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The
deal, which is only being considered for the Porsche brand and
not the Volkswagen Group more widely, would enable Porsche
customers access to Google applications like Google Maps and
Google Assistant without needing to connect the car to an
Android phone.
Spokespeople for Porsche and Google were not immediately
available for comment. A spokesperson for Volkswagen software
unit Cariad declined to comment.
Porsche Chief Financial Officer Lutz Meschke said on a
conference call last October that the company was in close
contact with Google and Apple as well as Baidu, Tencent and
Alibaba in China following the end of its cooperation with
Volkswagen's Cariad unit on software research and development.
Porsche had previously been reluctant to use Google software
because Google asked for too much data to be shared, according
to Manager Magazin, which first reported the talks.
Technology companies from Google to Apple and Amazon are in a
race to control carmakers' dashboards as software becomes an
integral part of car design.
Carmakers including General Motors, Renault, Nissan and Ford use
embedded Google technology in their vehicles via a Google
Automotive Services (GAS) package, offering features like Google
Maps, Google Assistant and other applications.
But some automakers are wary of allowing the tech giants
unfettered access to the data generated by connected cars, or to
allow them to displace the automakers' brands with their own in
dashboard displays.
BMW, for example, was "definitely not taking the path" of
integrating GAS into its cars, a spokesperson said on Thursday:
"It is important to the company to keep hold of the customer
interface," they said.
Porsche, which overtook its former parent as Europe's most
valuable carmaker after listing on the stock exchange last
September, reported earlier on Thursday a 3% rise in deliveries
in 2022.
(Reporting by Jan Schwartz, Victoria Waldersee, Rachel More,
additional reporting by Christina Amann, Editing by Miranda
Murray and Elaine Hardcastle)
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