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Apple Car will arrive in 2021, says analyst

The fabled Apple Car will arrive in 2021 with a price tag of $75,000, according to senior research analyst Gene Munster.

Munster, who is also a managing director for US investment bank Piper Jaffray, wrote a white paper on the subject of ‘Apple Titan’ – the alleged codename of the Apple Car project – back in October 2015 and has recently elaborated.

In an interview with AppleCarFans.com, Munster said: “There will be a car that you can see and order in 2019-2020. We don’t think it will probably be delivered until after that… maybe 2021.”

He went on to say it would be advantageous for Apple to show its car early, explaining that doing so would, “hold up the market in anticipation”.

On the subject of who would actually build the car, Munster believes it will be 80 per cent outsourced, much like the iPhone.

“They can still design the car themselves, the phone they don’t build, they fund their supply chain. From our perspective it would be a similar model that in they are involved in the quality of the product,” he said.

Despite key figures departing from Project Titan, including division chief Steve Zadesky (who stepped down for “personal reasons”), Munster remains positive the electric Apple Car will go ahead.

“We still hold to a greater than fifty percent likelihood the project is alive and funded and a greater than 50 percent chance it is unchanged.

“The reason why our number isn’t higher is that we were wrong on the [Apple] television and I learned some lessons about things we hear internally and how that resulted in a lack of a project.

“The idea they’re working on a car doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to make it to market. Fifty to sixty percent is still pretty optimistic.”

As to why Apple would decide to enter into an entirely new market (and a fiercely competitive one at that), Munster said Apple’s priority was growth and looking where the business will go in the long run. “Apple thinks about how they are going to be in business the next 200 years.”

So how much would the Apple Car cost? Munster was surprisingly bullish, stating “around $75,000″. His reason? “If you look at the overall automotive industry Apple historically plays toward the high-end.”

If a project of this size really is going on, Apple will struggle to keep it quiet forever. “I think there is going to be a long steady flow of information. Hard to keep that under wraps,” he explained. Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a similar point back in 2015.

Admittedly, there is a gulf of difference between exploring a potential avenue of revenue and investing in the creation of an electric car. Is Munster on the money or is this a case of smoke without fire?

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