Autonomous vehicles, so-called’Apple Cars’, created by Hyundai Motor Company in partnership with Apple in the US are expected to be released as early as 2024.
Currently, negotiations between the two sides for cooperation between Hyundai Motor Group and Apple are in the final stage. As planned, the two sides will hold an official or informal kick-off event to announce the cooperation project in the first quarter of the new year. When the future car business of Apple and the Hyundai Motor Group is finalized, Hyundai is expected to quickly become a leader in the global electric car market.
According to the industry on the 10th, the US Apple proposed cooperation to develop the’Apple Car’ to the Hyundai Motor Group, and negotiations proceeded considerably. It is known that Apple first actively proposed cooperation with the Hyundai Motor Group. The odds of cooperation between the two sides are very high.
It is analyzed whether Apple chose Hyundai Motor Group as a partner under the judgment that if it directly builds a finished car production line and manufactures an Apple car, there are huge investment costs and business risks such as production manpower, quality, and after-sales management system.
According to these negotiations, a kick-off event will be held to announce the start of the cooperation business within the first quarter of this year, and a beta version of’Apple Car’ will be released in 2022. After that, around 2024, it plans to mass-produce 100,000 units and secure a line with an annual output of 400,000 units.
As a result, negotiations are under way for the production plant to use the production line of Kia Motors in Georgia, and to establish a new dedicated line in other regions of the United States through a joint venture between Hyundai and Apple.
These contents were recently reported to Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Eui-sun Eui-sun or are in the process of reporting, and it is known that they also communicated with Apple at the level of practitioners.
According to the agreement between the two sides, the core technology and production of electrification for the finished electric vehicle is Hyundai Motor, and the software (SW) technology such as autonomous driving and connected is each in charge of Apple. The Apple car is manufactured based on the electrification produced by Hyundai Motor Company, and is expected to be released as a finished car with the Apple logo in the form of autonomous driving at least level 4 or higher.
In December of last year, Apple announced a strategy to develop and launch an autonomous vehicle based on electrification. According to several foreign media, the battery that goes into this has even suggested the goal of developing a next-generation battery based on lithium iron phosphate (LFP). In addition, it is known that it has devised a strategy to upgrade and upgrade LiDAR, a core component of autonomous driving.
However, it is also possible to cooperate with battery specialists other than Hyundai Motor Company in the development and mass production of next-generation batteries.
An official of the Hyundai Motor Group said, “We are receiving requests for cooperation in joint development of autonomous electric vehicles from a number of companies, but this has not been decided in the initial stage.”
Apple has been envisioning automotive development for a long time. In 2014, a new autonomous vehicle division called Project Titan was established. In 2017, it was granted permission to drive on public roads to test autonomous vehicle technology from the California Transportation Authority (DMV).
Since then, some self-driving technicians were fired and rumors of giving up the business began. However, Doug Field, formerly head of hardware (HW) at Apple and former vice president of Tesla, joined Apple in 2018 as head of business, accelerating the autonomous vehicle business.
Reporter Park Tae-jun [email protected], Reporter Park Jun-ho [email protected]