Hyundai, Kia deny Apple car talks, send shares tumbling

SEOUL - South Korean automaker Hyundai and its affiliate Kia on Monday denied news reports they were in talks with Apple for a joint project to make autonomous vehicles, sending their shares tumbling.

The announcement came about a month after the country's cable broadcaster Korea Economic TV said the iPhone maker had approached Hyundai to discuss a potential partnership to develop electric vehicles and batteries for them, sending the car maker's shares soaring.

Reports last week suggested they could produce cars in the US state of Georgia.

But on Monday Hyundai and Kia said in regulatory filings they were "not discussing autonomous electric car development with Apple".

Both automakers added that they had talked with multiple firms about such projects, but no decision had been made.

Hyundai said those talks were in their "early stages".

Kia shares slumped 14.98 percent at the close in Seoul on Monday, while Hyundai fell 6.21 percent.

Consumer interest in eco-friendly vehicles has mounted in recent years with Tesla largely taking the lead in the sector.

Apple's Project Titan is devoted to self-driving technology but the firm is known for being ultra-secretive about its business.

Hyundai, South Korea's biggest automaker, has already rolled out fully electric cars, including the Ioniq and the Kona Electric, as it seeks to win a slice of the growing market.

But Apple has never acknowledged talks with Hyundai, despite several news reports claiming they were close to a deal.

Agence France-Presse

BMW says talks with Apple don't involve developing a car

FRANKFURT - German carmaker BMW said on Thursday its talks with technology giant Apple did not involve developing or building a car, denying a German magazine report.

Auto Motor und Sport said in its March 4 edition that the two firms were discussing possibilities for cooperating on the development of a passenger car.

Apple was impressed with BMW's carbon-fiber electric cars, the magazine said, citing a "high ranking BMW manager."

The BMW spokesman said: "We are in regular talks with companies from the IT and telecommunications sector, including Apple, concerning topics like connected vehicles. Developing or building a car is not a topic of these discussions."

An Apple spokesman said the company did not comment on rumor or speculation.

Auto Motor und Sport said Apple cars could be sold in Apple stores and serviced at BMW dealerships.

Among the issues that needed to be resolved was whether BMW would allow Apple to develop an operating system for its i3 model, a step that would require BMW to reveal details of its own vehicle software to the technology giant, the magazine said.

Last month, a source told Reuters that Apple was looking beyond mobile devices to learn how to make a self-driving electric car, and was talking to experts at carmakers and automotive suppliers.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Apple poaching auto engineers to build battery division

SAN FRANCISCO - Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems has sued Apple Inc for poaching top engineers to build a large-scale battery division, according to a court filing that offered further evidence that the iPhone maker may be developing a car.

Apple has been poaching engineers with deep expertise in car systems, including from Tesla Inc, and talking with industry experts and automakers with the ultimate aim of learning how to make its own electric car, an auto industry source said last week.

Around June 2014, Apple began aggressively poaching A123 engineers tasked with leading some of the company's most critical projects, the lawsuit said. The engineers jumped ship to pursue similar programs at Apple, in violation of their employment agreements, A123 said in a filing earlier this month in Massachusetts federal court.

"Apple is currently developing a large-scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123," the lawsuit read. The suit was reported earlier by legal website law360.com.

Neither Apple nor A123 immediately responded to requests for comment and Apple has not responded to the allegations in the complaint. The company also sued five former A123 employees, who could not be reached for comment.

A123 Systems is a pioneering industrial lithium-ion battery maker, which was backed by a $249 million U.S. government grant. It filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and has been selling off assets.

Lithium-ion is a battery technology that can be used in applications from computers to airplanes, but A123 specializes in big batteries that can be used in big machines, including cars. A123 did not say what specifically the engineers worked on.

It said in its lawsuit that the engineers who left were of such caliber that the projects they had been working on had to be abandoned after their departures. It also accused one of the five defendants, Mujeeb Ijaz, of helping Apple recruit among its ranks.

"It appears that Apple, with the assistance of defendant Ijaz, is systematically hiring away A123's high-tech PhD and engineering employees, thereby effectively shutting down various projects/programs at A123," according to the lawsuit.

"They are doing so in an effort to support Apple's apparent plans to establish a battery division that is similar if not identical to A123's, in competition with A123."

In its complaint, A123 said it believed Apple was looking to hire other battery engineers from companies including LG Chem Ltd, Samsung SDI Co Ltd, Panasonic Corp , Toshiba Corp and Johnson Controls Inc . None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment.

A123 added that former executive Ijaz also contacted its battery partner SiNode Systems on behalf of Apple. Ijaz's outreach to SiNode "confirms that his work on behalf of Apple is at least substantially similar (if not identical) to his work at A123," the filing said.

SiNode did not respond to a request for comment.

Trying to build an actual car would mark a dramatic shift for the maker of the iPhone and iPad. Apple often researches projects which are then discarded, but has so far mainly stuck to its core expertise in mobile and electronic devices.

Whether it will build and release an electric car or a more evolved autonomous vehicle remains to be seen, the source told Reuters last week. But evidence is mounting that the maker of smartphones and other mobile gadgets is, like Google Inc , researching and developing next-generation car technologies.

Silicon Valley is competing to create software to run self-driving vehicles, as well as services associated with autonomous driving, such as mapping, car-sharing and car recharging services.

Data on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, shows that Apple has been siphoning up automotive engineers and experts, many with expertise in autonomous driving technology, at a significant pace.

A search of LinkedIn profiles turns up more than 60 former Tesla employees now employed by Apple, including dozens of hardware, software, manufacturing and supply chain engineers. There are also a variety of ex-Tesla recruiters, retail or sales specialists, attorneys and product managers.

Apart from the five defendants, at least six other ex-A123 engineers had moved over to Apple, according to their LinkedIn profiles, though with titles like "Technical Program Manager," their duties at Apple are unclear.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com