Apple Inc. has made a move that sort-of/totally confirms rumors that have been swirling for a year. They could be manufacturing their own vehicle. Today, the company hired the former vice president of vehicle engineering at Tesla Motors, Chris Porritt. They recruited him for what Apple are calling “special projects”. On top of this, it was revealed that they also have a super-secret lab where they are building their next product. According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the lab is in Berlin and according to BGR, has 15-20 employees that have qualifications in engineering, software, hardware and sales.
Credit: ArkansasBusiness.com
The most recent rumor stipulates that the car will be out between 2019-2020 and might have self-driving capabilities as well.
Porritt, who now joins Apple, used to also be at Aston Martin and went on to work for Land Rover as well. When he was at Tesla he reportedly worked on the Model S and X platforms and met with Elon Musk on a regular basis.
According to Electrek, Musk jokes about Apple being the ‘Tesla Graveyard’. Musk apparently joked, saying: “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard’. If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple.”
Teslas has cleared up the situation since the news broke yesterday and confirmed that Porritt left Tesla in September of 2015. He is now at Apple as a “Special Projects Group PD Administrator” according to Electrek.
Nonetheless, we should be looking forward to an announcement from Apple whenever the team of engineers perfects a prototype of their not-so-secret secret vehicle they are manufacturing.