The race among tech giants looking to get into the car business has taken a surprising turn with word that Samsung is now entering the field.

There have long been rumors that Apple has some semi-secret car project happening. And, of course, Google has been very public about its own self-driving car efforts.

And now, count South Korea’s Samsung in.

Samsung has confirmed that it is negotiating to acquire a stake in Chinese electric car maker BYD.

“The latest investment aims at strengthening electric vehicle parts and smartphone parts businesses for the two companies,” Samsung said in a statement to Reuters. “We plan to discuss cooperation in various businesses going forward.”

In the short-term, this appears to be a move to sell more chips to BYD and to do more to integrate Samsung’s smartphones into the cars’ systems. But down the road, Samsung has hinted that the potential partnership could lead to other collaborations.

The size of the proposed deal was not released. But it seems clear that the tech world’s appetite for cars is growing, and Samsung feels it needs to play catch-up.