Tim Cook Finally Has Something To Say About An Apple Car

It's no secret that Apple is working on an electric car with highly advanced autonomous technology previewed by leaked patent designs. In response, rival smartphone companies in China such asHuaweiandXiaomiare already planning to make their own battery-electric cars. After failing tostrike a deal with Hyundaiand Nissan to manufacture the car, Apple is now reportedly intalks with Magna, an auto parts supplier based in Canada that is building theFisker Ocean.

While these plans are still rumors, Apple still hasn't acknowledged its intent to enter the auto industry - until now. In a recent episode of Kara Swisher's Sway podcast for the New York Times, Apple's CEO hinted at what we can expect from the technology giant's first car, comparing it to a robot.

"The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view," said Cook. "If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there's lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we'll see what Apple does." Unfortunately, Cook refused to confirm if Apple is planning to build its own car or develop the autonomous driving software for other carmakers, but his comments suggest the technology giant has ambitious plans for the project.

"We love to integrate hardware, software and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that's where the magic occurs," he said. "And we love to own the primary technology that's around that."

While there's no explicit confirmation, it certainly sounds like Apple wants to build an electric car with integrated autonomous technology and driver assists that will blow the competition away.