Just because Apple is a company that is known for their phones, tablets, and computers doesn’t mean that they can’t branch out into other industries, like automotive for example. A report from The Wall Street Journal is claiming that Apple is working on an electric car of their own codenamed “Project Titan”.The vehicle is said to resemble that of a minivan, which seems to corroborate the earlier photos of a mysterious Apple vehicle spotted on the roads, and that there are several hundred employees who are already attached to the project. However as The Wall Street Journal notes, it is possible that this electric car might remain as it is, a prototype for now.
Apple might instead use the technologies involved in building an electric vehicle to help advance some of their existing products. This isn’t the first time Apple has done that (or other companies for that matter), so we guess it shouldn’t really come as a surprise, but given that there are hundreds of employees on the team, it does indicate how serious Apple is taking this.
It has also been rumored that Apple executives has flown to Austria to meet up with contract manufacturers for high-end cars. The project, which is said to have been approved a year ago by Tim Cook, is apparently led by Steve Zadesky who used to be an engineer at Ford and who has also led teams who created the iPod and the iPhone.
Rumors of Apple’s interest in vehicles started over a week ago when a minivan was spotted on the road belonging to Apple with some interesting gadgetry at the top. It was suggested that either Apple could be interested in mapping technology similar to what Google has done for Street View, or it could be used towards self-driving cars.
We have also heard the rumors of Apple trying to poach employees from Tesla, a company that is leading the charge and is well-known for their electric vehicles. This was later followed by another rumor that suggested that Apple was looking to give Tesla a “run for its money”. Back in September last year, Cook even hinted to Charlie Rose that Apple is working on products that there haven’t even been any rumors about. “There are products that we’re working on that no one knows about. That haven’t been rumored about yet.”
In any case it should all be taken with a grain of salt for now, but what do you guys make of this rumor?
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