Apple
Nissan wants you to know that it isn’t making the Apple Car either
So, who is actually building it?
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It seems that Apple’s quest to find a manufacturing partner for the Apple Car has stalled at the wayside, as Nissan joins Hyundai in saying that it’s not in talks with the Cupertino giant. That’s according to a report in the Financial Times, which goes on to say that the companies had a brief series of discussions that eventually hit a dead end.
Apparently, Nissan didn’t want to be an OEM for Apple-branded cars, saying “we are not in talks with Apple.” The report mentions that the discussions were preliminary, and didn’t advance to higher executive or leadership levels in either company, as the specifics of the potential deal couldn’t be agreed on.
With the Apple Car expected to be uniquely Apple, as all of its devices are, that doesn’t leave any room for automotive partners to co-brand the vehicle. That would relegate any carmaker to almost silent-partner status. If the Apple Car was a hit, Apple would take all the kudos, possibly impacting the manufacturing partner’s own electric vehicle ambitions.
That’s not to say Nissan isn’t completely out of the race, with COO Ashwani Gupta saying that the carmaker is open to collaboration, but it would take the other party to adapt to Nissan, not the other way around.
An earlier report from Nikkei suggesting at least six Japanese companies are being courted by Apple as a manufacturing partner. That’s in addition to Hyundai/Kia, who had to walk back earlier statements of their involvement with Apple.
The only question we have is: who is actually going to build this car? We all know Apple has the engineering chops to design the software and hardware, but the company isn’t in a position to handle the manufacturing at scale. Whoever it ends up being, they might end up being the most talked-about electric vehicle, without their name actually being on the car.
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