The auto industry is pushing more complex tech with every successive generation, but it seems like it’s the tech industry that really wants a bite out of the automotive market. An Apple car may yet be on the horizon, with rumours indicating they may partner up with Hyundai on a US-built vehicle soon. Information still hasn’t been made public, but it seems like suppliers are working on a car that could be shown by the end of 2021.
Hyundai was quoted saying:
“We understand that Apple is in discussion with a variety of global automakers, including Hyundai Motor. As the discussion is at its early stage, nothing has been decided… We’ve been receiving requests of potential cooperation from diverse companies regarding development of autonomous driving EVs, but no decisions have been made as discussions are in early stage.”
Rumours of an Apple car first started getting serious in early 2016, back when the company started registering car-related domains (apple.car, apple.cars, apple.auto). Initial reports said a car would be shown between 2019 and 2020 at the earliest, but this of course, hasn’t been the case. They went on a hiring spree, taking in staff from Porsche, Tesla and
“When it comes to actually making cars, there is no reason to assume that Apple, with no experience, will suddenly do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, or Hyundai. So I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit, but then it doesn’t matter. I mean Apple has an embarrassment of riches, they don’t know where to put the cash anymore. So if they burn 30 or 40 billion dollars in the car business, no one’s going to notice,” said Former GM and BMW exec Bob Lutz in 2015. Microsoft and Nokia Execs also laughed at Apple when they first announced the iPhone.
Apple isn’t the only innovative company that has looked at entering the car industry. Dyson famously dumped a whole bunch of money on a very interesting electric car project that was meant to be built in Singapore. They ended up scrapping the idea when they couldn’t make the product inexpensive enough.
Hey, that reminds us. Hyundai are also building a EV plant and innovation centre in Singapore… Will Apple eventually make use of these facilities for their very own car? And how will Apple sell and package their first vehicle? So many questions we hope we’ll get answers to by the end of 2021.
