Online site Chosun Biz said on Friday that Apple and Hyundai’s Kia had signed a memorandum of understanding last year. The two companies agreed to pursue cooperation in eight sectors, including electric vehicles. The report said negotiations on electric vehicles had not been completely cancelled.
See also: BMW seen as ideal match for Apple as vehicle manufacturing partner
“Even if the negotiations on electric vehicles fail, there are many items that can be negotiated in other fields, so we are still optimistic about the possibility of partnership between the two sides,” Chosun cited an unnamed source familiar with negotiations between Hyundai and Apple as saying.
Aside from electric vehicles, Kia and Apple are also discussing cooperation in “last mile” mobility, or transport to complete a final short distance to a destination after using another means of transportation, Chosun said.
Analysts said the wording of Hyundai’s statement earlier this month, that it was not in discussions with Apple about developing “autonomous vehicles”, had left open possibilities of cooperation in other fields. “The media report on Kia-Apple cooperation does not negate Hyundai’s statement earlier this month, since the statement was limited to a certain item,” said Kevin Yoo, an analyst at eBEST Investment & Securities.
MacDailyNews Take: The saga continues. Sort of.
You can’t take any of these articles at face value, although at this point none of it matters as Apple is so far out of the EV loop, it’s laughable. There are so many EV companies now, they can throw out any rolling piece of junk and increase their share price ten-fold. There’s a Chinese-built EV currently being sold for about $5,500 and it’s being taken seriously as a city-commuter vehicle.
Meanwhile, Apple is cautiously searching around for the perfect partner to sell some AppleCar that will likely cost close to $100,000 after taking umpteen years to develop. Apple is moving at glacier speed during the EV boom. You’d think Apple was designing some sort of Koenigsegg-level EV hyper-car for the masses.
If that were so then I guess they could buy Koenigsegg itself as it’s up for sale with a very unsure future in this new EV world. I will say that if Apple doesn’t get a car out by 2025 I do wonder if it really will be worth it as the choice by then will indeed be wide and various and as we know with certain other product areas there is no guarantee if they are late to the party that they will make an instant impact certainly not without a long drawn out fight and cars will be a bigger and more expensive test than, for example smart speakers.