Rumours of an “iCar” by Apple seem to be real now: Look out, Toyota.

Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:50 pm

Anyone fancies an iCar?

No, this is not a joke. According to Reuters and many other news outlets, it is almost a certainty that Apple is now looking to build their own cars. Code-named “Titan” with hundreds of employees working on it, it will most likely be a self-driving electric car and look like a minivan.

In addition, according to various sources, it seems like Apple might be doing it themselves instead of collaborating with a car manufacturer. Google has been open about the production and trials of their self-driving cars for years, and they have been using Toyota cars since their priority is the software and the system. However, Apple might be even developing the car themselves—that could suggest a car that is “totally Apple”. This seems to be in line with the phone industry now: when Google build their own line of phones (the Nexus series), they’ve collaborated with manufacturers like Asus, in which the final product will have both Asus and Google brand on it. But for Apple, let’s just say that it’s solely Apple.

To do so, Apple has been aggressively engaging automotive engineers. Wired did a LinkedIn search and showed that forty-six Apple employees were formerly from Tesla, a US car manufacturer. Also, there were 640 Apple employees who have experience in the automotive industry.

Apple has always branded their products as high-quality and exclusive to almost a cult phenomenon. If this turns out to be true, we could well be seeing Apple cars around. Phones? We do not know whether iPhone will still be around when we’ve iCar.

However, what is even more interesting is this: With both Google and Apple now entering the automotive industry, one can only wonder whether in 2040, everything we buy or use is by tech companies like Google, Apple or Facebook.