Tesla - page 3

Just as Cupertino is scaling back its automotive ambitions, key members of the Apple PR team have left the company for car manufacturers.

Project Titan, Apple’s secret electric car program that was greenlit by Tim Cook two years ago, is facing a serious crisis.

The iPhone maker has reportedly laid off dozens of employees that were working on the auto project, even though the company has already started testing a couple of autonomous vehicles the team built.

The next time you buy Ford, instead of buying a car to keep you might just get access to an entire fleet of autonomous cars.

Ford CEO Mark Fields revealed today during a meeting with employees in Palo Alto that not only is the company building an autonomous car, it plans to launch an entire fleet of autonomous vehicle by 2021 to create its own ride-hailing service by 2021.

Drivers won’t be hitting the highways in Apple’s self-driving vehicle at all this decade.

Apple has reportedly pushed back the goal launch date of its secretive electric car project that has been in the works since 2014. Previous rumors claimed Project Titan is aiming for an unveiling in 2019, but it may have hit a speed bump.

Apple should have started development on the Apple Car a lot earlier than it did, according to Space X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The real-life comic-book superhero sat down for an interview at Code Conference and said that when it comes to autonomous cars, Google won’t be a competitor because they’re not a car company, however Apple will be.

Musk thinks it may be too late for Apple to be truly competitive though.

The Apple Car isn’t expected to hit the road until 2020 at the earliest, but Apple’s engineers are already laying the foundation for one of the most challenging aspect of electric vehicles: keeping them charged up.

Apple appears to be preparing the ground work for its charging infrastructure, according to a new report claiming the company is scooping up engineers that specialize in electric charing stations.

We haven’t even gotten an official announcement of the Apple Car yet, but it looks like the company is still working its way into the automotive industry.

That’s according to the staff at car news site The Drive, which placed Apple’s chief design officer Jony Ive and CEO Tim Cook on its list of “The 10 Most Influential People in Automotive Technology.” They didn’t top the list, however; that would be crazy. But they did place higher than some people who are actually in charge of real vehicles that people are driving around right now.

But The Drive backs its decisions up pretty well.

Apple is seeking an 800,000-square-foot warehouse to work on the Apple Car, according to a West Coast real estate giant, who claims space for developing electric vehicles is currently “a hot demand item” in Silicon Valley.

Upstarts like Apple and Alphabet are apparently competing with traditional automakers to set up shop for next-gen research facilities in the tech mecca.

Apple may have reached peak iPhone this quarter after posting declining revenues for the first time since 2003, but rest assured the company is working on the next big thing. 

Tim Cook boasted about the amazingly innovative products coming down Apple’s pipeline, and the company’s latest spending figures show its throwing more money than ever at new ideas. 

Progress on the Apple Car is coming along faster than anticipated after Project Titan hit some speed bumps earlier this year.

Based on a batch of new hires, it appears that Apple Car parts may have already entered the prototyping phase at the company’s Product Realization Lab, where machinists and engineers produce and test product designs.

Apple’s not-so-secret electric car project has added yet another Telsa engineer to its growing ranks.

Former Telsa VP of Vehicle Engineering Chris Porritt has reportedly been hired by Apple. Porritt also recently worked at Aston Martin as chief engineer. Now he’ll be working on “special projects” at Apple — like Project Titan.

This week on Cult of Mac’s: Rumors point to an iPhone 7s with a drastic redesign, facial recognition and the return of the glass front and back. Plus: Folks around the world line up for the Tesla Model 3; Apple is making a show about apps hosted by technology expert musician Will.i.am; why the new iPad Pro is not a notebook replacement for the masses; and, in a bizarre plot twist, Apple seeks FBI’s iPhone unlocking secrets.

Our thanks to Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small-business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.

The iPhone SE isn’t drawing as big of lines today as the wait to reserve a Tesla Model 3, but Tim Cook still decided to check-in on at least one Apple Store to gauge interest in the tiny new device.

Apple’s CEO was spotted at the Palo Alto Apple Store this morning talking to customers and employees. Cook has visited the store during previous product launches, however the crowds and lines for selfies weren’t quite as long today as usual.

Watch Cook glad-hand iPhone SE customers below:

Jony Ive is apparently not pleased with progress on the secret Apple car project.

Apple has more than 1,000 employees working on its electric car, dubbed Project Titan, but the company reportedly has put a hiring freeze in place after a post-holiday progress review revealed the Apple car isn’t on the right track.

Pretty much every company in Silicon Valley is working on a self-driving car project, and if the Obama administration has its way, they may hit the road sooner than expected.

While Apple and Google are busy developing their visions for our future Autopia, the Obama administration plans to announce its effort to boost the development of self-driving cars on Thursday.

The Apple Car has its share of skeptics, but there’s at least one person who believes it is coming, and he should know: Tesla founder Elon Musk says it’s an “open secret” that Cupertino is working to become Coupe-rtino. Get it?

Tesla CEO and all-around real-life Iron Man Elon Musk has been on quite the roll, making various verbal swipes at Apple as of late — and a new interview he gave to GQ doesn’t break the mold.

Describing Steve Jobs as “kind of a jerk,” and saying, “It’s not that I care about currying favor with Apple” before backing off his answers, the parts of Musk’s interview concerning Cupertino read like a textbook case in passive-aggressive behavior.

Whatever happened to the guy who thought an Apple Car was a “great idea?”

When it comes to innovation, American-based corporations are pushing the envelope more than any other nation and Apple is leading the charge.

According to the latest rankings from Boston Consulting, Apple was the world’s top innovator for the tenth year in a row, followed closely by Google.

A new electric car company has revved up Apple Car conspiracy theorists who think the mysterious automaker may actually be a shell company for Apple’s automotive ambitions.

Faraday Future has already pulled in $1 billion in investments and is stocking up on top Tesla talent (just like Apple), but little else is known about the new company that currently boasts over 400 employees with plans to add 100 more of the best automotive engineers and designers in the world before the end of the year.

Take a look at the rendering of their future car:

If you’re one of the lucky owners of Tesla’s super-awesome electric cars, you’re also might be one of the fortunate few that get to experience the future today.

Tesla just rolled out an over-the-air update that pushed out a semi-autonomous feature to all of its cars made and sold in the U.S. The roll-out could take up to a week.

Will you get to sit back, sipping a martini while your robot car takes you to your dentist appointment? Not yet, says company CEO Elon Musk.

“It works almost to the point where you can take your hands off,” Musk told Wired, “but we won’t say that. Almost.”

Elon Musk has hit out at Apple’s rumored electric car project, saying that it’s filling its ranks with second rank people — who Tesla has already tried out and then gotten rid of.

“They have hired people we’ve fired,” Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt. “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.”

Apple has already scooped up a cadre of automotive experts for its not-so-secret electric car project, and it appears the company just added one more Tesla Motors engineer to its growing roster.

Jamie Carlson, a senior engineer from Tesla, appears to have joined Apple’s Project Titan. His most recent LinkedIn posting that reveals he’s been working on “Special Projects” at Apple since August 2015.

Apple should buy Tesla from Elon Musk — or so thinks Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, speaking in a recent interview with Bloomberg Radio.

“The big thing they could buy that I would be impressed with is Tesla,” Munster said, referring to how Apple could spend its $203 billion in cash. “To me, when you think about that absurd amount of cash, you have to go after opportunities, and I think automotive fits within that camp.”

In a strongly worded blog post Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission derided legislative attempts to prevent consumers from buying cars directly from manufacturers. While this certainly applies to Tesla Motors’ plans to cut out the middleman on auto sales, the government position would cover any company that wishes to sell cars directly to consumers — like, say, Apple.

Can you imagine a day when we can roll into an Apple retail store, flash an Apple Watch and purchase an iCar with Apple Pay?

April Fools’ is the day that a lot of tech companies announce fake products to get a laugh. Some are good, but most suck.

Tesla has arguably won April Fools’ Day this year with its spoof of the Apple Watch.