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Apple's Sunnyvale Car Team Includes a Dozen Magna Engineers

Thursday September 15, 2016 10:44 am PDT by Juli Clover
In a piece on car company Magna International, Bloomberg has shared a tidbit about Apple's car development plans, suggesting there are approximately a dozen engineers from Magna working with Apple's car team in Sunnyvale.

Magna employees are said to be helping develop Apple's electric vehicle, reigniting rumors that Apple is working with a third-party to manufacture its vehicle rather than taking on vehicle development costs itself.

applecar
A completely new vehicle can cost several billion dollars, so leaning on the expertise of an industry veteran is a way of minimizing those costs. Apple has been quick to understand that: about a dozen Magna engineers have been working with the iPhone-maker's team in Sunnyvale to develop a vehicle, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
This isn't the first time we've heard rumors of some kind of partnership between Apple and Magna. In April, a German news site suggested Apple had a secret car lab in Germany and was planning to have subsidiary Magna Steyr manufacture its cars, and Apple executives also visited Magna Steyr in Austria in February of 2015. Apple also reportedly held talks with Daimler and BMW, but no deal was able to be established due to questions over who would lead the project and who would have ownership over data.

Magna executives and Apple both declined to comment on rumors of a partnership, but in a separate interview on plans to build a new car plant, Magna CEO Donald Walker spoke on partnerships like the one the company has established with BMW. Magna will be producing BMW's 5-Series and is said to be "positioning itself for the prospect that technology companies will eventually join its roster of customers."
"You could easily have enough business outsourced from the existing carmakers to fill up other contract assembly plants, or you could have new entrants that come in and say 'I really want to have something but do I really want to manufacture vehicles?,"' Magna Chief Executive Officer Donald Walker said in an interview at the company's headquarters in Aurora, Ontario.
While Apple has hundreds of employees working on its car project, the company's plans seem to be in flux. Following Bob Mansfield's takeover of the car initiative earlier this year, Apple is said to have laid off dozens of employees as part of a "reboot" that will see focus shifting towards the development of an autonomous vehicle system. Based on these recent rumors, it is no longer clear if a physical Apple-branded car will actually materialize or if the project will result in something more software oriented.

Related Roundup: Apple Car
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snowboarder
38 months ago
I wish they spent 25% of that money on Macs instead of a low-profit, high-risk
car business they have no reason to get into...
Is it 4 years since last Mac Pro update?
Rating: 7 Votes
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kdarling
38 months ago
Wonder if the Apple car will come in Jet Black?
Rating: 4 Votes
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IJ Reilly
38 months ago
It is now clear that Apple's car won't be physical, it will be metaphysical.
Rating: 2 Votes
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D.T.
38 months ago
Is it these folks?

Rating: 2 Votes
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ArtOfWarfare
38 months ago

We have been talking abou this car for a long time. I wonder if we will ever see it?


It's going to be Christmas eve for a long time, according to Tim Cook. I think I might have taken delivery of two Model 3's before Apple even shows their car for the first time.
Rating: 2 Votes
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GrumpyMom
38 months ago
On again, off again...these car project rumors are starting to sound like Taylor Swift's love life.
Rating: 2 Votes
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2457282
38 months ago
I am still trying to get a new iphone and hoping that we will hear something on the mac line before the end of the year. Can we please delay the car rumors for a bit? :D
Rating: 1 Votes
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orbital~debris
38 months ago
These guys, right?

Rating: 1 Votes
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IJ Reilly
38 months ago

Turns out Apple was trying to manufacture a real-life hype-train all along.


I'm fascinated by the non-physical car concept that MR is pushing lately. Will it be a virtual car, one that exists only in the minds of its owners? Will it perhaps be powered not by electricity, but by Jobs RDF? We need to know more.
Rating: 1 Votes
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Mactendo
38 months ago
So in the year 2021 we may get an Apple car, but we can't have a 17" MacBook Pro... Something is wrong here.
Rating: 1 Votes

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