The Apple Car rumor mill has been heating up today with reports that Apple has been hiring auto talent from companies like Mercedes and BMW. Now the Wall Street Journal is chiming in with its own report that claims Tim Cook approved Apple’s project over a year ago.
Apple reportedly has several hundred employees working on the secret project that’s aiming to create an Apple-branded electric vehicle that can take on Telsa.
Speculation of the Apple car project ramped up last week when mysterious Apple vans were spotted in Brooklyn, San Francisco and Hawaii. The electric car project is supposedly code-named “Titan” and the initial design looks like some sort of mini-van, according to WSJ’s sources.
Tim Cook has allegedly tapped VP Steve Zadesky to lead the project and has given him permission to create a 1,000-person team and to poach employees from different parts of Apple. It’s also interesting to note that the project started around the time Elon Musk confirmed Apple and Tesla had been in talks.
While Apple doesn’t have any experience manufacturing cars, employees on the project have visited contract manufacturers in recent months that could build a car on Apple’s behalf. The WSJ specifically names Magna Steyr as one suitor which has already made cars for BMW and Mercedes in the past.
Just because Apple has a team building an electric car doesn’t necessarily means the company plans to launch one any year soon. Phil Schiller once admitted that Apple looked into building a car before it looked into smartphones, however there’s big difference between making iPhones and pumping out mini-vans.
Source: WSJ
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
8 responses to “Apple has hundreds of employees working on electric car project”
Apple car and Apple Watch. Maybe something similar to Knight Rider. “Kit, I need you buddy!”
Agreed. It will be called “Apple Car” or something similar. The days of the iDevice are over.
iPhone, iPad and even iPod are forever but Tim’s reign will mean more “Apple” named products.
I guess my note 4 wont be able to connect…
Another electric car that no one will be able to afford, or want.
Yes, just like the iPhone, iMac and iPad that nobody can afford, but somehow the general public is buying them by the millions. If it’s not obvious by now, Apple tends to do things right. They create extremely well-manufactured, well-thought-out products that work extremely well and provide an excellent user experience. Knowing Apple — and it they are indeed planning to build some kind of electric vehicle(s) — part of their strategy will be to make them affordable by a large segment of the population, just like they have done with all their other products. They won’t be cheap, but they’ll be durable, fun and intuitive — and all of a sudden all the other car makers will start to copy them because it will be “obvious” how a car should look and operate (as happened with computers, phones and tablets).
You can also bet that Apple, with its billions in reserves, will also be working on a workable infrastructure to support these new vehicles, such as charging stations that will become as ubiquitous as gas stations, thereby making electric vehicles practical for driving around the country and even internationally. Again, this presupposes that Apple will actually enter the automotive field. Just like Apple did with the iPod, they created not only the player, but the iTunes Store where music could be purchased. If they build a car, it will make no sense if it can only be driven around town, and you’ll see Apple creating the infrastructure necessary to make electric cars practical, forcing/allowing other manufactures to follow suit, and dragging the planet into the new millennium with the electric vehicles that scifi movies promised us by this time. This will mean cleaner air, a reduction of fossil fuel use and a reduction of noise pollution.
I think rather than BMW and Mercedes, they should be looking at what Tesla Motors are doing, and improve on their Cell technology.
Oh and please…. Remote ignition using iWatch or iPhone Touch ID…. and onboard cameras n stuff :)
icar….geez….if they can’t deal with OS X and iOS software bugs….what makes them think they will succeed with icar…
“apple just released iOS 10.1.3 that fixes navigation, car battery life, and auto driving system…” -once dated-
consumer: “oh crap….my car just died..i haven’t drove for more than 1 hour…..what the hell? oh crap…this update killed my auto drive system…it will drive me to texas when i need to go to las vegas…”
then better let Microsoft not build an car :D Blusecreens and so on…