Photo: Apple
Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at the company’s autonomous vehicles on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast on Monday, along with mentioning Tesla and Elon Musk, as reported by CNBC.
On the podcast, Cook said, “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does.”
Cook continued, “We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not.”
Federal Agency Calls Out Tesla for Testing Autopilot on Public Roads https://t.co/3goCU8fqDf
— TeslaNorth.com (@RealTeslaNorth) March 13, 2021
Earlier this year, talks of an Apple Car teaming up with Hyundai or Kia were all over the internet and went back and forth as to whether the companies would be partnering together. In the end, the automakers walked away from the deal, at least in the public eye.
Apple usually keeps its third-party suppliers under wraps, but the whole debacle became widespread news over the course of February, all beginning with Hyundai executives announcing the deal publicly, despite having second thoughts about signing such a contract.
As for Tesla and Elon Musk? Cook said to Swisher, “You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the EV space. So I have great appreciation for them.”
While an Apple Car isn’t expected until at least 2025-2027, the company has been testing autonomous driving capabilities for a few years already and even acquired self-driving startup Drive.ai in 2019.
