According to the reported published on the local manager magazine cities industry scuttlebutt says that Apple reached out to BMW in 2014 in discuss the possibility of collaborating on an electric car. If you keep this thing aside, BMW’s i3 commuter car would have served as the basis of Apple’s vehicle. But it’s not clear about the automotive elements and Apple planned to borrow from BMW, but a simple rebadging is unlikely. Potentially of interest to Apple was the German carmaker’s life drive architecture a two-part design that separates i3’s passenger cabin from its drivetrain and battery module.
This is not the first time both Apple and BMW linking up to work on a car, few months back a German report automotive magazine auto motor and the sport claimed the two were in close negotiations to turn the i3 into an “Apple Car”. However, BMW denied the claim to Reuters hours after the report surfaced.
Few days before, Apple hired Doug betts, former vice president of the Chrysler group and the global head of operations leading product service and quality, continuing the company’s hiring of the automotive experts. Apple also hired Paul Furgale, researcher with specialization in autonomous vehicle.
Apple hiring talented employees from automotive industry including poaching employees from Tesla, Ford and also from GM and that company has includes hundreds of employees working on its car project. Rumours suggest that Apple aiming to produce a car by 2020, but because Apple often works on projects that never see the light of day, it’s possible the company could delay or shelve the project if it’s not happy with its progress.