Posted on 02/14/2015 4:07:50 AM PST by shove_it
The smoke surrounding rumors of an Apple-branded vehicle has begun to thicken, as a new report says that Apple is indeed working on an all-electric vehicle that would take the shape of a minivan, with a huge team tasked to the project.
Apple has given the project codename "Titan," according to the Wall Street Journal. The company is said to have "several hundred" employees working in the group.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly green-lighted the project almost a year ago, and company executives have already begun to meet with potential contract manufacturers, including Canadian firm Magna Steyr. Apple iPod and iPhone designer Steve Zadesky, formerly of Ford, is said to be running the project.
The team — which has its own development facility away from the main Infinite Loop campus — could eventually swell to some 1,000 employees, and Zadesky has been given free reign to pull talent from any existing Apple group. Zadesky's group is reportedly researching "robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing."
The Journal's report follows hours after a similar missive from the Financial Times, which revealed a "top-secret research lab" staffed with automotive executives. Among those who have made the move is former Mercedes-Benz R&D head Johann Jungwirth, who joined Apple as a Mac systems engineering leader last fall.
Apple design chief Jony Ive is believed to have been personally recruiting automotive executives. Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed earlier that Apple has tried "very hard" to poach engineers from the electric carmaker, offering $250,000 bonuses and 60 percent pay raises.
Rumors of an Apple-branded vehicle have been around for years, but began to gather steam when Apple was revealed as the company behind a fleet of mysterious sensor-laden vans which have appeared around the U.S. in recent months. Those vans, which are almost certainly designed for data collection to augment Apple's mapping service, are unlikely to be directly related to any potential vehicle project, which is likely years away from production.
I am in favor of Apple paying the American taxes for their profits (which they have made) and repatriating all of that money.
Yes I am. And I want them to do that right now.
I am not now, or have I ever, advocated Apple paying more corporate tax.
What I strongly believe is that Apple has billions which they won’t return home, because of taxation questions.
That I do not agree with.
Apple needs to build up America. Apple and a whole raft of other American companies are building up the country in the world with the second-largest military budget. Anywhere.
Apple is building up China.
Do not get me wrong, I am not anti-Chinese.
But I am (strongly) pro-American. And that seems to be a quality not evident anywhere anymore, in either party.
It is evident in our military. Strongly so.
But everyone else is busy selling out everything our country supposedly represents.
Bring back American jobs.
I would say that’s the purpose of a company in the good ole USA in our free enterprise system ... to make a good product that most consumers love and enjoy to use, thereby having very happy customers, ... and, as is the big purpose of business ... to make a BOATLOAD OF MONEY in taking care of their customers.
It would seem that Apple is DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT in those points (of what business is supposed to do) ... :-) ...
Apple Has 93% of Mobile Profits
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3255709/posts
Canaccord Genuity’s Mike Walkley this morning ... writes that his assessment of vendor data in smartphones suggests, whose shares he rates a Buy, captured 93% of industry profits in Q4 ... while Samsung Electronics has a minority of profit and all others operate at no profit or at a negative margin
If it’s Apple,there will be a holy water font on each door and the odor of bees wax in the air. Before you enter, remember to put on your white cassock and whisper a few words to the Father in Cupertino.
41 city, 39 hwy
The price is higher than I remembered too for MKZ Hybrid.
Leave CNN alone. He is right, and your union red herring isn’t worth a damn. Unions in manufacturing are almost dead hear in the USA - 7% participation rate and falling. The labor to make a i-phone is 3-5% of the retail price. So I think Apple could safely make them in the USA and still make a huge profit.
I wonder how much it will cost to put a set of skins on one? /rismhot
Toyota called....
They want their name back...
At this point we really don’t know what is in the works, although it does appeared to be related to an automobile. And you know that Apple isn’t going to “spill the beans” on what they’re doing ahead of time ... so this talk about what they’re doing is just a lot of speculative talk.
AND ... as Apple has said before, they’ll have a thousand “no” answers versus one “yes” answer on what they actually end up developing. A lot of the research and development they do won’t end up as a product, in other words.
As a shareholder in Apple, I’m fine with them following THE LAW and not repatriating FOREIGN profits so that Obama can tax the crap out of them. When we have a reasonable corporate tax law in the US that will change.
You've never read a history book.
So are you one of those "citizens of the world"? I'm not, I am a US citizen and screw the rest of the world.
Every founding father was a protectionist and things are worse now than at that time.
If US company wants access to the US market with off shored slave labor produced products then they should have to pay a tariff. A 10% tariff out to balance things out. They can decide whether to pass that cost on to their customer or not. Pres. Washington would approve...
See Post #28 ...
How about calling it the “Road Apple”? Some of you country folks will figure this one out...
“Apple, like Tesla, is a religion. Those who have declared fealty are legion.”
Much too broad a brush. You can find some people that will make a “religion” from almost any earthly thing. Don’t blame Apple for those looneys. I use PCs as well as Apple products. As a matter of fact, I’m using an iPad right now. I can assure you that this does not make it a religion for me. It is simply a useful tool.
Now ... you actually sound like a FReeper ... rather than the other guy! ... LOL ...
You own shares of a company in bed with the ChiComs Comrade.
Funny, I thought Apple responsibility was to their shareholders...
Advocate for getting the corporate tax laws changed and Apple will pour their profits back into America...
HAHAHA! Road Apple. HAHAHA
code name “spend cash”
You seem to be advocating Apple pay excessive corporate taxes...
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