Apple Inc. has revolutionized music and phones. Now it is aiming at a much bigger target: automobiles.

Apple AAPL, -3.17% has several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, according to people familiar with the matter. They said the project, code-named “Titan,” has an initial design of a vehicle that resembles a minivan, one of these people said.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

At best, it will be several years before an Apple car could hit the road, even if development goes smoothly and if Apple decides to proceed with the project.

Apple may decide not to proceed with building a car. In addition, many technologies used in an electric car, such as a long-life battery and in-car electronics, would be useful to other Apple products, including the iPhone and iPad. Apple often investigates technologies and potential products, going as far as building multiple prototypes for some things that it won’t ever sell.

But the size of the team and some of the people assigned to it indicate that the company is serious, these people said. Apple executives have flown to Austria to meet with contract manufacturers for high-end cars including the Magna Steyr unit of Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc. A Magna spokeswoman declined to comment.

“There are products that we’re working on that no one knows about,” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told Charlie Rose in September. “That haven’t been rumored about yet.”

Mr. Cook approved the car project almost a year ago and assigned veteran product design Vice President Steve Zadesky to lead the group, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Zadesky is a former Ford Motor Co. engineer who helped lead the Apple teams that created the iPod and iPhone.

Mr. Zadesky was given permission to create a 1,000-person team and poach employees from different parts of the company, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Working from a private location a few miles from Apple’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., the team is researching different types of robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing, the people said.

In September, Apple hired Johann Jungwirth, who had been the president and chief executive of Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, which has operations in Sunnyvale, Calif., near Apple’s campus, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The Financial Times reported earlier that dozens of Apple employees are researching automotive products, citing people familiar with the company.

An expanded version of this report appears at WSJ.com.