As Apple’s code-named Project Titan inhales Silicon Valley’s brightest car brains, it’s left enemies swirling in its wake. The tug-of-war grew tense with Tesla, as evidenced by Musk famously stating, “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.” At a recent press dinner in Palo Alto, I sat next to an executive with a German brand who heads an SV tech center. “We’re battling to hang onto people,” he said after a few drinks. “Recently, we actually hired somebody back from Apple. It felt like a victory.”

An estimated 1,000 people are thought to be working at an Apple complex in Sunnyvale, California, according to AppleInsider. Operating under an apparent shell name, “SixtyEight Research,” employees have supposedly been told to turn around their Apple name badges (which already have their Apple logos deleted).

And then there are the autonomous rumors. Apple has pored over the fine points of self-driving regulation with the California DMV. It’s supposedly negotiated use of the nearby GoMentum Station (the repurposed Concord Naval Weapons facility that’s now the nation’s largest secure autonomous-focused test site).

Early sightings of a camera-festooned Dodge Grand Caravan sparked speculation that the van was actually an autonomous prototype. Apple made a rare comment to quell the chatter: wrong, everybody. They’re just compositing their own version of Street View for Apple Maps. So maybe the car isn’t a minivan. Then what is it?

APPLE SEEDS Initial sketch work begins to take shape. It features simple, seamless surfaces with minimal shut lines and an emphasis on truth in materials.

In September 2015, the car was allegedly raised to “committed project” status with a 2019 release date, presumably meaning its design completion. But after a program review, Ive “expressed his displeasure.” Reportedly, it was not moving fast enough. The program was in disarray. Its goals were unclear. (Meanwhile, management was accused of unrealistic targets). Ive froze the hiring spree that was projected to spiral toward 1,800 employees, AppleInsider heard. And program head, Steve Zadesky—who spent six years with Apple after a stint with Ford—resigned, though it’s said he did so for personal reasons. In 2019, Apple laid off nearly 200 employees from the project.

Ive, the world’s most celebrated industrial designer, is the Cupertino Car Czar. Once tempted by a Royal College of Art’s automotive class, he instead chose industrial design at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University) and later became Jobs’ right hand. And what does he drive? A Bentley Mulsanne and an Aston Martin DB4.

His design co-conspirator, Marc Newson, penned Ford’s 1999 021C concept for J Mays and curiously also owns an Aston Martin, a 1929 Bugatti, a ’50s Ferrari, and a Lamborghini Miura. (Another Apple designer, Julian Hönig, previously worked at Lamborghini.) These are impeccable-taste, Goodwood-attending, genuine car guys. And Newson, for one, has a dim view of current automotive design. Per a Wall Street Journal interview, “There were moments when cars somehow encapsulated everything that was good about progress. But right now we’re at the bottom of a trough.”

OK, everyone. Imagine Apple is our client, and we’re going to brainstorm what its car will be.

“My iPhone has become my social life and my career life,” Chudasama says. “I don’t really use this to make calls. I use it for everything else. So if they can make a telephone—something that’s been around a hundred years—part of your way of life, what will they do with a car?”

“You tell me,” I reply.

“It’ll be your entire way of life,” Chudasama says. “And probably also the walled garden that turns some people off but others want for the impeccable experience someone else has anticipated for you. Tesla is kinda there; the BMW i3 isn’t there yet, but aesthetics aside, it’s a really easy-to-use car, simple to get into its back seat.”

There’s immediate dissension. “I totally disagree,” Huntzinger says.

“The i3 is Windows. They’ve crammed too much functionality into the vehicle, so it actually gets in the way of the experience. The eucalyptus wood is cool, but if you count them, there are 35 different materials in your field of view.”

Reed takes the high ground. “I just got out of a meeting with a manufacturer who is now calling their designers ‘experience designers,’ ” he says. “Their team sounds like a movie crew: acoustics, haptics, interpreters. To me, that would be an Apple approach.”