As it continues to lay the foundation to grow sales and profits, while the iPhone and iPad mature, Apple has a number of intriguing growth drivers making their way to the marketplace. The Wall Street Journal has spoken to people that have said employees from across the company have been re-assigned, beefing up the original 600-person team working on it. Apparently there are around 1800 people now involved with the project. There are now reports coming through in the Wall Street Journal that Apple will be coming out with its first electric auto in 2019. WSJ even said there were doubts within Apple that the target date could be met, citing a source “familiar with the matter”.
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Since February of this year, Apple managed to snag such stellar automotive talents as Paul Furgale, the Swiss researcher who led the V-Charge project developing self-parking cars.
The 2019 target date looks impossible as of now.
Analysts are exceedingly optimistic about Apple’s prospects, contending that the potential of technology giants disrupting the automotive industry is defiant enough to change the way investors perceive transportation. But even with its reputation for design and supply chain excellence, can Apple rewrite the industry rules? Tesla’s Elon Musk, chief executive of the company also told WSJ that auto building is an enormously expensive feat and costs well over $1 billion to produce the over 10,000 components in a vehicle.
What remains to be a mystery however is whether or not Apple will team up with a major automaker to built its future cars or will be completely self-reliant on its own resources, similarly to Tesla Motors.
Apple has ccome a long way from the focused 2×2 matrix that Steve Jobs reportedly drew when refocusing Apple’s product portfolio upon his return to Apple in 1997. Having said that, the company to which Apple is perhaps most often compared within the tech sector, Tesla, found that shipping automobiles on time was critical.
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Additionally, the project is still four years away from the projected launch date, a lot could change between now and then so things could change.
