Nokia is now offering Nokia HERE Maps. The former rubber boot maker was in talks with Uber to sell these maps for reported 3 billion dollars. Now it looks that German car manufacturers Audi, BMW and Daimler are more serious about it.

Audi, BMW and Daimler (Mercedes Benz, AMG and Smart brands) are supposed to buy the maps for "slightly more than" €2.5 billion (or $2.71 billion USD). This is still less than Uber was supposed to pay for it but then again the maps are not in the hands of Uber.

This still might not be the best business sales for Nokia. Here maps was based on the Navteq mapping services that it picked up in 2008 for $8.1 billion. The WSJ reported that Nokia Here made more than half of its $970 million in 2014 from sales to the auto industry. The rest comes from its location based service.

The plan is to share the maps with other car manufacturers at cost and the WSJ reports the Germans plan to use the maps to make their future self-driving car ride better.

Nokia Here is a free alternative to omnipresent Google maps and it is trusted by a million users who have it on their Android phones. Many access here.com over the net and the maps work just fine.