Apple is speeding up
Development on its electric car project, reports
The Wall Street Journal, giving it a "committed project" label and targeting
2019 as a prospective shipping date. To facilitate a faster launch,
Apple will be greatly expanding the number of people working on the car.
The go-ahead came after the company spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including meetings with two groups of government officials in California. Leaders of the project, code-named Titan , have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the people familiar with the matter said.
Apple has
already been aggressively hiring for its car project, poaching employees from companies like Ford, General Motors, Tesla, Volkswagen, and more. Many of its recent hires have expertise in connected and auto**mous vehicle systems.
The BMW i3, which Apple reportedly considered using as a base for the Apple Car
Though there have been indications suggesting
Apple is
exploring auto**mous vehicles as part of its car project,
The Wall Street Journal's sources say the first car
Apple releases will **t be driverless, with that functionality perhaps coming at a later date.
There have been also other signs pointing towards expanded work on the car project. In May,
Apple began looking into secure facilities in the Bay Area where a prototype could be tested, reportedly meeting up with officials at GoMentum Station, a secure test facility for connected and auto**mous vehicles.
Apple also
met with DMV officials in August to discuss California's auto**mous vehicle regulations.
It remains unclear if
Apple will develop its "Apple Car" from the ground up or if it will team up with an existing auto manufacturer. Rumors have suggested
Apple has held discussions with BMW over a potential partnership that would see the BMW i3 used as the basis for the
Apple Car, but those talks have reportedly
**t progressed into a deal.
The Wall Street Journal warns that Apple's
2019 target
Date might **t be the
Date in which
Apple will actually ship the car, instead suggesting it could point towards the
Date that engineers confirm the main features of the product. It's also possible that given the scope of the project there could be delays, with "people familiar with the project" expressing skepticism that
2019 is a reasonable target date.
In an interview with Stephen Colbert last week, Tim Cook was asked about the car project, but he
unsurprisingly avoided the question with a vague statement. "We look at a number of things along the way, and we decide to really put our energies on a few of those," he said.
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