While the company has not confirmed that it is working on its own electric vehicle, rumors keep claiming that Apple is indeed developing one.
The latest report by a news website intensifies these rumors, as it has revealed that Apple registered three car-related top-level domain names.
The registered domain names according to MacRumors are: apple.car,apple.cars and apple.auto.
Whois is a public database of domain names and owners, and its records updated on Friday reveal that in December of last year, Apple registered the three domains through sponsoring registrar MarkMonitor Inc. The addresses, however, are currently inactive.
The three domains that Apple registered could very well be related to the company's CarPlay, which is a car infotainment platform that integrates iOS capabilities into the built-in display of vehicles. In addition, Apple often registers domain names, patents and trademarks, whether or not they are actually used.
However, speculation will surely once again run rampant on the possibility that the three domains have any sort of connection with the rumored electric vehicle plans of Apple, fueled by multiple reports that the company has formed a team to work on an electric car with a possible launch date of 2019 or 2020.
Rumors intensified in October 2015 when Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the automotive industry should prepare for a "massive change." While Cook did not specifically say that Apple is the company that would be bringing this change, he did give an idea on what customers can expect from a possible Apple Car.
Cook discussed how the current cars will be shaken to the very core, and that the importance of software in vehicles is growing. He also mentioned the development of self-driving vehicles and the ongoing shift from internal combustion engines into electric engines.
Cook, however, declined to talk about whether Apple is indeed working on its own electric vehicle.
Reports that the Apple Car will be hitting the streets in 2019 surfaced a month earlier from Cook's statement on September 2015, when sources revealed that Apple is now serious with the development of its electric car. The company was said to have moved workers from different departments to work on Project Titan, which is believed to be the internal codename for the electric driving car project.
For Apple to meet the ambitious launch date of 2019, sources said that Apple will be developing an electric car that will be driven by a human driver, as opposed to earlier rumors that it will be a self-driving car. Apple, however, will still be looking to develop a self-driving vehicle in the long run.
In the same month, reports revealed that workers from electric car leader Tesla Motors are moving to work on Apple's Project Titan, with Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk stating earlier in the year that Apple has been trying to lure away Tesla employees with salary bumps and cash bonuses.
Apple is also said to have also been aggressively recruiting engineers and other workers from Ford, General Motors, A123 Systems, Nvidia and Samsung to work on its electric car.
