Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner hinted on the firm’s work in autonomous autos, following latest experiences that the corporate is in renewed talks to develop its personal automotive.

“The autonomy itself is a core know-how, in my opinion. If you happen to kind of step again, the automotive, in a whole lot of methods, is a robotic. An autonomous automotive is a robotic. And so there’s numerous issues you are able to do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does,” Prepare dinner said in an interview launched Monday with Kara Swisher on the “Sway” podcast.

“We examine so many issues internally. Lots of them by no means see the sunshine of day. I am not saying that one won’t,” Prepare dinner added.

When requested if Apple was engaged on a automotive itself or the know-how inside a automotive, Prepare dinner declined to remark.

“We like to combine {hardware}, software program, and providers, and discover the intersection factors of these as a result of we expect that is the place the magic happens. And so that is what we like to do. And we like to personal the first know-how that is round that,” he stated.

Apple has lengthy been anticipated to get into the auto business with its personal car or promoting its know-how to different automotive makers, and has made quite a few strikes indicating it deliberate to take action. Serving to bolster its engineering ranks, the company acquired autonomous car startup Drive.ai in 2019.

An autonomous car may place the corporate in opposition to Tesla, which is rolling out its personal self-driving options. In 2018, Apple employed again Doug Field, then Tesla‘s senior vp of engineering, to presumably work on self-driving vehicles. Apple has additionally introduced in a number of different former Tesla workers, together with former Tesla vp of engineering Michael Schwekutsch, now senior director of engineering for the Particular Initiatives Group at Apple.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk had even said last year that he as soon as tried to start out talks to promote the corporate to Apple, however Prepare dinner declined to take a gathering.

“You already know, I’ve by no means spoken to Elon, though I’ve nice admiration and respect for the corporate he is constructed. I believe Tesla has carried out an unbelievable job of not solely establishing the lead, however preserving the lead for such a protracted time frame within the EV house. So I’ve nice appreciation for them,” Prepare dinner instructed Swisher.

Most just lately, CNBC reported that Apple was near finalizing a deal with Hyundai-Kia to fabricate an Apple-branded autonomous electrical car on the Kia meeting plant in West Level, Georgia. Nevertheless, the automakers later walked again on the claims.

Listen to the full interview with Tim Cook here.

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