Apple reportedly offered to purchase Tesla back in 2013 for $240 a share.
According to new information, Apple made a serious bid for the company more than five years ago.
Craig Irwin, a senior analyst at investment firm Roth Capital Partners, said he had “completed confidence” in the information, but said that he didn’t know whether the bid reached formal paperwork stage, so it’s unclear how close Apple was to securing the Tesla brand, one of the world’s most advanced self-driving car brands.
Speaking to CNBC, Roth said: “Around 2013, there was a serious bid from Apple, at around $240 a share. This is something we did multiple checks on. I have complete confidence this is accurate. I don’t know if it got to a formal paperwork stage, but I know from multiple different sources that this was very credible.
Apple Car is still coming
Roth also shed some new light on the widely-rumored Apple Car project, telling journalists: “So, right now, Apple is building multiple, very large dry rooms in California… they’re doing something interesting and exciting on the battery side… Project Titan is absolutely not dead.”
Apple has been working on autonomous driving software for a number of years, and its tests were first spotted on the streets of Cupertino in 2017.
There have been conflicting reports that suggest Apple still plans to release its own car, whilst others believe the company has shuttered that project and instead will work on autonomous vehicle driving software to sell to manufacturers and consumers, allowing Apple to dominate without the risk of launching a car brand of its own.
However, new rumors suggest Apple is currently seeking LiDAR units that are “smaller, cheaper, and more easily mass-produced” than the systems it’s currently using, which can cost more than $100,000 each, whilst a Reuters report added Apple was still planning to launch its own vehicle and was “setting a high bar” with a “revolutionary” car design.
According to reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release a physical self-driving car, but it won’t see the light of day until 2023 to 2025, so it’s still a way off yet.
If Apple had purchased Tesla, it would have paid around $27 billion for the company, although as shares have fallen in the company, Tesla is no longer worth such an amount.
Still, the sale would have given Apple access to technology and facilities to build its automotive vehicle, and perhaps losing out on Tesla is part of the reason why Project Titan is yet to materialize.
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