VW CEO Herbert Diess says he isn't worried about impending Apple Car

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What you need to know

  • Herbert Diess says that he isn't afraid of any potential Apple Car.
  • Apple Car is thought to be set for a launch as soon as 2024.

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess says that he "is not afraid" of the potential for Apple releasing its own electric car. As far as I can tell, no, he wasn't on BlackBerry's board back in 2007. If he was, he'd probably know better.

According to a Reuters report, Diess says that the differences between the tech sector and the car industry will be enough to cause Apple issues.

"The car industry is not a typical tech-sector that you could take over at a single stroke," Diess was quoted as saying an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung."Apple will not manage that overnight," he added.

Apple is reportedly in talks with various car companies as they try to find a manufacturing partner for Apple Car. Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan have been spoken about as potential manufacturing partners so far. It isn't clear whether Apple has spoken with VW about a potential partnership, but Diess says that "we are not afraid" of any entry into the car space by Apple.

If all of this sounds familiar it's because it is. BlackBerry's CEO made almost identical comments when suggesting that Apple wouldn't be able to make a go of the smartphone space because it made computers. We all know exactly how that went for both companies.

Apple has been working on Project Titan, its car project, for a number of years now and we appear to be finally working our way closer to some sort of product announcement. Whether that ultimately takes companies like VW by surprise, we'll have to wait and see.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.