Tim Cook hinted that Apple was working on an autonomous electric car – but said many Apple projects ‘never see the light of day’

• Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted that the tech giant is working on an autonomous electric car project.
• Apple has never confirmed reports that it is making an electric vehicle.
• "We'll see what Apple does," Cook told The New York Times – but noted many Apple projects never come to fruition.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted on Monday that the tech giant was working on an electric-vehicle project – but said many of Apple's ideas "never see the light of day."

Apple has kept its autonomous vehicle project, known internally as "Project Titan," a closely-guarded secret and has never confirmed it's working on a car, but reports suggest that it has spoken to multiple automakers including Nissan and Hyundai about partnering on the vehicle.

When asked by The New York Times' Kara Swisher whether Apple was working on an autonomous vehicle, Cook said: "In terms of the work that we're doing there, obviously, I'm going to be a little coy on that.

"The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view," he said. "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."

Read more: Apple will never deliver a car because it can't figure out how to work with the automakers who could make it happen

But Cook added that, even if Apple was considering an autonomous car, the vehicle wouldn't necessarily make it to market.

"We investigate so many things internally," he said. "Many of them never see the light of day. I'm not saying that one will not."

Cook declined to comment when asked whether Apple's project was a car or the tech to put inside one, but said that the company "love[s] to integrate hardware, software, and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that's where the magic occurs."

"And we love to own the primary technology that's around that," he added.

Apple plans to build its car by 2024 and has held talks with Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan about partnering, according to multiple reports. The car-makers have all denied being in talks with Apple, and in an opinion piece for Insider Matthew DeBord wrote that Apple would never deliver a car because it refuses to work with automakers.

Apple has recently patented some vehicle features, including ways to send alerts to drivers, reduce motion sickness, and create new climate controls, Insider's Kevin Shalvey reported.

Apple isn't the only phone-maker looking at the booming electric vehicle market.

On March 30, Chinese phone-maker Xiaomi said it planned to invest $10 billion into a new smart electric-vehicle unit over the next 10 years. Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun will serve as the CEO of the new unit, while also remaining CEO of the wider company.

Huawei also plans to make electric vehicles, and the first could arrive this year, sources told Reuters.