Apple confirmed to the media on Thursday that it had hired Ulrich Kranz (Ulrich Kranz), a former BMW (BMW) executive who specializes in electric cars. The move is the latest sign that Apple is seriously laying out and building cars to compete with leading manufacturers of electric cars such as Tesla's (Tesla).
Before joining Apple, Kranz, who has decades of experience in electric cars, was chief executive of Canoo, an electric car startup that is developing a self-driving electric car. In addition, he served as chief technology officer at Faraday Future (Faraday Future), an electric car startup, but stayed for only three months.
Earlier, Kranz worked at BMW for 30 years, leading the company's electric vehicle development project, which developed the compact pure electric car BMW i3 and the hybrid sports car BMW i8.
According to the report, Kranz will report to Apple Vice President Doug Field (Doug Field). Field once led the development of Tesla's mass-market model, the Model 3, and is now in charge of Apple's car project.
Although Apple has never confirmed that it is making cars, the company has frequently tapped talent from the auto industry and tested self-driving software in California. Earlier this year, Apple poached Porsche's vice president for chassis development and hired some Tesla executives, leading Mr Elon Musk to complain that Apple was "Tesla's graveyard".
The road of building cars has gone through several twists and turns.
By selling iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac computers and other services, Apple has grown into the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $2 trillion. But with growing demand from investors and customers for new products, the company is targeting areas such as cars and augmented reality headphones.
Apple set up the "Titan Project" (Project Titan) project in 2014 and began to design its own cars, but the plan has taken several twists and turns over the years. At one point, Apple abandoned the plan to focus on self-driving software, and then re-evaluated its goals.
In December, the media reported that Apple was promoting self-driving car technology and planned to produce a passenger car in 2024 that could include its breakthrough battery technology. However, it is widely estimated in the industry that it may take five years for Apple to come up with a product.
Earlier this week, a number of media sources were quoted as saying that Apple was in preliminary contact with Ningde era and BYD to discuss the supply of electric car batteries.
Earlier this year, Hyundai said it was in preliminary talks with Apple to jointly develop self-driving cars, but as events unfolded, Hyundai withdrew its comments and confirmed that the two companies were no longer in talks.
