Former Tesla Supervisor Returns To Apple, Fueling New Project Titan Rumors

After years of rumors, there is a new reason to believe computer and smartphone giant Apple is interesting in producing vehicles again.

Doug Field, a former Apple employee who once left the company to supervise the production of Tesla’s embattled Model 3 electric car, is reportedly back with Apple. He has joined the team led by Apple engineer Bob Mansfield that is rumored to be working on Apple’s Project Titan autonomous vehicle operation, Daring Fireball first reported.

Field and Mansfield may have developed rapport when both of them worked in Apple’s hardware division. That ended when Field bolted to Tesla five years ago. He spent much of that time focused on Model 3 production, which has been a source of investor anxiety for Tesla due to delayed manufacturing.

Thanks to his history at both Apple and Tesla, the consensus seems to be that Field is working in some capacity on Project Titan. Rumors about Titan have circulated after work started on the project in 2014. For years, it was believed that Apple would manufacture its own vehicles with proprietary autonomous driving tech.

Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed the company would try to make self-driving tech in 2017, which fueled speculation that Apple had given up on the vehicle manufacturing part of Titan. Photos and vehicles emerged that year that claimed to show an Apple self-driving device on top of cars not made by Apple.

Aside from Cook’s 2017 comments, Apple has scarcely acknowledged or confirmed the existence of Titan. A new line of vehicles from a high-profile tech company would immediately draw comparisons to Tesla. Elon Musk’s electric car company has burned through cash over the years and suffered on the stock market. Musk insists Tesla will be profitable soon.

On the other hand, Apple just hit $1 trillion in market value, the first company from the United States to do so. Apple has a sustainable and highly profitable operation between hardware and services. If it did decide to get into the same game as Tesla, it might be able to more reliably withstand the financial pressure of vehicle manufacturing.