Did Apple ‘work secretly’ with China’s BYD on EV battery project?
Apple and Chinese carmaker BYD teamed up around 2017 with the aim of building a battery system using lithium iron phosphate cells, according to a Bloomberg report.
Apple worked with Chinese carmaker BYD for years as part of its car project, which was later aborted, to develop long-range batteries, according to a report by Bloomberg.
That cooperation between the companies reportedly laid the foundation for the technology being used today.
Apple and BYD teamed up around 2017 with the aim of building a battery system using lithium iron phosphate cells, according to people who requested Bloomberg not to identify them.
The tech was meant to be longer-range and safer than EV batteries at the time.
“Though Apple doesn’t own any of the technology used in BYD’s current Blade batteries, the partnership shows just how far the iPhone maker went in its efforts to produce a car,” the Bloomberg report says. “The tech titan spent roughly $1 billion a year over the past decade on the vehicle project — often seen as one of the company’s “next big things” — before scrapping it in February.”
While Apple engineers contributed through their expertise in advanced battery packs and heat management, BYD brought in manufacturing skills and advancements using lithium iron phosphate cells.
In an emailed statement to Bloomberg, BYD said “the concept for the Blade battery originated with BYD engineers, who independently developed this LFP Blade battery. BYD holds complete property rights and patent rights for the Blade battery.”
BYD’s current car lineup is based on the Blade system. Its battery pack design evolved from work done with Apple, according to the report, based on information shared by people familiar with the secret partnership between the two companies.
In February this year, Apple abruptly ended its secret plans of building a self-driving electric car, an ambitious decade-long effort called Project Titan internally into which the tech giant poured billions of dollars. Hundreds of employees working on the car were later shifted to other divisions.
Though Apple canceled its autonomous car project, the insights gained may have helped with the development of products like the Vision Pro headset and the Neural Engine AI processor that are now present in many Apple devices, the Bloomberg report indicates.
