[M오토데일리 박상우 기자] Hyundai Motor Company is in discussions with Apple, the world’s largest IT company, on the development of an autonomous electric vehicle Apple car.
Apple’s discussion with Hyundai Motor is to speed up Apple car development and establish a mass production system by utilizing Hyundai Motor’s vehicle development and production capabilities. For this reason, it is believed that Apple is conducting related discussions with several companies including Hyundai Motor Company.
However, some analysts say that Apple’s contact with Hyundai Motors was based on Hyundai Motor’s vehicle development and production capabilities, as well as the US electric vehicle developer Canoo, which signed a partnership agreement with Hyundai Kia Motors to develop a next-generation electric vehicle platform.
According to the US-based IT media The Verge, Apple held private talks with Canoe in the first half of last year to discuss options ranging from investments to acquisitions. This is due to the skateboard platform technology possessed by Canoe.
Canoe opened in December 2017 as an electric vehicle development startup founded in Los Angeles, USA by Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz, from Faraday Futures, called the Chinese version of Tesla.
Canoe began developing a skateboard platform that mounts key parts of electric vehicles such as motors and batteries in the form of standardized modules, and in September last year unveiled Canoe, the first electric vehicle that uses skateboard platform technology. In December of last year, it unveiled its second electric vehicle, the multi-purpose delivery vehicle MPDV (Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle), and started pre-booking.
The skateboard platform is a platform in which key parts of electric vehicles such as motors and batteries are mounted in the form of standardized modules, and is designed to mount the upper part of the vehicle body of various structures according to the purpose, and the length of the platform can be expanded freely. There is this.
Canoe is striving to materialize the concept of the architecture system, and in particular, it is focusing on the advancement of electric vehicle platform technology, which can secure indoor space and reduce costs by drastically reducing the size, weight and number of parts of the skateboard platform.
Apple held a closed talk with Canoe to develop an electric vehicle using Canoe’s skateboard platform technology. At this meeting, Apple offered to take over Canoe, but it was reported that Canoe wanted a partnership or strategic investment rather than an acquisition.
Meanwhile, Canoe signed a mutual cooperation agreement with Hyundai-Kia Motors in February last year to develop next-generation electric vehicles.
In addition, in January last year, Hyundai Kia Motors made a strategic investment worth 129 billion won in the UK’s Arrival, which is developing commercial electric vehicles using a skateboard platform, and cooperated with each other to develop small commercial electric vehicles specialized in cities. Signed a contract.
Hyundai-Kia Motors has further improved its electrification strategy by lowering the price of electric vehicles by using their skateboard platform technology, which can manufacture various vehicle models with one platform, more quickly responding to changes in customer demand and simplifying and standardizing the electric vehicle development process. Plan to accelerate.
It seems that Apple has contacted Hyundai Motor Company to utilize Hyundai Motor’s vehicle development and production capabilities and canoe-arrival’s skateboard platform technology.
Since 2014, Apple has hired hundreds of engineers through the project called Titan to start developing the next-generation automobile, but in 2016 it has completely reexamined the project and declared a de facto abandonment, such as temporarily firing 190 related personnel in 2019. . Nevertheless, it is known that Apple has accumulated enough technology to continue the Titan project and build vehicles.
It is planned to develop an electric vehicle equipped with breakthrough battery technology and autonomous driving technology through Titan and launch it in 2024 as early as 2024, but some engineers of the Titan project expect to launch the product within 5-7 years.
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