The CEO of Fiat Chrysler talked about visiting both Tesla and Apple during a recent trip to California.
Sergio Marchionne runs Fiat Chrysler, and recently visited a new Maserati dealership in Toronto, Ontario Canada (Fiat owns luxury motor brand Maserati). Marchionne wouldn't elaborate about his meetings with Tim Cook and Elon Musk beyond some cursory comments.
"I'm incredibly impressed with what that kid has done," he said, referring to [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk.
With regard to Apple's Cook, he said: "He's interested in Apple's intervention in the car, that's his role." Marchionne was not more specific about Apple.
Rumors suggest Apple's working on its own self-driving car, though Apple's broadcast absolutely no indications that's what it's working on. Apple's main contribution to the automotive market at present is CarPlay, which makes it possible to control iPhone apps and services using the in-dash entertainment systems built into newer vehicles.
Source: Reuters
Reader comments
Fiat CEO says Apple is 'interested in intervention in the car'
Last time I checked, it isn't built into any new cars yet.
I have car play built into my car it's awesome
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What kind of car?
Skoda Fabia
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I thought Andrea Agnelli was the CEO of Fiat ?
Self driving car? There are all sorts of moral judgements that compromise this idea that we have to solve first. I want Apple to build a car, but one that I can drive. The self driver is a truly democratic idea in car ownership, (even you can own a car), but we live within a system where the laws of the land aren't ready for this.
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Well all self driving cars currently sport steering wheels with manual override anytime by driver. I think that a hybrid approach like that will be required by law for years to come. I'm positive that part of a mythical car would include the driving experience as a major selling point. And I'm sure Apple would also include a lot of smarts in the car to take over driving on highways and possibly side streets too.
'In' the car. Not the car itself. Carplay is just the beginning. Apple wants to control the interface, the dashboard. That's what that minivan was about.
And which auto manufacturer is going to let them do that? I have my doubts any of them will. Auto manufactures want to control that stuff themselves not handed over to a company like Apple.
I had it fitted into my Skoda Fabia
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