Hyundai Motor and Apple have reached an agreement to manufacture electric and autonomous cars in partnership, finally, it seems like Apple Car is becoming a reality. The information follows an official statement last Friday where Hyundai Motor officials acknowledged initial conversations with Apple. Hyundai’s shares rose almost 20%.
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Apple is the most profitable company on the planet and will not stop exploring any market segment where it can increase profits.
Apple and Hyundai Motor will work together on Apple Car project
According to the information, the partnership will be officially announced next March and a beta version of the car will be available next year. The Apple Car will be assembled in the factory that Kia Motors (a subsidiary of Hyundai Motors) has in Georgia. The aim is to produce 100,000 units in 2024 and a subsequent production that will reach 400,000 cars per year.
“It’s pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it,” Elon Musk said in an interview when his company Tesla was starting the revolution in electric and autonomous cars and where the executive assured that the Apple Car was a known “secret” in the industry.
A year later, a lawsuit by Apple against one of its employees, Xiaolang Zhang, for stealing confidential information and transferring data to the Chinese firm dedicated to automobile technology research, XMotors, confirmed (in case more evidence was needed) that Apple’s car project was a reality and 5,000 employees were involved.
It has never been confirmed, but it was commented in American media that it was the last project Steve Jobs was working on before his death. The project, codenamed Titan, would be led by Steve Zadesky, vice president of design at Apple who came from Ford to lead a large group of employees which would include the previous head of Research and Development at Mercedes also signed for the occasion.
Apple already has a presence in the automotive sector starting with CarPlay, the iOS variant designed for the car info-entertainment systems with a leading role for the Siri assistant. And we must not forget LiDAR technology that is being already used in iPhone and iPad and that is key in autonomous cars.
Apple has its own technology to cover some sections of a smart car, but it is obvious that it lacks hundreds of other components and the capacity to produce them. Hyundai Motor is a great option to make up for this deficiency. This moe is essential for Apple to follow the footsteps of Tesla Motors in the marketing of autonomous electric cars.
