Apple met with California-based electric vehicle startup Canoo in early 2020 as part of its efforts to advance the development of its own “Apple Car” project.
The meetings took place in the first half of 2020 and discussed options from investment to a possible acquisition, people familiar with the case said The edge.
Apple was reportedly initially drawn to Canoo’s scalable electric vehicle platform. Compared to other car manufacturers and startups, the platform integrates more of a vehicle’s electronics and offers more flexibility in cabin design. Canoo, for its part, was interested in an investment from Apple. However, talks diverged, and Canoo went public by merging with a blank check fund in 2020.
The news of Apple’s interest in Canoo comes amid reports that the Cupertino tech giant is negotiating with Hyundai to produce an autonomous electric vehicle by 2024.
In February 2020, Hyundai and Canoo announced plans to jointly develop electric vehicles. That announcement and a possible partnership between the two auto companies seems to have nothing to do with Apple’s involvement in either.
Apple’s work on autonomous vehicle systems has been a poorly kept secret for years. The company’s vehicle division, internally called Project Titan, has been developing self-driving car technology since at least 2014. Originally thought to be aimed at developing a real production vehicle, the goal of the project shifted to creating the underlying autonomous systems of a self-driving car. In recent years, it seems that Apple has returned to creating a real “Apple Car”.
Rumors and speculation about an Apple electric vehicle picked up again in December 2020 when Reuters reported that the company could introduce a vehicle with ‘next level’ battery technology by 2024.
TF Securities’ highly accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has suggested that the “Apple Car” will arrive in 2025 at the earliest. At least one report claimed the project is so immature it would take five to seven years for an “Apple Car” to come into being.