Elon Musk, billionaire technology entrepreneur and chief executive of Tesla, has dubbed Apple the ‘Tesla graveyard’, claiming that some of the iPhone giant’s latest hires were fired by the electric car company.
In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, Mr Musk scoffed at the suggestion that Apple had hired some of Tesla’s most important engineers, stating: “If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
He also dismissed the notion that Apple could be a serious competitior in the automotive market, amid rumours that Apple is building an electric car, codenamed Project Titan, and has set a target shipping date for 2019.
“Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch?” said Mr Musk, laughing.
“No, seriously: It’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can’t just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car.
“But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.”
Apple has developed in-car systems featuring its voice assistant Siri
Reports in August revealed that Apple was developing a car and studying self-driving technology, but it was unclear whether the iPhone maker was designing a vehicle that could drive itself.
The company’s CarPlay system, which allows drivers to safely make calls, use Maps, listen to music and access messages hands-free, is already available in a number of cars including the Ferrari FF, and Apple has a number of patents for technology that allows smartphones to control aspects of a car’s operation.
Apple has been consistently hiring automated driving experts. Megan McClain, a former Volkswagen engineer with expertise in automated driving, and Vinay Palakkode, a graduate researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, a hub of automated driving research, have both joined the company, as well as a senior engineer from Tesla.
However, the Wall Street Journal has reported that Apple does not currently plan to make its first electric vehicle fully autonomous.
If Apple does launch an autonomous car, it will go head-to-head with Google, whose self-driving cars have clocked up more than 1m miles since they first made it onto public roads since 2012.
This is not the first time Mr Musk has accused Apple of poaching Tesla’s staff.
Earlier this year, he told Bloomberg that Apple had been trying to hire his employees with a $250,000 signing-on bonus and 60 per cent pay rises but had “actually recruited very few people”.
Reuters reported at the time that a search of LinkedIn uncovered more than 60 former Tesla employees who are now working at Apple.
Source : TELEGRAPH.CO.UK