Hyunjoo Jin and Stephen Nellis of Reuters continuing on the reporting that Apple is in talks with Hyundai to help them build a car:
Another person familiar with the matter said Apple would prefer to source major components of its own design — frames, bodies, drive trains, and other parts — from a variety of places and rely on Hyundai or Kia for a final assembly site.
No surprise.
“They would want this to be in the United States,” the second person said.
A slight surprise.
While the talks are at an early stage, Hyundai Motor Group has “tentatively decided” that it would want Kia to partner with Apple, not Hyundai Motor, a Hyundai insider said.
A big surprise — well, to me at least — since Kia seems more synonymous with a budget brand of car. I can understand why Kia would want to partner with Apple, but would Apple really want to partner with Kia? Well, Apple may not have a choice, at least according to this report, as Hyundai seems concerned that an Apple partnership would take over their whole brand:
“The Group is concerned that the Hyundai brand would become just Apple’s contract manufacturer, which would not help Hyundai in its effort to build a more premium image with its Genesis brand,” the insider said. Kia is also moving faster in terms of electric cars, and it has available production capacity at its Georgia factory in the United States.
Another executive at Hyundai said: “Tech firms like Google and Apple want us to be like (contract phone maker) Foxconn.
“A cooperation may initially help raise the brand image of Hyundai or Kia. But in the mid- or longer-term, we will just provide shells for the cars, and Apple would do the brains.”
The entire Hyundai partnership still seems weird to me — not least of which because Hyundai keeps openly talking about (or leaking) details. So there may be less smoke than it seems. But Kia aside, it also just seems like sort of a weird car manufacturer for Apple to partner with. Many senior folks at Apple are car aficionados — Hyundai is a fine company, but it is not a luxury/high-end car company.
Then again, the above quotes may be the key. Apple doesn’t need to partner with Porsche/VW on the car if they just want someone to help with manufacturing. If they want their Foxconn, as it were. This would certainly be one way to avoid Tesla’s infamous “production hell” and get a car to market quicker. And, if any of this comes to pass, I’m guessing Hyundai/Kia would get absolutely no branding rights. They’d get an exec on stage at some event. Then they’d get out of the way.
