I will refrain from making a joke about Apple being the dad of technology companies, but the designation would fit. The company reportedly has hundreds of employees working on building an electric car resembling a minivan, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Apple isn’t working on a self-driving car like Google, according to the Wall Street Journal’s anonymous sources, but instead focusing on electric car project code-named “Titan.”
If the company is in fact working on an electric minivan, it should come as no surprise, considering recent rumors pointing to Apple’s competition against Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors.
The company hired a number of former Tesla engineers for a top-secret project, and a van registered to Apple was seen spotted in California. Apple also added Johann Jungwirth, former president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research and Development, to its automotive research lab.
Apple’s experience with automobile software includes CarPlay, the software that mirrors your iPhone on the in-car display, and is designed to make it safer to use your iPhone while driving.
Creating an entire car line to rival Tesla’s will be a massive financial undertaking, though as the Wall Street Journal notes, the large number of employee resources dedicated to the project and the $178 billion in cash the company has makes the idea of Apple creating an electric vehicle for consumers is completely feasible.
Photo by Don DeBold/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)