The car wars are heating up on multiple fronts. “Apple Inc.’s $1 billion investment in Chinese ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing Technology Co. reflects an intensifying battle over the future of driving and highlights emerging alliances among auto makers, technology firms and ride-sharing companies,” write Daisuke Wakabayashi and Douglas MacMillan in The Wall Street Journal.
Apple and Google now find themselves pitted against Didi rival Uber Technologies and GM-funded Lyft, they write.
They quote Jack Kent, mobile director for research firm IHS Technology, as saying, “The shift in Apple’s strategy to invest at such a scale highlights the strategic importance of the Chinese market to Apple both in terms of the scale of the opportunity and the need for local knowledge and local partnerships.”
Wakabayashi and MacMillan explain the Didi offers a rich data source for Apple’s autonomous vehicle push while its ride-sharing app complements services such as Apple Pay.
They note that Google invested $250 million in Uber in 2013, but subsequently Google parent Alphabet has been testing its own ride-sharing apps and Uber has begun developing its own mapping and autonomous-vehicle technology.
