Audi, BMW, Daimler on verge of buying Nokia Here mapping service for $2.71B

Posted:
in General Discussion edited July 2015
Three German carmakers -- Audi, BMW, and Daimler -- have together agreed in principle to buy Nokia's Here mapping service, in a deal estimated to be worth just over ?2.5 billion ($2.71 billion), a report said on Tuesday.




Nokia has been talking exclusively with the three carmakers, and an agreement could be signed "in the next few days," a source told the Wall Street Journal. The latter parties, though, are expected to turn around and invite other car companies to buy stakes in the new entity.

"The goal has always been to run the service as an open platform for everyone," the source commented.

Ridesharing giant Uber was also in the running to buy Here, but reportedly gave up on bidding several weeks ago. Private equity investors have separately been exploring an acquisition.

Although a Here takeover could give the car companies access to a user-friendly, in-car mapping platform without having to turn to parties like Google or Garmin, the long-term interest may be in self-driving vehicles, which will demand close integration of mapping, controls and sensors.

A number of companies -- chiefly Google -- have been working towards the goal of having self-driving cars on the market by 2020, whether on their own or in various partnerships. Another rumored example is Apple, which is believed to be devoting so many resources to a car project, codenamed Titan, that it's impacting other departments. The company recently hired a Chrysler executive, and has been poaching talent from firms like Tesla and battery maker A123.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    kent909kent909 Posts: 731member

    Good plan, pay billions for a technology that will be outdated by the time you are ready to use it. I don't know about other car companies but in my 2011 Honda has the same navigation system that was in my 2004 Acura. I wonder if car companies can actually move fast enough to keep up.

  • Reply 2 of 14

    Yuck, who drives in Barcelona if you can avoid it? Take the metro.

  • Reply 3 of 14
    schlackschlack Posts: 719member
    they don't want to be forced into an apple/android/msft ecosystem so an open system is worth a good bit...but holy crap...$2.7B??
  • Reply 4 of 14
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    What a waste of money.
  • Reply 5 of 14
    mr omr o Posts: 1,046member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    LOL.

     

    The auto industry is so ripe for Apple to disrupt it.




    I cannot believe how smug they are on the complexity of their hybrid systems.

     

    What's next? Hydrogen? LMAO

     

    And don't get me started on the complexity of their UX, let alone dashboard: How many drive modes can a Sportscar have?

     

    They're lucky that the baby boomers (60+) have lots of money to spend.

  • Reply 6 of 14
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    LOL.

     

    The auto industry is so ripe for Apple to disrupt it.


     

    I bet there are some jealous MacMini engineers who's teammates got to go work on Project Titan. I know I'd be a little jealous. 

  • Reply 7 of 14
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mr O View Post

     



    I cannot believe how smug they are on the complexity of their hybrid systems.

     

    What's next? Hydrogen? LMAO

     

    And don't get me started on the complexity of their UX, let alone dashboard: How many drive modes can a Sportscar have?

     

    They're lucky that the baby boomers (60+) have lots of money to spend.


     

    Not all of the companies brands are sports cars Audi for example has VW (technically VW owns the Audi brand and the others), SEAT, Skoda brands or you have the Smart brand by Daimler or the Mini brand from BMW that could theoretically benefit from something like this that are not "sports cars".

     

    But the main point that you are missing is that most often in the automotive industry luxury or sport cars is where innovation takes place and those technologies will trickle down to the cheaper cars as the technology is improved and made cost effective. Tesla for example doesn't have affordable cars yet but is able to use the money from the sales of their luxury cars to further the technology.

  • Reply 8 of 14
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by schlack View Post



    they don't want to be forced into an apple/android/msft ecosystem so an open system is worth a good bit...but holy crap...$2.7B??



    Isn't that about half of what Nokia paid for it?

  • Reply 9 of 14
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,904member
    These car companies won't keep up with map updates. It has happened to current built-in GPS map system in cars. Best to allow ApplePay and Google auto something to interface and provide map function so driver can have real time update for accurate map direction like accident, road construction, detours,new food place,etc.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    Volkswagen owns Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini, Skoda, etc. Daimler owns Mercedes-Benz. Weird mixture of brands and parent companies in the title.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    applesauce007applesauce007 Posts: 1,697member

    All these companies and especially Daimler really needed to buy Here Maps if only to prevent a company like Uber from buying it.  They will now need to license it to as may others as possible as they have a solid base map as a foundation.  The next important thing is to work on layers of information to overlay on the map.

     

    Apple has already committed to TomTom for base maps and POIs and they are working on their own layers like flyover.

     

    Time will tell.

  • Reply 12 of 14
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wood1208 View Post



    These car companies won't keep up with map updates. It has happened to current built-in GPS map system in cars. Best to allow ApplePay and Google auto something to interface and provide map function so driver can have real time update for accurate map direction like accident, road construction, detours,new food place,etc.



    The car companies certainly couldn't contemplate using Apple Maps, as it's just woefully inadequate.

     

    Did you hear Apple are going to build a data centre in the west of Ireland?  Out of interest, I took a look at the reported site for the data centre in Apple Maps and in Here Maps.  If you were a contractor called on to deliver stuff to the site and didn't know the area, you wouldn't want to be relying on Apple Maps.

     

  • Reply 13 of 14
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wood1208 View Post



    These car companies won't keep up with map updates. It has happened to current built-in GPS map system in cars. Best to allow ApplePay and Google auto something to interface and provide map function so driver can have real time update for accurate map direction like accident, road construction, detours,new food place,etc.

     

    Unless they put a couple cameras on the cars so that they collect imagery & update the system as people drive around...

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