Move over Tesla, Apple Car reportedly revs its engine in secret

Apple could going from CarPlay to CarSerious

Need to drive somewhere? There may one day be an Apple Car for that, one that goes miles beyond the iPhone-compatible Apple CarPlay infotainment system.

Several hundred employees are said to be secretly working on an Apple-branded electric car, one that CEO Tim Cook greenlit almost a year ago, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While unconfirmed, the ambitious-sounding Apple Car project is said to have taken on the codename "Titan" and been set up to act as a competitor electric cars from Tesla Motors'.

The report also suggests that the alleged Apple-developed automobile is not a challenger to Google's self-driving car, which puts robots in the driver's seat instead of humans.

Not everyone wants a self-driving car anyway

Why an Apple Car makes sense

An electric car designed by Apple makes sense for a number of reasons, including backing up comments made by its own man at the top, Tim Cook.

"There are products that we're working on that no one knows about," he said in September to interviewer Charlie Rose. "That haven't been rumored about yet."

That comment happened after September's Apple Watch announcement, so the company could finally be making good on its promise to introduce new product categories - with a plural.

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And this is hardly the first time that the Apple Car development has been rumored. This week alone, there were two different reports that Apple poached staff from other top car makers.

Hit the brakes on expectations

Don't expect to be cruising around in an Apple Car any time soon. In fact, it might not even happen, as not all of the company's prototypes become full-fledged products.

After all, as ambitious as the new iPhone 6 and ultra-thin iPad Air 2 are, this is a car. It would take years for Apple to develop and obtain the safety certifications.

The teams involved could end up using all of their car-making research for other projects, from building more advanced batteries to designing a better CarPlay system to support its current projects.