Rumor has it Apple is building a car. Three events played a catalyst role in spicing up these rumors. First, a year ago Apple met with Elon Musk of Tesla to discuss some sort of partnership or acquisition. Second, Apple released CarPlay last year, which is a device running iOS that connects with automobile dashboards to bring features such as maps, music and custom apps to cars everywhere. Last but not the least, a couple of weeks ago Apple hired Mercedes Benz’s R&D head Johann Jungwirth.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle. The project is code-named ‘Titan’ and consists of a team working on the design of a vehicle that resembles a mini-van, one of the people said.
From Apple’s meeting with Elon Musk, one deduction is that they may be in talks to improve Tesla’s next-generation in-car interface. As we all know, there is no company better fit than Apple to improve Tesla’s brilliant full-touch interface and such a project does need a sizable team.
However, this isn’t the first time an Apple car has been rumored. Back in 2007, it was reported that Apple were in talks with Volkswagen for a potential partnership to build cars.
Apple’s interest in cars is evident through its CarPlay project, which is a big collaborative endeavor to build compatible dashboard units. Apple has partnered with some of the biggest names in the car industry like Mazda and Audi.
We must consider the fact that it is a lot harder to sell a car as compared to a phone, tablet or laptop, because cars have a longer lifespan than the one-to-two years found in the gadget market.
However, cars do have huge margins that could prove to be lucrative. Although, after watching Tesla struggle in making a sizable profit, building a car seems rather an elusive objective. Moreover, the statistics suggest that car sales have been declining for a number of years.
It is quite evident that Apple is working with car makers to produce car-related components. What one can assume is that those 1,000 employees are part of a giant project that is working on an improved version of CarPlay, battery technology or self-driving technology. It looks like Apple would get better value out of building components of a car, without building the vehicle itself.
Wrap Up
As the rumor suggests, it is possible that Apple is building a car and there is a large amount of R&D conducted towards this project. However, the facts suggest that it looks quite unlikely that Apple will build an entire car in the next five years. Moreover, it is favorable for Apple to use the project to research new technologies for cars rather than actually creating the vehicle itself.
