The Financial Times:

People familiar with the company said the background of the people Apple is hiring — including automotive designers and vehicle dynamics engineers — and the seniority of the executives involved suggest a car could be in the works.

I’m just not sold. Apple execs regularly tout the company’s ability to say, “no.” Apple gets into markets where it’s certain its products will be superior to all others. Without a facility for manufacturing cars, can Apple really compete?

Not to mention Tim Cook reiterated a sentiment from the late Steve Jobs during the Goldman Sachs conference Tuesday:

We haven't been a hardware company … since I've been with Apple. And I'm not a historian, so I can't tell you about the beginning of time, but I don't really think Apple was ever a hardware company, even at the beginning of time.

I might be jumping to some kooky conclusions here, but I’m about 95% sure cars are hardware.

Does Apple really need to design and build a car in order to market its CarPlay technology? I don’t think so.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Apple, the company’s not afraid to go overboard to get things right. It’s part of what makes Apple so successful. Hiring "automotive designers and vehicle dynamics engineers" could simply be about gleaning a deeper understanding of automobiles for improved CarPlay services.

And yet, I will be in the market for a new car in a few years. If this report from The Wall Street Journal is correct, maybe we will see an electric iCar (or Car) after all:

Apple has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the project, code-named “Titan,” has an initial design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan.

If Jony Ive wants to make me a "space gray" aluminum unibody crossover, I’m not mad at him. Just no gold, please.