We still don't know much about the Apple Car, even though there have been rumors about it for several years. The fragmentary information we have heard suggests serious delays, and one current report claims that Apple is trying to avoid further delays by going it all alone.

It has also been reported that Apple has hired Kevin Lynch, head of Apple Watch, to lead the Apple Car project after a major defection to Ford.

This shift in strategy seems insane when you think about it. Apple is known for preferring to do much of its work in-house, but there is a big difference between designing its own chips for iPhones and MacBooks and manufacturing autonomous EVs.

The report in question comes from South Korea's Mail Economic Daily, which claims that Apple has now reopened its hardware research department and is working on creating its own Apple Car. This is despite reports that the company has been in contact with several automakers, with recent rumors claiming partnerships with LG and auto parts manufacturer Magna.

The Mail Economic Daily reports that Apple has been in contact with automakers such as Toyota, BMW, Nissan, and Hyundai/Kia. However, with automakers reportedly stepping back and not accelerating development, Apple seems much more willing to go it alone.

Reports of automakers' reluctance are actually not new. There are reports that automakers are not willing to hand over much direct control to Apple, and that it is little more than a contracted assembly service; some have even referred to the Taiwanese company famous for assembling iPhones as the "Foxconn of the auto industry."

The report claims that Apple is eager to enter the electric car market and does not want to delay the launch of the Apple Car any longer. This factor may also explain why Apple put Kevin Lynch, who has been with the company since 2013, in charge of the Apple Car project after former Tesla executive Doug Field left for Ford.

As Bloomberg reported, Lynch first began working on the Apple Car project "when he took over the team handling the underlying software earlier this year. He now oversees the entire group, which also includes work on hardware engineering and sensors for self-driving cars.

Rumors have long said that the Apple Car will be fully autonomous, which presents its own challenges. The fact that Lynch, who was always in charge of software at Apple and in his previous roles, is now in charge of this project suggests that Apple is well aware of this. Comparatively speaking, autonomous driving technology is much more difficult than designing and building a physical car.

"The selection of Lynch to head the car project shows that the company remains more focused on the underlying software and self-driving technology than on the physical mechanics of the car," Bloomberg reports

Apple Car, or " Project Titan," has apparently been in the planning stages for quite some time. We first heard about the project in 2014, and in the years since, Apple has announced almost nothing. Publicly, anyway.

It is understandable that the company would want to accelerate the development of its cars, especially now that the entire automotive industry is embracing electrification. Nevertheless, it seems like a big leap for a tech company known for its phones and computers to start building its own cars.

As high-tech as cars are these days, they are very different from Apple's usual product portfolio. We have heard reports that Apple has pulled engineers and executives from the automotive industry, but that is only part of the equation.

Who will actually build the cars and where will the parts come from? Partnering with an existing automaker would largely solve that problem, but going it alone would raise all sorts of questions about how Apple intends to make the cars run.

These questions are not easy to answer. As we have seen with relatively recent brands like Tesla, it takes time for a company to increase its manufacturing capacity. And that is important if they want to meet the high demand that Apple cars will undoubtedly have. It's an Apple product.

Beyond a few test runs that require special permission to drive, autonomous vehicles are not legally allowed on public roads. That is if Apple can actually develop an autonomous driving system that can navigate the roads with the same technology as a human driver and guarantee that it will always be safe to use.

As Bloomberg points out, the Apple Car is not coming in the near future. In fact, employees expect it will not be launched for "many years." So perhaps Apple believes that installing new leadership and becoming more independent is the key to getting this ambitious project on the right track.