Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted toward the company’s work in autonomous vehicles, following rumors that the company was in talks to develop its own car.
AppleCEO Tim Cook hinted at the company’s work in autonomous vehicles in a podcast interview Monday, following reports that the company is in renewed talks to develop its own car.
“The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot,” Cook told Kara Swisher on the “Sway” podcast. “An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does.”
“We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not,” Cook added.
Apple has long been expected to get into the auto business, either directly or through selling its technology to other car makers, and has made a number of moves indicating it planned to do so.
The company acquired autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai in 2019 and has hired several former Tesla employees, including Doug Field, a former Apple man who was Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering, and returned to the company in 2018.
