It was only a matter of time before Samsung did something to try and thwart Apple’s unconfirmed automotive aspirations.
The Korean iPhone competitor has bought the battery pack division of a leading automative supplier only a couple of weeks after it was reported that Apple had met with the company.
On February 13th, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had visited the luxury vehicle unit of Magna International in Austria as part of its codenamed “Titan” car project. Magna is a Canadian company that primarily supplies auto parts in North America.
In a press release today, Samsung said it bought Magna for an undisclosed sum to “enhance Samsung SDI’s capabilities in batteries for electric vehicles.” Samsung also gets all 264 employees of Magna Steyr, the high-end division Apple reportedly met with.
Samsung SDI already makes batteries for car companies like BMW and, ironically enough, Apple. So there’s always a chance that Samsung’s purchase could make its way into some kind of Apple car in a roundabout way.
But given that Apple has been aggressively poaching automotive talent from Tesla and others, it’s still too early to tell. A report this morning said that Apple has successfully poached battery experts from Samsung.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
17 responses to “Samsung already trying to put the brakes on Apple’s car plans”
Since Samsung has shown that it follows Apple around like with the new Apple Pay and now this, if I were Apple, I would hire a team of people whose sole job it was to go around the world and meet with every company with even the slightest foot in a door we were looking to enter. With all those Red Herrings, it would be funny to see how much Samsung would be willing to spend to try and get it right.
@Windlasher LOL! Smart move.
I sure hope that Samsung wants to be first to market on a car as well. Imagine the steaming pile of crap they’ll try to put on the road… imagine how much money they’ll lose in trying to make it…
A smooth plastic rectangular shaped body with a wide chromed plastic strip around the edges. Quad HD headlights. A plastic removable panel on the bottom of the car. An engine that says it claims to produce massive horsepower but is actually throttled down due too excess heat. Let’s not forget Chimpanzee 4 window glass.
Meanwhile Apple makes a self-driving road that takes you to a bottom of a canyon! Rather harshly!
And Samsung will try to put a biometric sensor that you have to slide just right to even get into the car. Or maybe you could have another car bump into it to get it to start…
It’s just business, don’t take it personal. Apple has its own business tactics.
Steal other companies’ employees
Not surprised by this at all.
I think Samsung is doing this just to profit from Apple Car
Exactly
I don’t know if you guys knew but Samsung already had been building cars. Its just that it was consumed by Renault. Renault sells their cars as “Samsung Renault” in Korea. Few example cars are SM3,5,7… It’d be very interesting how Samsung would get back on track with car stuff after being consumed by Renault.
It will be really funny if Apple really was not trying to make cars at all ! LOL ! Sammy is like a 5 year old kid who will snatch anything just to prove they can :-P
You mean a rich spoilt 5 years old brat who always get what he wanted? Yeah, right on.
Apple just buy Tesla next year for $75 billions and tell Samsung go F themselves.
Tesla isn’t for sale.
Yeah Tesla wouldn’t sell their companies until it dropped dead