential Big Move

Apple is said to be seeking a stake in luxury carmaker McLaren and is in talks to buy Lit Motors, an electric motorbike startup according to people with knowledge of the matter. By buying into the company McLaren, Apple would then own a percentage of the company. Therefore, they would be able to determine whether they want to build their own car or partnering with another automaker and giving them the Apple platform. Although Lit Motors is primarily an electric scooter company, they have several patents pertaining specifically to self-driving.

This is something that Apple is very interested in, and they have recently hired the former head of BlackBerry, Ltd.’s automotive software division. Lit Motors, based in San Francisco and the U.K.-based McLaren are both valuable to them because of their patents, engineering resources, and employees. McLaren is not a company that mass-markets cars and Apple is not necessarily interested in being a new automobile producer, but they are trying to be smart in who they partner with, in order to succeed in this new endeavor.

With talks of both a new car made by Apple as well, as a stake in the self-driving arena, Apple is on it’s way to getting a stake in the automobile market. Apple is in need of its next “it” product since the iPhone, and there is a potential for a targeted release of a car by 2020.