“Apple is recruiting experts in automotive technology and vehicle design to work at a new top-secret research lab, said several people familiar with the company, pointing to ambitions that go beyond the dashboard,” Tim Bradshaw and Andy Sharman report for The Financial Times. “Sir Jonathan Ive’s team of Apple designers has held regular meetings with automotive executives and engineers in recent months, in some cases trying to hire them. Recent recruits to Apple’s team include the head of Mercedes-Benz’s Silicon Valley R&D unit.”
“People familiar with the company said the background of the people Apple is hiring — including automotive designers and vehicle dynamics engineers — and the seniority of the executives involved suggest a car could be in the works,” Bradshaw and Sharman report. “‘Three months ago I would have said it was CarPlay,’ said one person who has worked closely with Apple for many years, referring to Apple’s infotainment system. ‘Today I think it’s a car.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Can’t see it myself.
Sure would like to see Apple acquire Tesla building on what Musk has achieved. Seems like a natural. Imagine what the two could achieve together.
Tesla gave away all their patents. Apple can use whatever they want from Tesla’s work without the expense of buying the whole company.
-jcr
I read that. Perplexing. Why would they do such a thing?
To help proliferate the development and adoption of electric cars.
Tesla feels that the biggest impediment to their growth is the lack of better infrastructure, such as charging stations everywhere.
They also believe that if they can persuade other companies to use their technology and share in the infra structure cost, the size of the market will grow faster than the size of the competition.
When they pass a certain threshold in infrastructure development they expect the market to grow far more rapidly.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
Thinking more about the synergy. Apple has the capital to establish productions facilities in places like China. The battery technology is of common interest. If they are hiring from one another they must already have a lot of common goals. And I’d love to see what CarPlay could become with Apple’s help.
I’ll take mine In Candy Apple Red please!
The big car companies should have put Apple’s CarPlay in their cars by now. So, you will not play with Apple? Not a problem, I know of a few markets that push back on Apple. Apple owns those markets now.
You all should have played with Apple when they asked you too.
i bet it’s the same lab where they’re hard at work on the Apple television set. Just ask Gene Muenster.
Don’t you jut love brain-dead, breathless Apple rumors?
It’s OK to push back and compete. It is not OK to steal. 🙂
I can see the series of headlines now on MDN:
1. Apple struggles to recruit top Automotive manufacturing talent.
2. Apple Car Delayed due to Lack of Manufacturing Capability
3. Gene Munster forcasts Apple will sell 2 million AppleCars in 2020.
4. Apple Cancels ambitious Car Project
5. Apple releases CarPlay 2
S.M.A.R.T.
I can certainly imagine Apple, having gotten a look at the clunky mess that is the Google ‘self-driving car’, knew they could do WAY better! This is going to be fun.
With liquidmetal they could craft an insanely light and polished car with fewer parts than anyone.
Also ask yourself this: why did Google go into phones? Because they realized the market was going that way, right?
So what happens when the automakers insist on only X phones working with their cars? Or only phones that do x, y, and z? Or only phones that have a license through the car maker? What happens when in-car nav/info systems insist on their own use and won’t play nice with Apple? I’ll bet apple has been experiencing a lot of that around CarPlay. The auto makers don’t want to give away that pie.
So Apple needs to be thinking ahead to transportation. If I had nearly $200 Billion in the bank is definitely put 1000 people in this.