The era of the electric car is almost upon us, but Apple seems to be late to the party.

Apple has been on and off about the project, but the company showed its seriousness in completing it once and for all by hiring a former employee, Doug Field, who left his position as Apple's vice president of Mac engineering to go and work with Tesla in the production of the Model 3. The car project-the so-called Project Titan-has have been many things. It was reportedly a whole car; a computer for cars at one point; or something in connection with an electric car, Independent UK reports.

Doug Field's re-hiring was reported by John Gruber, Apple's resident commentator. He is revealed to be working alongside Apple veteran Bob Mansfield. Together, they will be breathing new life into the Titan project, which will be revived for the nth time-and with more notable results this time.

Computer World reveals a few things that Apple has been working on so far.

The car was one of the revelations, with "thousands" apparently back working on it. It's also an autonomously-driving vehicle, and the development is split between some teams. Among the things they're working on is software for these self-driving vehicles. Apple Maps, another development of the company, will obviously be a part of this. Be it a self-driving vehicle or a computer for a self-driving vehicle, the inclusion of Apple Maps in the project makes sense.

Apple likes its secret that's how it's been with the development of the self-driving car or car computer. The pointer seems to be directed at the former, as Apple has reportedly been busy on creating working prototypes that which they could test and collect data from.

John Gruber notes that the re-hiring of  Doug Field was also interesting, in a good way. It suggests that Apple was getting serious about project Titan and that the new car may roll out soon-despite reports that also say they're just working more seriously on creating computers for other companies creating self-driving cars. More secrecy, perhaps.

Still, history points the other way; if Apple is only making a component, it is not in line with what they had always been: a product manufacturer.