Tim Cook announces the iPhone 11.
Source: Apple
Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at the company’s work on autonomous vehicles, following recent reports that the company is in renewed talks to develop its own car.
“Autonomy itself is a core technology, in my opinion. If you take a step back, the car, in many ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. So there are many things you can do autonomously. And we’ll see what Apple does, “Cook said in an interview published Monday with Kara Swisher on the” Sway “podcast.
“We research so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying one won’t,” Cook added.
When asked if Apple was working on a car itself or on the technology inside a car, Cook declined to comment.
“We love integrating hardware, software and services and finding the intersection points of them because we think that’s where the magic happens. And that’s what we love to do. And we love having the core technology that goes around that.” . he said.
Apple was long expected to go into the auto business with its own vehicle or sell its technology to other automakers, and it has made a number of moves that indicate it plans to do so. To help bolster its engineering ranks, the company acquired autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai in 2019.
An autonomous vehicle could position the company against Tesla, which is implementing its own autonomous driving features. In 2018, Apple rehired Doug Field, then Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering, to presumably work on autonomous cars. Apple has also hired several other former Tesla employees, including former Tesla vice president of engineering Michael Schwekutsch, now senior director of engineering for Apple’s Special Projects Group.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk had even said last year that he once tried to start talks to sell the company to Apple, but Cook refused to attend a meeting.
“You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an incredible job of not just establishing the leadership, but maintaining the leadership for such a long period of time. in the EV space. So I really appreciate them, “Cook told Swisher.
More recently, CNBC reported that Apple was close to closing a deal with Hyundai-Kia to build an Apple-branded autonomous electric vehicle at Kia’s West Point, Georgia, assembly plant. However, the automakers later backed out of the claims.
Listen to the full interview with Tim Cook here.
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