Steve Jobs was thinking about making an Apple car in 2008, former senior vice president Tony Fadell claims

The project was shelved due to difficulties in the car industry and the recent release of the iPod

Apple's CarPlay car-based operating system is one of its first forays into the automotive world (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images)

Tony Fadell, former senior vice president of Apple and one of the so-called 'fathers of the iPod', has said that he and Steve Jobs talked about the possibility of an Apple car as far back as 2008.

Rumours have been swirling about the development of an Apple car for a few years, with one of the most recent reports claiming that the company has "committed" to developing the car and could release it as early as 2019.

But Fadell, who was deeply involved in the creation of the iPod and is now the CEO of Nest Labs, told Bloomberg the late co-founder and CEO of Apple was thinking about an Apple Car just a year after the first iPhone was released.

"We had a couple of walks," he said.

The pair would discuss design features of the potential car, asking each other questions like: "If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel or power it?"

If the plan went ahead, we could have already seen Apple cars on the streets.

Tim Cook has not commented on the development of the Apple car, but has said a 'massive change' is coming to the car industry (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But with the American car industry in crisis and Apple focusing its efforts on the newly-released iPhone, the project was shelved for another day.

Jobs died in 2011, but the car has made a resurgence.

According to a September report from the Wall Street Journal, the Apple car has been given the go-ahead.

It's reportedly going to be electric (although not self-driving at the start), and could possibly take on Tesla in the high-end electric car game (despite Elon Musk's mockery).

Apple has done a good job of keeping 'Project Titan' secret, and there's very few details of what features the car will have, or what it will look like.

However, Apple has been on a huge hiring campaign, poaching driverless car and battery experts from traditional car manufacturers to work on the project.

2019 is an ambitious launch date for the car, given the huge number of tests that the vehicle would have to undergo before being released to the public.