Rumors regarding the much hyped Apple Car might put some company executives on their toes, but not Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk. In one of Musk's latest interviews, he sounds excited and happy should Apple decide to enter the electric car market.
In an interview with the BBC, Musk said, "It will expand the industry. Tesla will still aspire to make to make the most compelling electric vehicles, and that would be our goal, while at the same time helping other companies to make electric cars as well."
While Apple has yet to confirm the existence of its car project, there are several rumors claiming that the tech giant has actually started developing its own car. Rumors claim that the secretive team behind Apple Car is working on what is internally known as Project Titan.
In the same BBC interview, Musk called Project Titan as an "open secret." He added, "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it."
Back in February 2015, when Apple jumpstarted Project Titan, the company was on a massive hiring spree. Throughout 2015, the Cupertino-based tech company was able to lure in top executives, engineers and experts from several companies including Nvidia, Chrysler and even Tesla.
Some startup companies even went as far as closing its operation due to alleged employee poaching made by Apple. One of these companies is A123 Systems, which is currently suing Apple. A123 Systems was one of the receiving end of Apple massive hiring drive in 2015.
Just a week ago, Apple registered several domain names which further fueled the rumor that the company is indeed working on a car project. Among these domains are apple.car and apple.auto, according to Mac World.
Although some analysts said that the recently acquired domain points to Apple's CarPlay dashboard software, a significant portion of both the tech and motoring community believe that Apple is really working on a car project.
For some analysts, Apple has a significant advantage should the company decides to enter the auto industry. For one, Apple us a newcomer into the industry which means that it has virtually zero existing customer. This means that the company is facing minimum risk for stakeholders, as well as meeting the expectations of a well-established brand name, just like the case of most auto manufacturers.