Is This What The Apple Car Will Look Like?

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Analyst Gene Munster thinks Apple could see $50B in revenue a year if it builds a car

Debate about the likelihood of Apple releasing a car one day continues, and as it turns out, one of the team members said to be working on it has apparently already designed a car. Personally, it doesn’t look much like an Apple product to me, but it certainly does look like a Ford—the automaker the car was designed for.

Apple car codenamed Titan

Matt Vella of Time posted a photo of the concept car, which was designed by Marc Newson (Photo is courtesy Time.com). Multiple news outlets have reported that Apple has been hiring automotive experts, and apparently Newson is one of them.

He reportedly designed the Ford 021C, which was shown off at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1999. The name came from the orange hue described as “pantone.”

The outside of the car may not look like much, but inside, there were some pretty neat enhancements. Apparently it had swivel seats and LED lighting, which was pretty much just a novelty in those days. The car was put on display at the London Design Museum some years ago.

Apple to tap into $500 billion market?

Investors seem to be pretty positive on the idea of Apple building a car, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. Based on estimates from Edmunds and TrueCar, he estimates that the U.S. auto market sees more than $500 billion in sales each year.

If Apple was to grab just a small chunk of that, say, 10%, the company would rake in $50 billion a year in revenue. Now that would be a product big enough to make a big difference on Apple’s bottom line. Apple has one big problem currently, and that’s the law of large numbers. It’s extremely difficult to come up with a product that’s going to move the needle much on Apple’s sales, but a car would probably do it.

Munster thinks the idea of an Apple car could boost the company’s multiple and provide support for its stock over the next six months, along with the upcoming Apple Watch and the rumored Apple TV he talks about continuously.

Shares of Apple closed up by 0.49% at $127.08 per share on Friday.

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