Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized Apple during a conference call to discuss Tesla’s financial statement.
While the companies aren’t competing directly so far, Apple is reportedly building a self-driving electric vehicle as part of a project codenamed Titan and has lured away a number of engineers and executives from Tesla. The Titan project is reportedly led by Doug Field, who returned to Apple in 2018 after five years at Tesla.
Musk said there is a misconception in the market that Tesla uses a lot of cobalt, a key material in the production of lithium-ion cells used in both smartphones and electric vehicles. In fact, this is not the case.
I think Apple uses almost 100% cobalt in its batteries, mobile phones and laptops, but Tesla does not use cobalt in iron phosphate batteries and almost never in nickel batteries. On average, we only use, say, 2% cobalt, compared to 100% cobalt that Apple uses.
Elon Musk
Cobalt mining in some regions has been linked to human rights abuses and child labor. In 2019, Apple, in addition to Tesla and other big tech companies, was named as defendants in a human rights lawsuit.
An Apple spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
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