Report: Nissan canceled Apple deal to avoid becoming Foxconn of cars

A potential partnership between Apple and Nissan has collapsed over disagreements over the brand, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Apple wanted Nissan to build Apple-branded cars, while Nissan preferred to keep its own brand on vehicles.

In recent months, Apple has reportedly been looking for a partner to build an Apple-branded electric car. Last week Bloomberg reported that negotiations with Kia (and its parent company, Hyundai) ended without a deal. The Financial Times says Apple has also “surveyed” BMW as a potential partner.

Apple is said to have had preliminary talks with Nissan, though talks aren’t reaching the highest levels at either company:

The talks collapsed after the U.S. company asked Nissan to make Apple-branded cars, a request that would effectively demote the automaker to an equipment supplier. Many automakers have expressed fear of becoming “the Foxconn of the auto industry,” a reference to the Taiwanese manufacturing group that assembles iPhones.

Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta told the FT: “We need to check who has the best skills to capture what the customer is thinking. For this, we can partner, but it is to adapt their services to our product, and not the other way around. “

Nissan was an electric vehicle pioneer, unveiling the Nissan Leaf over ten years ago.

It’s still unclear what would be distinctive of an Apple car. Apple has deep expertise in batteries and user interface design, so making a human-powered electric car seems like the obvious direction.

Since 2014, Apple has been working on self-driving car technology. But a California regulatory filing suggested Apple has tested its technology far less than industry leaders – at least in California.

Apple’s test vehicles only traveled 18,800 miles on California roads between late 2019 and late 2020. Google’s Waymo, on the other hand, drove 629,000 miles in California during that time – and probably even more. in Arizona and elsewhere. Cruise, a startup jointly owned by GM and Honda, has driven more than 770,000 miles testing its vehicles on the roads of California.

If Apple can’t find an automaker willing to sign a partnership agreement, one option would be to simply buy an automaker. Apple’s most recent financial results showed the company had $ 77 billion in cash and short-term investments. That’s more than the market capitalization of a number of major automakers, including Nissan ($ 25 billion), Ford ($ 44 billion) and Stellantis ($ 50 billion), the parent company of Chrysler.