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Mercedes-Benz Unwittingly Lends Two Former Engineers to Apple’s Car Project

One of the most mysterious projects in the automotive space, and even more bizarre then when Ferrari officially announced that it will make an SUV (or a FUV, as they call it), is the long-rumored Apple entry into the car-making business.
Apple Car Rendering 8 photos
Photo: Ashish Gogte
Apple iCar conceptApple iCar conceptApple iCar conceptApple iCar conceptApple iCar conceptApple iCar conceptApple iCar concept
Internally named ‘Project Titan,’ Apple’s automotive plan was first outlined and allegedly approved by CEO Tim Cook as early as 2014, but a heavy dose of secrecy concerning the details has loomed over the project ever since.

The latest piece of news surrounding Apple’s car ambitions comes from MacRumors, who found out that the technology company has recently poached two former engineers from Mercedes-Benz.

One of them is even based in Stuttgart, from where he previously worked for Porsche as well. His last job was at Mercedes-AMG, though, where he was in charge of “a large part of the development chain for steering systems in several Mercedes-AMG series.”

His main expertise seems to be related with electric power steering and drive-by-wire systems, because that’s what he did at Porsche as well, and this could also be one major reason for why a lot of the latest AMGs seem to feel a lot more track-focused than their predecessors.

Geeting back to the mystery of what Apple’s ‘Project Titan’ is, it was recently revealed that the technology company might want to get in cahoots with none other than Toyota to manufacture an ‘Apple car,’ even though they’re in no hurry for the time being.

As said, the initial concept was initially laid out in 2014, and a looot of rumors and hearsay have surrounded it until now, including a possible collaboration with Volkswagen and Hyundai for manufacturing.

A lot of ups and downs, leadership changes and team almost disbanding have happened since then, but many years later it looks like Project Titan is still on a relatively progressing course.

The only thing that is almost sure about the project is that the (probable) resulting car will be electric, autonomous and possibly weird-looking. Hopefully it will have a notch-less windshield.
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Editor's note: Car pictured in photo gallery is an unofficial rendering of how the 'Apple Car' might look.

About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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