Japanese auto maker Nissan said yesterday it is not in talks with Apple to develop self-driving cars, a week after Hyundai also denied reports it was discussing the top-secret project with the US tech giant.
Apple’s Project Titan is devoted to electric autonomous vehicles and has been in the works for several years — but details of the venture have been kept under wraps by the notoriously tight-lipped company.
Nissan’s denial came after the Financial Times reported that the iPhone maker had approached it in recent months about a tie-up related to the project, which did not go ahead.
“We are not in talks with Apple. However, Nissan is always open to exploring collaborations and partnerships to accelerate industry transformation,” Nissan said.
A source close to Nissan said that the company “doesn’t need Apple to sell” its cars.
“When you make a product under the Apple brand, you give your soul — and your profit margins — to Apple,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “We are not interested in giving Apple the best that we offer. This should be under the Nissan brand.”
The denial followed a similar statement from South Korea’s Hyundai and its affiliate Kia last week after reports said Apple had wanted to discuss a potential partnership to develop electric vehicles and batteries.
Nissan has been a pioneer in electric vehicles since its Leaf model was released over a decade ago. Yesterday’s statement caused its shares to fall 2.8 percent to ￥610.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
RSS