The rumors of an Apple iCar have been flooding in for long now. The story began with an assumptive report from The Wall Street Journal and spread like wildfire across the media world. As per these sources, Apple has employed a team of 1000 engineers for an automotive project. Apparently, Apple hired around 640 employees with salutary experience in automobile industry. It was also observed that a considerable percentage of this team left Tesla to join the American electronic major. Apple hired these professionals by paying very hefty perks that include a package of around $250, 000 and approx. 60 per cent raise from what Tesla was offering them. A few others came from Mercedes-Benz’s Research and Development unit. As per some sources, the project is currently being led by Steve Zadesky who was formerly with Ford.
These reports are more than enough to confirm that an Apple car is en route. Also, a car registered to Apple was recently seen riding across American streets along with 4 cameras over its roof. This ignited the idea of self-driven car from Apple. Though, the thought is strongly contradicted by the fact that the company has its own Google maps kind of thing and might be collecting information for Street View type of images.
There is also evidence that Apple has filed some patents related to some new technology in cars in last 7-8 years. For e.g., in year 2009, Apple filed patent for a “programmable tactile touch screen display and man-machine interfaces for improved vehicle instrumentation and telematics”. However, patent for an electric car is yet to be registered by the company. There is a strong possibility that the earlier patents were just related to new car technologies that aid in better synchronization of iPhones with car’s systems. But the fact that contradicts this line of thought is why would an electronic major hire 1000 automobile engineer unless it aims to build a new car. There are two strong possibilities for this either the company is developing a highly innovative system to control cars or it is building an electric car. Whatever it is, we believe that it will be a strong milestone that will pave path for new revolutions in automotive industry.
