We’ll admit it — we were highly, highly skeptical when earlier this week rumors started bubbling up that Apple might be looking into making a car. And while we’d still bet against an “Apple Car” coming out in the near future, a new report in The Financial Times shows that it’s time to start taking rumors about Apple getting into the car space seriously.
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According to FT’s sources, Apple “is recruiting experts in automotive technology and vehicle design to work at a new top-secret research lab.” This doesn’t prove that Apple is building a car specifically but… well, we’re not sure what else the company would be doing by hiring away vehicle design engineers from other companies.
The FT’s sources also say that “dozens of Apple employees, led by experienced managers from its iPhone unit, are researching automotive products at a confidential Silicon Valley location outside the company’s Cupertino campus.”
This makes it sound like Apple is still in the very early stages of this particular project and that nothing is guaranteed to come of it. But it certainly wouldn’t shock us if Apple were at the very least working on self-driving car technology like Google is, especially given that a mysterious fan that was registered to Apple and that was hooked up with expensive camera equipment was recently spotted roaming the streets in the Bay Area.
It goes without saying that AppleMobile rumors are definitely something we’re going to keep an eye on going forward.
