What's going on?

Amazon and Microsoft are in talks with German car makers Audi, BMW and Mercedes to buy a portion of their digital mapping service HERE, which is linked to the development of self-driving cars. It could be the first big marriage between Silicon Valley and automakers.

What does this mean?

The German car makers spent $2.85 billion last year to collectively buy HERE from Nokia as part of a plan to build a mapping platform for self-driving cars. Many automotive companies still have a lot to catch up on when it comes to the technology needed for a fully autonomous car (just look at your built-in GPS system) and thus having a partner with experience in handling large amounts of data – like Microsoft or Amazon – makes strategic sense.

Why should I care?

The bigger picture: Like virtually all industries, the auto industry is becoming a tech industry. HERE was purchased, arguably, as a defensive move by the traditional German car makers in response to tech companies beginning to build autonomous cars. Services like HERE are crucial for the development of autonomous cars because of their ability to provide information about traffic and road conditions in real-time. But automakers seem to realise that they need help from tech companies to develop the necessary technology – and that�s probably why this deal is being discussed.

For you personally: Self-driving cars could be here faster than you think. While parking and low speed situations (i.e. traffic jams) are � technologically speaking � no problem anymore, cars need more capabilities to become truly autonomous. This deal, however, would combine engineering expertise (Audi, BMW, Daimler) with tech know-how (Microsoft, Amazon) and thus could be a major step forward in bringing self-driving cars to the mass market � and your garage.