Apple plans to start producing electric vehicles by 2020: report

Apple aims to begin producing an electric vehicle as early as 2020, Bloomberg cited people with knowledge of the matter as saying, a seemingly aggressive target for a mobile devices maker with little experience in car manufacture.

The iPhone maker is pushing its “car team” of about 200 people to meet that goal, Bloomberg reported. But Apple may decide to scrap its car-making effort, or delay it, if executives grew unhappy with its progress, the news agency cited the people as saying.

Last week, a report revealed that Apple has a secret lab working on the creation of an Apple-branded electric car.

Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems has snow reportedly sued Apple for poaching top engineers to build a large-scale battery division, according to a court filing that offered further evidence that the iPhone maker may be developing a car.

Apple is said to be poaching engineers with deep expertise in car systems, including from Tesla, and talking with industry experts and automakers with the ultimate aim of learning how to make its own electric car.

Around June 2014, Apple began aggressively poaching A123 engineers tasked with leading some of the company’s most critical projects, the lawsuit said. The engineers jumped ship to pursue similar programs at Apple, in violation of their employment agreements, A123 said in a filing earlier this month in Massachusetts federal court.

“Apple is currently developing a large-scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123,” the lawsuit read. The suit was reported earlier by legal website law360.com.

Neither Apple nor A123 immediately responded to requests for comment and Apple has not responded to the allegations in the complaint. The company also sued five former A123 employees, who could not be reached for comment.

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