Rumours of Apple building a car have been swirling on the internet for years now. It was recently rumoured that Apple is in talks with Hyundai to make a car in partnership. The degree of partnership is unclear at the moment but some have speculated that Apple will build the tech side of things for self-driving while Hyundai will focus on the hardware. However, a new report from South Korean publication eDaily suggests that Hyundai subsidiary Kia Motors has taken over the project.
Hyundai is a well-known brand with a reputation and Apple is known for always dictating its terms in any sort of partnership, as a result, Hyundai has “seemingly” offloaded the project to its subsidiary Kia Motors. The car maker reportedly had concerns that Apple will take over majority of the project and turn Hyundai into “just” an assembling partner. Apple is similar to Hyundai, it cares a lot about its brand value.
Self-driving cars are the future
The future of cars is self-driving and major car makers are pushing for the tech. Tesla is the only company at the moment to have successfully released cars with self-driving to consumers. Tesla’s cars are still not completely self-driven and require human control at times. Nonetheless, Tesla has been successful in showing the car industry the importance of “self-driving”.
Kia Motors has a facility in Georgia which will be reportedly used for the top secret Apple Car. The Cupertino based company Apple had reportedly started working on a car almost a decade ago but later reportedly scrapped the project. It was recently reported that Apple is once again considering making its own car or is at-least working on a project related to cars.
Hyundai does not appear to want to compromise on the brand value it has created over the year by giving into Apple.
