Rather fortunately for everyone’s eyes, the Apple iCar never saw the light of day — thank God. Imagine buying a car and being told the seats and steering were optional extras. And in classic Apple fashion, they spent billions doing it. Yep — Apple Inc. spent close to the tune of 10 billion dollars (US, not Zimbabwean) towards developing an electric car. Then, earlier this year they canned it, to the audible sighs of relief from the gentry. We can now confirm that the smartphone company spent a great amount of time collaborating with Chinese EV giant BYD to make these batteries. And whilst there is no Apple EV on the horizon, it’s being said that the collaborative efforts have been able to advance battery and EV tech greatly. The teamwork started all the way back in 2017, which is almost eight years ago now. BYD brought battery skin, battery cell, and manufacturing-at-scale skills to the table, and Apple brought heat management to the mix. The research mostly focussed on lithium polymer batteries, when most of the world at the time had been looking at Nickel. BYD's blade battery pack. You can see where it gets the name from. Currently, BYD uses a battery system called the “blade pack” in most of their offerings. Back in the day, BYD engineers showcased an early prototype of this system to the big cheese over at Apple, who were suitably impressed. So impressed in fact, that Apple thought that it could use the BYD cells in their own iCar. Reportedly, Apple was trying to use the BYD cells to improve range simulations in their own car. Now, to be clear, neither the fruit company nor the Chinese EV maker has confirmed this collaboration. What could have been. BYD expressly claims that “the blade technology was developed by BYD engineers and remains independent of outside influence” (paraphrased). While I take this to mean “we’re not saying no”. Well, after the partnership with BYD hit the rocks, Apple began talks with Korea’s Hyundai to bring their self-driving trash can on wheels to life. However, those talks didn’t go anywhere. Thus, earlier in the year, Apple executives at the C-level stepped in and vetoed shut the Apple iCar program for good. There is a God.
