According to a Bloomberg report “Apple will take at least half a decade to launch an autonomous, electric vehicle because development work is still at an early stage”.
This is according to people with knowledge of the matter, rather than Hyundai…
The South Korean car company Hyundai, on the other hand, has revealed that it had been in negotiations with Apple relating to a partnership with Apple to produce an electric car. Hyundai surprisingly confirmed the talks with Apple to CNBC.
CNBC’s Chery Kang indicated that a representative from Hyundai had revealed that Apple was in discussions with a number of global car manufacturers, including Hyundai Motor. As the discussions are at an early stage, nothing has been decided, as per CNBS’s report.
Hyundai issued a statement saying that “Apple and Hyundai are in discussions but they are at an early stage and nothing has been decided.” This statement was later revised, first to say that it was talking to a number of companies about an electric car tie-up including Apple. A later version removed the mention of Apple from the statement.
Hyundai’s share price soared 19% on the initial news.
Returning to the Bloomberg report, which appeared before the Hyundai claims, the report claims the Apple car is nowhere near production stage.
Bloomberg does reveal that there is a team of people at Apple (including various ex- Tesla employees) working on “drive systems, vehicle interior and external car body designs” though, rather than just the underlying self-driving system.
Update: on 10 January a Reuters report, based on a Korea IT News report, claimed that Apple is indeed working with Hyundai. Read: Hyundai is, isn’t, is working with Apple on Car. And by end of January 2021 Hyundai was saying it doesn’t want to work with Apple anyway… However, Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo is convinced Apple is indeed working with Hyundai.
Apple’s also said to have been in negotiations with electric car maker Canoo.
Read all the latest rumours and revelations about Apple’s plans to make a car in our Apple Car hub.
Author: Karen Haslam, Editor
Macworld editor since 2008, Karen has worked on both sides of the Apple divide, clocking up a number of years at Apple's PR agency prior to joining Macworld two decades ago.
Karen's career highlights include interviewing Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs’ legacy on the BBC. Her focus is Mac, but she lives and breathes Apple.