A Reuters report said that Apple is pushing ahead with the self-driving car technology it hopes to produce beginning in 2024, and may include its own battery technology.
The company started its efforts in this field in 2014 by designing its own car in a project known as "Project Titan", but at some point it backed away from those efforts and reassessed its goals.
Doug Field - who worked for Tesla - returned to oversee the project in 2018, laying off 190 people from the team in 2019, and since then Apple has made enough progress that it is now aiming to build a car for consumers.
Central to Apple's strategy is the design of a new battery that can drastically reduce the cost of batteries and increase the range of driving.
Building a vehicle is a challenge to the supply chain even for Apple, which manufactures hundreds of millions of electronic products each year with parts from all over the world, but has never built a car, and it took Tesla electric vehicles 17 years to achieve sustainable profits.
"It's not a mobile phone, but if there is one company on this planet that has the resources to do that it is probably Apple," said one person who worked on Project Titan of Apple's ambition.
Tesla electric car company took 17 years before it made sustainable profits (Getty Images)
It is not clear which company might collect the Apple-branded car, and sources expected the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build the vehicles.
Apple may decide at any time to reduce its efforts to an autonomous driving system that integrates with a car made by traditional car manufacturers instead of selling a car of its trademark.
The company decided to take advantage of external partners for system elements, such as Lidar sensors that help self-driving cars obtain a 3D view of the road.
Apple's car may include several lidar sensors to scan different distances, and some sensors can be derived from the internally developed lidar units in the iPhone 12 Pro (iPhone 12 Pro) phones for this year.
As for the car battery, Apple plans to use the unique single-cell design that increases the size of individual cells in the battery and saves interior space by eliminating units that contain battery materials.
This design means that more active materials can be packed into the battery, giving its electric cars a longer range.
The company is examining the LFP battery, short for lithium iron phosphate, and is less prone to overheating, making it safer than other types of lithium-ion batteries.
"It's the next level of batteries," said a person familiar with Apple's battery technology. "It would be like the first time I saw an iPhone."
Apple began its efforts in 2014 by designing its own car in a project known as "Project Titan" (communication sites).
A source familiar with the matter said that Apple had previously involved Magna International in talks about building a car, but the talks fizzled out because Apple's plans became unclear.
To reap the profits, car manufacturers often request contracts that can pose a challenge even to Apple, which will be a newcomer to the auto market.
"In order to have a viable assembly plant, you need contracts to manufacture 100,000 vehicles annually, with a larger volume in the future," the source said.
Some Apple investors responded to the Reuters report on the company's plans with caution. Tripp Miller, managing partner at Gullane Capital Partners - one of the capital companies invested in Apple - said that it might be difficult for Apple to produce large quantities of the cars.
"It seems to me that if Apple developed some advanced operating system or battery technology, it would be better to use it in partnership with a company that is currently manufacturing under license," Miller said.
"The US company has a history of taking risks higher than most auto makers," said Hal Edens, chief economist at Capital Investment Consulting, a shareholder also in Apple.
"My initial reaction as a shareholder is to be surprised. I still don't see attractive in the auto industry, but maybe Apple is looking to another angle than what I see," he added.