Photo: Edited by Autoevolution
For a genius innovator who turned a garage company into an IT giant, Steve Jobs was always busy with potential projects. Perhaps he wasn’t as big of a car guy as many others in Silicon Valley, but it appears he did consider Apple as a future manufacturer of an iCar.
Creating an auto company from the ground up in times when Detroit was facing its worst moments ever was not something you’d fool around with back in 2008. The U.S. automotive industry took a big hit during the global financial crisis. Moreover, Apple was already busy offering the world a crucial gadget: a smartphone.
However, according to Tony Fadell, then a senior vice president at Apple, Steve Jobs was talking about the possibility of building an iCar. The two collaborated on both the iPod and iPhone projects, which means they had discussed similar matters before. In an interview with Bloomberg, Fadell says they swapped ideas about car designs on multiple occasions.
“We had a couple of walks," Fadell says in the interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. The pair posed hypothetical questions to each other, such as: ”If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?”
Because of the reasons mentioned above, however, Jobs decided to focus on one project at a time. His decision was quite wise considering what happened after the crisis. Today, though, Detroit is slowly getting back on its feet, the world is looking for a fresh way to propel sustainable economies, and a smart car that keeps the air fresh seems to be the choice of tomorrow.
Apple has the resources to fight against giant IT corporations such as Google parent company Alphabet or transportation companies such as Uber. And as it was already reported, it's already developing its own car project.
The company has already invested millions in putting together a team of engineers and experts in battery and robotics technology that should come up with a first prototype sometime around 2020.
However, according to Tony Fadell, then a senior vice president at Apple, Steve Jobs was talking about the possibility of building an iCar. The two collaborated on both the iPod and iPhone projects, which means they had discussed similar matters before. In an interview with Bloomberg, Fadell says they swapped ideas about car designs on multiple occasions.
“We had a couple of walks," Fadell says in the interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. The pair posed hypothetical questions to each other, such as: ”If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?”
Because of the reasons mentioned above, however, Jobs decided to focus on one project at a time. His decision was quite wise considering what happened after the crisis. Today, though, Detroit is slowly getting back on its feet, the world is looking for a fresh way to propel sustainable economies, and a smart car that keeps the air fresh seems to be the choice of tomorrow.
Apple has the resources to fight against giant IT corporations such as Google parent company Alphabet or transportation companies such as Uber. And as it was already reported, it's already developing its own car project.
The company has already invested millions in putting together a team of engineers and experts in battery and robotics technology that should come up with a first prototype sometime around 2020.
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