FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German Volkswagen is not worried about Apple’s plans for a passenger vehicle that could include the iPhone manufacturer’s battery technology, said its chief executive Herbert Diess.
Reuters reported in December that Apple could have made enough progress to build a vehicle for mass markets by 2024, helped by lower costs in battery technology.
“The car industry is not a typical technical sector that you could take over in one fell swoop,” Diess said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
“Apple will not manage it overnight,” he added.
While Apple’s plans are not public, Diess said his intentions as such were “logical” because the company had expertise in battery, software and design and had deep pockets to build on those skills.
“However, we are not afraid,” he said.
Volkswagen intends to develop the necessary software for domestic autonomous cars to ensure that it can compete against technology companies in the field of electric car data.
Reporting by Vera Eckert; Edited by Alexander Smith