Avid fans of Apple will soon be able to drive an electric car flaunting the company's famous logo.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Cupertino-based company will release its new car in 2019. The publication's tech reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi said that the company is actually working on a "committed project," hinting that the electric car will arrive soon, a report from iDigital Times said on Tuesday.
The Apple Car project was codenamed "Project Titan," and the current team working on the project is made up of 600 people. It was said that the company plans to triple the number of staff involved in the electric car project to hasten the project's timetable.
The company had reportedly spent more than a year probing the business viability and feasibility of the project.The study includes a series of meetings with two California-based government officials. It was also said that the company hired some technical experts in driverless cars.
USA Today describes Apple's plan to develop an electric car as both "bold and ambitious." It, however, stressed that the company's automotive venture will be facing a very congested industry where competition is very stiff and unbending.
"Regardless of Apple's impressive track record, it would face stiff competition, giving the growing number of entrants in the space. Besides autonomous vehicle pioneer Google, which has been testing its fleet of self-driving cars since 2009, ride-hailing giant Uber has also made noises about replacing its drivers with robots and has been hiring experts from Carnegie Mellon University at a fast clip," the report noted.
It was also reported that Apple seeks a partnership with BMW. However, as of press time, the reported partnership is not yet official, considering the complexity of the process involved in hiring, designing and building a new car from scratch. It was even noted that the company's 2019 launch date is unlikely to happen, according to iDigital Times.
