It is no secret that Nokia has been looking to offload its Here Maps service for a while, hoping to use the cash from the sale to further its communication network plans, but it looks like the most expected suitor has failed in its bid to take it over.

Uber allegedly offered $3 billion for Here Maps and was said to be in talks with Nokia over the acquisition, but the New York Times claims that the taxi cab service is now out of the running.

Instead, its sources claim that Here Maps will more likely be bought by a consortium of German car manufacturers, including Audi, BMW and Mercedes Benz. They say that Nokia is advanced talks with the group.

All three automobile makers have been linked with the service before and use Here Maps to drive their respective in-car navigation systems already. They want more ownership of the technology however, so are willing to outbid rivals in order to control the company entirely.

Uber bought part of Bing Maps from Microsoft recently, which included a data centre, relevant cameras, intellectual properties, mapping technologies and around 100 engineers. However, the larger part of the jigsaw in owning its own maps service seems to have slipped from its grasp.