Apple's new projects have always been a cause of public speculation, and excitement. One of the greatest by far in the companys on set of mystery projects is the question: Is Apple coming up with its own car, the iCar?
One of the many things that gave rise to the rumors of Apple's own iCar is when Ford executive Don Butler welcomed competition from Apple and Google. He claimed it was a "change they were embracing", in an interview with TrustedReviews.
Apple's purchase of car-related domain names was another clue for iCar speculations out there. Whois, a service that locates data about specific domain names and IP addresses, revelaed that Apple had bought domain names related to cars, like apple.car, apple.cars and apple.auto in December 2015. It is, however, significant that none of these domains are active at present.
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has also reportedly talked about Apple's iCar when he spoke to BBC. Musk seemed confident that Apple would make a compelling electric car, even saying it was "the obvious thing to do."
There is also speculation that a new car manufacturer, Faraday Future, could be a front for Apple's electric car, if there is to be one.
Faraday Future, a relatively new manufacturer first came up earlier this year as a Tesla competitor. Interestingly, both companies' namesakes are famous scientists, Nikola Tesla and Michael Faraday. They are both also interested in electric vehicles.
Faraday Future's plans were unclear in the beginning, but the company recently proclaimed they'd be investing $1 billion in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in either California, Georgia, Louisiana or Nevada.
Apple, reports claim, has bought a massive land in California. Interestingly, it is exactly where Faraday Future said they'd be investing.
The new company has also received a huge $1 billion in funding. Word has it that Apple is behind that, too. That along with the fact that no CEO has been announced for Faraday Future, instigates one iCar sized rumor in your hands.
It is hard to hide a project as big as the iCar considering the large amount of experts needed. The Wall Street Journal claims that Doug Betts has been hired by Apple. Betts has 25 years of experience working for Nissan and Toyota; and the fact that he changed his LinkedIn profile to describe his current job as "operation-Apple Inc."
Apple has also reportedly hired Paul Furgale, Swiss researcher responsible for the V-Charge project developing self-parking cars, and battery experts from Samsung.
Project Titan's growing size - tripling, namely - could also be evidence of the iCar. A recent report from the Wall Street Journal claims that Project Titan went from a 600-person team to an 1800-person team.
