For over a year now we’ve constantly been hearing that Apple is interested in making an all-electric and possibly self-driving car. The company is said to have poached employees from top legacy automotive firms and even relative newcomers like Tesla which has already made a name for itself in the electric car market. A new report suggests that Apple is running a secret car lab in Berlin where a few dozen employees are working on its car project.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Apple has a secret facility in Berlin which is staffed with up to 20 “top-class” employees from Germany’s leading automotive industry that’s home to behemoths like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.
The small team is said to have backgrounds in diverse fields like hardware, sales, engineering, and software. Apparently the lab is like an incubator for ideas where these talented individuals can work on ideas for vehicles of the future and also looking at potential manufacturing partnerships, address regulatory issues and sales concerns.
The report also claims that Apple’s first car, whenever it arrives, will be all-electric but those initial models will not have self-driving capabilities. It’s unclear who the company will link up with for production once it decides that it’s really going ahead with this plan to pivot into a car maker.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Car and Electric Cars.