Previous to ending its much-discussed electric-vehicle undertaking, Apple labored with Chinese language automaker BYD on batteries, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
A partnership between the 2 corporations began round 2017, in response to the report, with the objective of growing lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells for the Apple automotive. BYD has a lot expertise with this tech, claiming cooling and security enhancements for its Blade battery launched in 2020.
BYD Han EV
Apple reportedly assigned Alexander Hitzinger to the trouble. Hitzinger was technical director of the Porsche 919 hybrid race-car undertaking earlier than becoming a member of Apple as head of product design for its particular tasks group, a place he held from 2016 to 2019 earlier than returning to the Volkswagen Group, the place he labored on autonomous driving and an Audi EV undertaking.
The workforce additionally reportedly included 50 engineers led by Apple’s Mujeeb Ijaz, with Michael He, Vice President of BYD’s battery enterprise, representing that firm. A bigger workforce, rumored to be about 2,000 folks, labored on the automotive undertaking itself. Typically known as “Challenge Titan,” had been mentioned in media stories since 2014, though little concrete data was ever launched.
BYD Han EV
Apple reportedly moved away from the partnership and started exploring battery tech from different corporations. Two stories in 2021 claimed Apple was looking for LFP batteries from each BYD and fellow Chinese language agency CATL, with doable U.S. manufacturing. Studies in December 2020 additionally claimed Apple was pursuing a “monocell” design for batteries that freed up extra space.
After reportedly being scaled again to a primary car with out previously-hoped-for autonomous driving, Apple cancelled the electrical automotive undertaking earlier this 12 months. Apple’s additional involvement within the auto business will seemingly be restricted to the CarPlay phone-mirroring system it presently provides to automakers.
