Tesla and Apple to join forces?

Tesla boss Elon Musk made no secret of his disdain for Apple when interviewed three months ago.

"They have hired people we've fired," Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt back in October, in response to the suggestion Tesla was losing engineers to Apple.

"We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding."

But now a new report from Thomson Reuters IP & Science predicts that while Tesla and Apple may make strange bedfellows in the circumstances, that won't stop the two tech companies getting it on.

"Although Apple is not a leading innovator in this field—with only one invention overall in the area of self-driving vehicles—a partnership with Tesla would be a predictable move for both companies, based on a thorough review of both companies' patent portfolios," the company predicts. And Apple and Tesla will make a joint announcement to that effect after the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas closes its doors for 2016.

In other news, according to the report, established automotive brands are leading the upstart tech companies and research bodies like LG, Samsung, Google, Boeing, IBM, Amazon, Carnegie Mellon and MIT in developing effective autonomous motoring systems.

Toyota, Bosch, Denso, Hyundai, GM and Nissan are out in front, according to the report, with Toyota alone putting its name to 2000 new patents over the last five years. Much of the impetus for self-driving cars is coming from Asia, with "11 of the world's top 20 self-driving vehicle innovators" based there.

"Although driverless vehicles won't be ruling the roads in 2016, data shows that they will likely become a reality in the years to come," said Vin Caraher, president Thomson Reuters IP & Science.

"Our fascination with this emergent technology continues to abound. There was a time when it was difficult to imagine the ability to get from one point to another in a vehicle without being completely alert and in control of the automobile. But if we've learned anything in the 21st century, it's that technology seems to be boundless, as long as you have the right collaborators at the helm.

"Our analysis of the patent activity shows some predictable leaders and some surprises. It will be compelling and exciting to watch how their inventions unfold in the year ahead."