Apple Charging Ahead with EV Program?

Apple Inc. is talking with makers of electric vehicle charging stations and continues to hire battery experts to better understand the technology, Reuters reports. Apple declined to comment.

The news service, which doesn’t cite its sources, says Apple’s battery-related activities are aimed at developing an infrastructure for a self-driving EV the company is rumored to be developing. The project could build on existing charging station technology or be a proprietary system similar to Tesla Motors Inc.’s network of “Supercharger” stations.

There currently are about 8,000 public and workplace EV charging stations in California. But as much as 25 times that number will be needed to support the 1-million battery-powered vehicles that are projected to be on the road in the state by 2020, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Reuters says LinkedIn profiles indicate Apple has hired at least four electric vehicle charging specialists in recent months. The list includes Ronan O’Braonain, who previously was a battery integration specialist for BMW. Other recent hires are former Google charging expert Kurt Adelberger and Nan Liu, who was part of a Stanford University team developing wireless charging technology.

Last year Apple settled a lawsuit with battery maker A123 Systems LLC, which had sued the consumer tech giant for poaching five of its battery research engineers in 2014.