Apple 'sets shipping date for electric car'

Apple has designated building an electric car as a "committed project" and has set a target shipping date for 2019, according to reports.

The project has been codenamed Titan and its leaders have been given permission to triple the 600-person team, the Wall Street Journal claimed.

For Apple, a “ship date” doesn’t necessarily mean the date that customers receive a new product; it can also mean the date that engineers sign off on the product’s main features.

Apple spent more than a year investigating the feasibility of an Apple-branded car, including meeting with two groups of officials in California to discuss regulation of self-driving vehicles.

Reports in August revealed that Apple was developing a car and studying self-driving technology, but it was unclear if the iPhone maker was designing a vehicle that could drive itself.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

The California-based company doesn’t currently plan to make its first electric vehicle fully autonomous, WSJ said,

Mike Maletic, a senior Apple lawyer, met bosses at the California department of motor vehicles in August.

Apple has been consistently hiring car experts as part of its effort to build a team in automated driving.

Apple has hired Megan McClain, a former Volkswagen engineer with expertise in automated driving, and Vinay Palakkode, a graduate researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, a hub of automated driving research.

Apple also hired a senior engineer from electric car maker Tesla Motors, according to a LinkedIn posting.

If Apple does launch an autonomous car, it will go head-to-head with Google, whose self-driving cars have clocked up more than 1m miles since they first made it onto public roads since 2012.

Apple's shares rose 1.3pc to $114.98 on the Nasdaq.