Get ready for the Apple Car, reports say

This story, first published February 13, has been updated with a new podcast recorded Feb. 17 with reporter Marco della Cava.

SAN FRANCISCO – What's next, the Apple House?

The i-Everything company's ambitions seem to be growing larger by the day, perhaps buttressed by hitting a staggering $700-billion valuation this week. So it's perhaps little surprise that after successfully tackling personal computers, smartphones and watches, the buzz in some tech circles is that Apple has set its sights on building a car.

While the idea may seem far-fetched – Apple CEO Tim Cook need only chat up Tesla founder Elon Musk to learn about the rough roads facing the upstart automotive manufacturer – a number of speculative reports suggest it's a possibility.

The Silicon Valley powerhouse is secretly hiring experts with auto backgrounds in an effort that would meet autonomous-car-crazed Google head on.

The most high profile Apple hire associated with the theory is Johann Jungwirth, formerly the head of Mercedes-Benz's Silicon Valley research and development division, according to a report in the Financial Times. The British newspaper's Friday report, citing unnamed sources, adds that top Apple executives including design guru Jony Ive have been meeting in a secret off-campus lab to discuss an automotive project.

While such a venture could be focused on expanding the performance of the company's existing CarPlay technology – which syncs many features in an iPhone to a vehicle's infotainment system – "I think it's (to build) a car," said the FT's source.

According to a Wall Street Journal report Friday, also citing unnamed sources, Apple has several hundred employees working on a project code-named Titan, which may be focused on a battery-powered minivan. If this were true, going from idea stage to Apple Cars on the road would require years of testing and regulatory hurdles.

Nonetheless, earlier this month Business Insider reported that an Apple employee emailed the publication saying simply, "Apple's latest project is too exciting to pass up. I think it will change the landscape and give Tesla a run for its money."

Bryan Chaffin, founder of the Apple-focused site The Mac Insider, reported that "a lot of people at the top in Silicon Valley consider it a given that Apple is working on a car."

Apple declined to comment.

The Cupertino company's crosstown tech rivals Google have been hard at work for years on a self-driving car. That mission inched closer to reality last month, when its gear-laden autonomous Lexus RX models were replaced by small white pods that look plucked from a science fiction comic book.

Google may also be getting into the ride-hailing game along with Uber, suggesting that it may want to develop a network of pods linked together by an app.

Whatever the truth of these Apple rumors, there's no denying the increasingly intertwined nature of the technology and automotive worlds. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, 10 car manufacturers dominated an entire hall.

One prominent CES attendee, Ford, recently opened a new Silicon Valley campus with a mission to ramp up staffing from 20 to 125 by year's end. The man they hired to head their newly expanded operation, Dragos Maciuca, is a former Apple engineer who previously had worked at BMW's Silicon Valley R&D lab.

Ford CEO Mark Fields made it clear at the new lab's unveiling that a lot of the work being done will focus on "what transportation looks like in the future." That's a future Apple clearly wants to be a part of one way or the other, even if the current scuttlebutt proves to be hyperbole.

"The automotive industry is changing quickly because of technological advances, government regulations and even consumer preference, (which) is making it more challenging for the established players to retain dominance, while simultaneously creating opportunities for new companies," says Karl Brauer, senior analyst at Kelley Blue Book.

"Automotive design and assembly remains a demanding and expensive foray, certainly one not to be entered lightly," he says. "But the money flowing into the technology sector suggests a new car could emerge from this industry, with tech titans like Apple and Google being the most obvious candidates."