The rumors about Apple releasing a car have just deepened with a new report suggesting that the company is speeding up its efforts with the goal of launching the rumored vehicle as soon as 2019. With all the reports about a possible Apple car, there’s been debate back and forth about how likely the company is to actually put a car on the market or whether it will be scrapped entirely.
However, The Wall Street Journal reports that on an internal basis, Apple has changed the car to “committed” status and is targeting ship dates in 2019.
Apple to move forward on car
The Dow Jones Newswires and The WSJ both had reports about the rumored Apple car up at about the same time. Media outlets have been reporting for quite some time that Apple is referring to its car project as “Project Titan” and that the company has hired several engineers with expertise in the automotive industry, including several from Tesla Motors.
According to The Wall Street Journal, an Apple team spent over a year looking into whether it is feasible for Apple to sell its own branded car. The newspaper also reports that an Apple team met with two different groups of California government officials. Further, the Project Titan team has apparently received approval from upper level Apple management to triple their number. Apple’s car team already had 600 people, according to the report.
Apple’s car not fully autonomous
It’s widely expected that any car Apple would sell will be fully electric and possibly fully autonomous. However, the report also states that Apple isn’t planning on making its first EV driverless, although making it fully autonomous is said to be a long term goal of Project Titan.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Apple’s car development goes, assuming all these rumors are true, because the way it does business is so different than the business model of traditional automakers. However, Tesla has demonstrated that it’s time for big changes in the automotive industry, and Apple could have taken notice.
With a history of transforming industries, there’s little doubt that the company will change up the auto-building process. Automakers have traditionally manufactured their own vehicles, something Tesla has continued although it has changed other elements of the industry and proven itself to be a disruptor.