Rumor: Hyundai to move ‘Apple Car’ plans to Kia brand, move production to U.S.

As noted by iMore,Korea’s eDaily claims that Hyundai intends to transition the company’s “Apple Car” partnership to its Kia brand as part of an arrangement that could see production move to the U.S.

The report adds that Hyundai has decided it’s “not suitable” for the ‌Apple Car‌ business because of its will, to continue the Hyundai brand. Plus, the car maker purportedly doesn’t want to come an original equipment manufacturer for Apple vehicles.

On January 10, it was announced (rumored?) that Apple and Hyundai plan to sign a partnership deal on autonomous electric cars by March and start production around 2024 in the U.S.

On January 8, Korea IT News reported that Apple and Hyundai would team up to produce electric vehicles. Hyundai is a South Korean multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Seoul. Hyundai Motor Company was founded in 1967 and, along with its 32.8% owned subsidiary, Kia Motors, and its 100% owned luxury subsidiary, Genesis Motor, and electric vehicle subsidiary, Ioniq.

A January 7 report from Bloomberg says Apple will take at least half a decade to launch an autonomous, electric vehicle because development work is still at an early stage. Quoting unnamed “people with knowledge of the efforts,” the article says the tech giant has a small team of hardware engineers developing drive systems, vehicle interior and external car body designs with the goal of eventually shipping a vehicle. 

Bloomberg says this is “a more ambitious goal than in previous years when the project mostly focused on creating an underlying self-driving system.” The article adds that Apple has also added more ex-Tesla Inc. executives to the project.

The accompanying image is courtesy of The Detroit Bureau.