Apple’s secret electric car project has been met with heavy skepticism from some of the biggest players in the auto industry, but according to Nissan’s CEO, he sees Apple entering the market as a good thing.
During a presentation at the Mobile World Congress on Monday, Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan-Renault Alliance said he welcomes the idea of outside companies getting into the electric car business.
The Apple Car rumor mill has been heating up today with reports that Apple has been hiring auto talent from companies like Mercedes and BMW. Now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in with its own report that claims Tim Cook approved Apple’s project over a year ago.
Apple reportedly has several hundred employees working on the secret project that’s aiming to create an Apple-branded electric vehicle that can take on Telsa.
Apple and Tesla are in the midst of an intense bidding war for each other’s employees, according to Bloomberg. Tesla has so far poached more Apple staffers than any other company at 150, and Apple has tried to unsuccessfully lure Tesla’s people with big paychecks.
Tesla’s obsession with stealing Apple’s talent is mainly due to one man: Elon Musk.
Greetings, comrades! This time on CultCast: we travel to mother Russia and dance with gogo dancers (no, really); Apple talks to Tesla, we talk iCars. Plus, for the first time, Apple brings the iTunes Festival to the United States; Facebook buys WhatsApp (but why?); Jony Ive vanishes from Apple’s website; and don’t miss an all new Faves N Raves where we pitch favorite tech and apps then vote one which one’s best!
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Tesla’s stock soared earlier this week when rumors surfaced that Apple and Tesla executives had talks about the iPhone giant acquiring the electric car maker.
Apple considered making an iCar before inventing the iPhone, and they’ve lost prized engineers to the automaker, but it’s unclear how a merger would benefit the two companies, especially Tesla.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Elon Musk, CEO and co-founder of Telsa, confirmed the two companies have been talking about something, but fanboys shouldn’t get their hopes up on a merger happening:
Apple is reportedly looking into developing a device capable of predicting heart attacks.
The medical sensor device — possibly a feature for the long-reported iWatch, if previous rumors are to be believed — would listen to the sound blood makes as it flows through arteries, and use this to predict irregularities.
Tesla Motors announced this afternoon that it has managed to snatch up Doug Field who has been serving as Apple’s Vice President of Mac Hardware Engineering for the past five years. Field is joining the Tesla as its new Vice President of Vehicle Programs and will be responsible for developing new electric vehicles for the company.
Before joining Apple in 2008 to help make the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac, Field worked at Segway for nine years, but he actually started off his engineering career at Ford Motor Company. Elon Musk released the following statement regarding the company’s newest addition:
GIGAOM ROADMAP, SAN FRANCISCO — Back in 2000, no one wanted to buy Apple’s products. Steve Jobs realized that potential customers needed to see and play with Apple’s offerings before they could be persuaded to buy them. So he launched a chain of retail stores in malls across the country. It was risky, but it paid off handsomely.
Now Tesla, the electric car maker run by Elon Musk, is trying to do the same thing. Instead of a traditional dealership, Tesla is building a chain of car showrooms right inside shopping malls.
To build out the chain, Tesla tapped George Blankenship, Apple’s former Vice President of Real Estate, who helped to roll out Steve Jobs’ mega-successful chain.
