Apple’s secret car project, dubbed “Project Titan” may be hiding at plain sight at a campus leased by Apple since last year, located just a few minutes from the company’s Cupertino headquarters, according to AppleInsider.
If you cast your mind back a few weeks, you may recollect reports about Apple hiring away a bunch of engineers from Tesla. As it turns out, the majority of these defectors have ended up working here, at the aforementioned Sunnyvale address, people familiar with the project have whispered.
According to one AppleInsider source familiar with “Titan,” many of Apple’s new auto-related hires, including recruits from Tesla, have been working out of the Sunnyvale campus. This person claims that some of the projects underway there have been kept “very secret” within the company. It is said that the “Titan” development building itself is codenamed “SG5.”
Whether the veracity of the rumours, Apple’s presence in Sunnyvale is undeniable: it leases seven buildings, covering nearly 300,000 square feet of space. But the most interesting part comes when AppleInsider started to investigate with whom Apple shares the Sunnyvale campus.
Apple’s enigmatic campus buddy is a company named SixtyEight Research, which supposedly “redefines market research”. AppleInsiders believes SixtyEight is, in actuality, a shell company hiding Apple’s secret project, although it has no concrete evidence to prove the iPhone maker’s subterfuge.
SixtyEight’s affiliation with Apple could not be confirmed, but Apple does have a long history of using shell corporations and deceptive methods to hide its secret projects. Aside from a barren website, there is scant other information about SixtyEight — lending more credence to its use as a front. It wouldn’t be a stretch to surmise that SixtyEight could play a role in allowing Apple to purchase and import automotive equipment and tools without drawing any suspicion.
Visits to the SixtyEight offices were “welcomed” by “frosted” opaque windows, visible security cameras and a note taped to the company’s front door informing drivers that the company’s lobby has been moved to another address. An address, coincidently, which happened to be in a three story building leased entirely by Apple.
