Apple plans to build its own car that includes not only designing its automotive software or individual parts, but making the entire vehicle from the ground up.
However, Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne believes that car manufacturing is a "complex business" that may pose challenges to Apple should it push through in becoming a new player in the industry.
At the Geneva Auto Show, Marchionne told journalists that current carmakers have enough capacity to handle the car making needs of Apple. With such expertise already available, Apple would be better off in building partnerships than being a major actor.
As a self-proclaimed "Apple fan," Marchionne, who owns every product created by the Cupertino-based tech business, also believes that his company has the best know-how when it comes to building the purported Apple Car.
This is not the first time that Marchionne has sought for a company to partner with. Early in 2015, he reportedly attempted to partner with General Motors. However, CEO Mary Barra thought that the move will not be in the best interest of shareholders and decided to turn down the offer.
Apple is tight-lipped about its car project and even tried to hide it under the codename "Project Titan." The company is rumored to have recently purchased a 96,000-square-foot warehouse in Sunnyvale, which is the same location where it was rumored to conduct its research on electric car development.
Apple is believed to launch the rumored electric car sometime in 2019 or 2020. When asked about the project in an interview, Apple CEO Tim Cook evaded the topic. Instead, he said that while there are hundreds of people who are currently working on the concept of building an electric car, the initiative can be simply considered as a technological exploration as opposed to a serious endeavor.
In early January, Apple allegedly registered three top-level domain names that are car related. These include the domain names such as apple.auto, apple.car and apple.cars.
Marchionne has an advice to Apple: If the company really has the urgency to make a car, it should just lie down and wait until the feeling of urgency dies down. He even compared the "urgency" to a type of illness that will come and go. He ended his statement positively by saying that such illness is not lethal. Apple will no doubt recover from it.
