On the first day of Tesla’s inclusion in the S&P 500 on Monday, Reuters dropped an ‘exclusive’ report on Apple’s rumoured self-driving car plans.
The report noted Apple would be using some breakthrough battery technology in the form of a ‘monocell’ design, while the company is also exploring lithium iron phosphate for battery chemistry.
On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the report of Apple’s autonomous car plans.
“Strange, if true,” said Musk, replying to Brett Winton from ARK Invest.
“Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory,” added Musk, who also said, “a monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?”.
Strange, if true.
– Tesla already uses iron-phosphate for medium range cars made in our Shanghai factory.
– A monocell is electrochemically impossible, as max voltage is ~100X too low. Maybe they meant cells bonded together, like our structural battery pack?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020
Shares of Apple traded 3% higher on Tuesday on the news of its ongoing electric vehicle efforts. The company is said to partner with a manufacture to make its self-driving car, said to rely on LiDAR. It’s unclear how much Apple can compete against the likes of Tesla in the EV space, but the iPhone maker has the war chest to do it.
During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla (for 1/10 of our current value). He refused to take the meeting.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2020
Musk also admitted he reached out to Apple CEO Tim Cook to meet about the latter acquiring Tesla at 1/10 of the company’s current value (or about $60 billion)–but Cook “refused to take the meeting”.
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