Apple’s car team
Apple is pushing to launch its own electric car by the year 2020, according to a new Bloomberg report citing “people with knowledge of the matter.” The company has been rumored in recent weeks to be working on the project in secret, with some claiming that Tim Cook authorized it as much as a year ago.
Apple has been poaching employees from Tesla Motors, battery technology manufacturers, and elsewhere in an effort to build a team of experts to work on the vehicle, currently codenamed “Titan.” Whether this car will be a self-driving vehicle is still unknown, with some reports claiming that it will and others contradicting that idea. Apple employees have said, however, that it will “give Tesla a run for its money” when it’s released.
We may have already seen some technology prototypes rolling through New York, San Francisco, and other major cities in recent months—though the vehicles spotted in those areas could possibly be related to a separate mapping project.
2020 is an ambitious goal for this project, giving Apple just six years to learn (or buy) everything it needs to know about building a vehicle. That’s where the recent hiring spree and the past year of team-building come into play, but whether that alone will be enough to push Titan to market just five years from now remains to be seen.
Bloomberg highlights the fact that competitors like Tesla are already aiming to debut sub-$40,000 electric cars capable of getting 200 miles per charge by 2017, giving them a three-year lead on Apple. It won’t be the first time the Cupertino company has been a little late to the party, but with this being the farthest thing from consumer electronics the company has ever attempted, such a lead could give competitors a bigger edge than with previous Apple releases.
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Interesting that we haven’t heard anything from the NYT yet.
NYT confirmed our own reporting tonight.
This just doesn’t make any sense. Apple refuses to make bigger iPads in the name of “focus”. Now they’re building cars?? What’s next an Apple clothing line? What happened to a “thousand no’s for every yes”?
I thought a larger iPad was coming out this year.
That is the rumor. Funny how a supposed product that’s like five years away is getting more teeth than one that’s supposedly out later this year
Its all about patents. They have 5 years to patent any electric or self driving car idea they can come up with and then decide if they actually want to launch a car or just use the patents to sue google.
Tesla recently open sourced a lot of their parents which is a handy start in building a car.
Ok now we’re getting into absurd territory. It took Apple 3+ years to do the Watch and we’re supposed to believe they’re going to do an EV in 5 years? Hogwash.
you suggested this wasn’t happening and there was little to no evidence it was. There’s actually overwhelming evidence now. The thing you need to keep in mind is that we have next to zero details about the project, other than they’re working on an electric vehicle. That said, it has been rumored that Cook approved a team of 1000 people. Since none of us know how many people were working on the Watch, other than Jony Ive specifically stating it was a ‘relatively small team’, you can’t compare the two in any way. I’d say they’re using a tremendous amount of people for this project.
That’s five years from NOW. That doesn’t mean they just started the project. If you believe the rumors this project was started a little over a year ago.
2014 – 2020 is 6 years.
The development cycle for existing automakers is 5 years. And Apple who has never built a car and has been hiring battery specialists is going to design and build one in 5 years… sure.
By far the most ridiculous prediction ever.
Pretty soon we’ll start hearing that Foxconn has won the contract to start building the transmissions that Apple has designed…
Is Apple developing some battery technology? Sure. Is Apple looking at self driving technology? Sure. But to just go off and build a car in 5 years. Nope.
I disagree, with 180 Billion cash on hand they are one of the few companies in the world who CAN pull off designing an electric car in just 5 years. Most of the technology they need is already out there and we know they are pouring wads of cash into building a dream team too make it happen.I think this has been something that Jobs has always dreamed of doing. I think that now Apple is on top. Cook is going to make it happen. Don’t underestimate Apple. They have the cash, they are assembling the talent and there is no doubt in my mind if they build it people will buy it and they will realize huge profit margins per car just like with everything else because we will want it.
I wonder if your comment will make the Daring Fireball claim chowder section in 6-7 years. I agree that a car is a long shot, but what Apple does best is Design and Engineering. Above all else, what makes great cars?
>>Dan Exby (@dan_exby) says:
>>Pretty soon we’ll start hearing that Foxconn has won the contract to start building the >>transmissions that Apple has designed…
And the reason Apple would need to design a transmission for an electric car would be?
Some of you are comical genii. It’s even funnier when you try to act like you know how to run a near-trillion dollar company, or what it takes to invent sh*t or how to build stuff.
Do you even SCIENCE, bruh?
Great move by apple. They can use this time to see which of the competitors cares the market likes and then copy it!
Whats the next step? A motorcycle? Refrigerator? Microwave?
Will Apple be the next Samsung?
Jesus relax 1. it’s only a research project at this point 2. and from the looks of it the majority of the team are not current employees. 3. Apple tends to gravitate to products they’re not happy with. 4. Everyone owns a car. 5. Car makers don’t want to give Apple the level of control Apple would like. 6. Apple likes to control the full experience. 7. Steve Jobs said in his biography that’d had he had more time he would have likes to have took on Detroit. 8. Cars are become smart and electric cars are simpler than combustion cars. 9. It sits perfectly well with Apple new-lined goals to lead in tech regarding looking after Mother Earth. 10. Apple knows simplicity and Apple knows design and those are things certainly lacking in the car world right now.
So ScamScum should be announcing their electric car will be for sale in 2019.
Maybe this whole rumour is just an elaborate trick to make Samsung waste their resources building a copy of a car that doesn’t exist and never will.
Genius move. I might have started smaller with an iToilet. Samsung’s Android version to perform detailed dietary analysis on your excrement, users later shocked when they check their google history and can find out what they ate every day for the last decade. Please log in with your Google account before you make your “deposit.”
I believe that there is credence to this story. Poaching major names in the car industry and building a team that consists of 1,000 people is too big a of project to be focused on niche products like CarPlay or their mapping technology. However, releasing a car by 2020 is sketchy at best. Many techies and media outlets insisted that the Apple Watch would be released by Valentine’s Day. Lo and behold, the date was incorrect.
My major interest is how Apple will try to avoid car-related deaths. Of course, the easy answer would be a ‘driverless’ vehicle. But that seems unlikely even 5 years from now. It’s strange to imagine that there will be a first person to die in a car made by Apple. How would it happen? When? Why? Would there be recalls? How would the company respond? It’s easy for us to imagine this sort of thing happening in a car made by any other manufacturer because they are faceless giants, and we’ve been inundated by news stories of cars malfunctioning. But people hold Apple to a very high standard. Would Apple
just become another faceless giant when the death toll starts rising?
Lastly, it is really hard to imagine Apple selling their vehicles on traditional car lots. So I’m wondering how people will shop for these vehicles. Will they be purchased online? How will people get a chance to test drive an Apple Car? Will Apple work in conjunction with auto dealerships? I would not want to buy an Apple Car from a slimy car salesman. Sadly, though, I would buy any other make of vehicle from a slimy car salesman. But that goes back to holding Apple to a higher standard.