The New Kid In Electric Vehicle Making: Don’t Put The Apple Car Before The Horse Yet

It may sound funny, but there may be a new player in the Electric Vehicle market: The Apple Car.

BGR is reporting that Apple is and has been “recruiting experts in automotive technology and vehicle design to work at a new top-secret research lab.” Apple is known for gleaning information from other industries to help make their products better, so this bit of news doesn’t necessarily mean Apple is looking into electric car building… yet.

It has also been reported that “dozens of Apple employees, led by experienced managers from its iPhone unit, are researching automotive products at a confidential Silicon Valley location outside the company’s Cupertino campus.”

There’s still nothing concrete about an Apple car, but there is reason to believe that something is coming. There was also a report that Apple has leased a mysterious vehicle equipped with multiple cameras that’s driving around the Bay Area. Now, one of two things come into play: either Apple is embellishing on Apple Maps (the most plausible) or Apple is working on some self-driving car technology similar to Google.

The report later states that the minivan was carrying far too many cameras for the minivan to be simply collecting street images.

With the other items presented, an Apple car is possible, but the public will wait.

Now, a report from Syracuse.com tells us that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the people Apple hired to work on that secret project — code name “Titan” — are developing an electric vehicle. The newspaper cites people familiar with the project who spoke anonymously.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment.

The article goes on to say that the car will be a minivan-style car branded by Apple. Apple confirmed that Marc Newson, who once created a concept car for Ford, is currently working on the secretive Apple project.

If they do indeed throw their hat into the electric car market, Apple will have company. General Motors announced Thursday it will release the Chevrolet Bolt, It will be built at a plant in Detroit, and it will have a range of 200 miles. Starting cost for the Bolt will be $37,500. That does not take into account the $7,500 federal tax credit purchasers will get for buying an electric car. The Bolt will be released in 2017.

Silicon Valley automaker Tesla Motors will release the Model 3, also with a 200-mile range. It will be released around the same time as the Bolt, but with the tax credit, the price should be well below $30,000.

Nissan has released the Leaf worldwide but has only sold 158,000 units since its release.

Still, with Apple being as secretive as usual, there is no definite word. However, with the number of senior Apple executives involved, it looks more and more like it will come to pass.

[Image courtesy of waracle.com]