Hyundai’s Kia Corporation will reportedly be the company responsible for working with Apple on the electric, self-driving Apple Car project, a new report states.
As per the South Korean news outlet, eDaily, “If Kia decides to do this, the Apple Car production base will be at Kia’s Georgia plant in the US.”
The report notes that Hyundai is “still cautious” about the deal. It is also notes that Hyundai, which owns Kia, doesn’t want to produce the Apple Car itself since this could just make it an OEM factory for Apple. As a result, it has opted to hand off the project to Kia.
Hyundai this month said that it had been in conversations with Apple. The reports sent Hyundai shares skyrocketing by close to 20%. However, after initially confirming the talks, Hyundai then got cold feet and removed the references to Apple from its comments, possibly so as not to upset its potential partner. A subsequent report claimed that the two could build the first beta Apple Car next year, before main production begins in 2024.
Regular Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is also seemingly keen on getting a piece of the Apple business.
While Apple is new to automotive production, it wouldn’t need to carve out a massive part of the market (think just a couple of percentage points) in order to equal the revenue that it currently makes from the iPhone. This lack of experience in automotive production likely explains why Apple is looking to partner with an established company, rather than start from scratch.
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Source: eDaily
Via: iMore
