Tim Cook Hints At Apple Car At Vivatech Conference

Tim Cook has been going around and showing up at many conferences these days. He has been an arduous advocate for privacy something that Apple touts with its platforms and hardware products. One of the future products that Apple is said to be working on for more than half a decade is the car - dubbed project titan - and at the most recent Vivatech conference which happened virtually, Cook was again expectedly so quizzed about a litany of things including the fabled Apple Car. 

Apple's CEO was interviewed by Guillaume Lacroix the founder and CEO of online news platform Brut, who asked him a wide range of questions ranging from privacy, the future of the iPhone, AR and the pandemic. One of the last questions in the 30-minute interaction was," "Where is the Apple Car? When can we see it?" 

Cook typically nonchalant about the subject of rumours quipped back hinting that Apple had something up its sleeves. "In terms of a car, you know I got to keep some secrets. There always has to be something up our sleeve. I don't think I will comment on the car rumour," said Apple's CEO who will complete 10 years at the helm of the world's most valuable company this August. 

"I get excited about artificial intelligence and the ability to remove that keep people down, do work and free up leisure time for people," he added talking about artificial intelligence. 

Previously, Cook had stated that the self-driving car was the mother of all AI projects. Apple recently has ramped up its hiring for the Apple Car project again. In December, the reigns of the project were handed to Apple's AI czar John Giannandrea who joined the company only in 2018 from Google where he headed search. More recently, Apple hired Ulrich Kranz, the co-founder of AI electric car startup Canoo who also helped BWM develop its electric cars earlier in the last decade. 

A lot of activity is going on at Apple around the car project. It is fishing for manufacturing partners with players like LG, BYD, CATL, Magna and Foxconn all in the mix. It is reportedly developing cutting edge battery technology and is developing its own self-driving gear in-house. Apple is still a while away from releasing a real product - with it being at 4 years away from a real product.