APPLE CEO TIM COOK TALKS OF AUTONOMOUS CARS

Tue 06 April 2021:

Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a few hints in an interview on the “Sway” podcast, released Monday, about the direction of the much-anticipated Apple car, including that autonomous vehicle technology will likely be a key feature.

“An autonomous car is a robot and so there are a lot of things you can do with autonomy; we will see what Apple does,” Cook said during a Sway podcast with Kara Swisher.

“We love to integrate hardware, software and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs.”

Cook hinted that an option could be for Apple to build an autonomous-driving technology platform used by auto makers.

He expressed admiration for electric car maker Tesla, which is among companies developing autonomous driving capabilities in vehicles.

It’s still unclear what the Apple car will look like, but as a passenger vehicle, rather than a robotaxi or delivery vehicle, it will be going up against the likes of Tesla.

“I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built,” said Cook. “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.”

Apple is generally known for owning all of its hardware and software, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple engineers working closely with a manufacturer to produce an Apple car, with the potential to one day cut out the middle man and become the manufacturer.