Apple has cemented its position as one of the dominant forces in the technological landscape. Making new and exciting products have always been the company’s vision, and it looks like the automobile market is another sector where the giant aims to make its mark. Here’s everything we know so far about the Apple Car, however, unfortunately, there won’t be an apple car for sale anytime soon!
Dubbed the Apple Car, there have been a significant number of reports, and rumours surrounding what could be the California-based company’s first attempt at a revolutionary new product.
To jumpstart the development of what could be Apple’s first-ever automobile, the company has reportedly hired over 1000 engineers to a project codenamed Project Titan. Some of them were poached from Tesla, a company that desires to see an ‘all-electric vehicle’ future. In fact, the most notable recruit to work at Apple was David Masiukiewicz, who was Tesla’s former senior CNC programmer for hardware prototypes.
Along with this, the company also tapped Kevin Harvey, who is a former Andretti Autosport’s CNC machine shop supervisor. With this dream team, you can rest assured that there’s going to be a real and exciting product in the works, but it’s highly unlikely that we’ll get to see a commercial unit for at least a couple of years.
Similar to what Tesla’s churn out of its production facilities, the Apple Car will apparently be autonomous and might even give Tesla a run for its money. That being said, we don’t expect the Apple Car to come cheap and it’s possible that it competes with Tesla’s most premium offering, the Model S. Now, it’s no secret that Apple has facilities established all around the world to keep prying eyes away from its most secret projects. However, word has apparently gotten out that Apple’s clandestine facility to develop the car is located in Berlin, Germany.
Aside from that, Apple is also rumoured to be developing a special kind of battery for its first autonomous vehicle and these might very well be the solid-state variants we’ve been hearing about quite a while. Sadly, the location where the company is testing out these solid-state batteries is currently unknown. The iPhone maker apparently has more than 50 autonomous cars driving in California, with over 83 drivers assigned to these vehicles.
The purpose of this is to map out locations and integrate the distance, turns, runways, freeways, highways and other intricate road details to the software that will be responsible for helping the Apple Car steer on its own when required. The software has always been one of the most complex areas of a well-engineered product, and Apple’s talented pool of employees will make every second count make sure it’s as refined as possible. After all, this isn’t iOS for iPhones or iPads, macOS for the Mac, or watchOS for the Apple Watch that we’re talking about, it can be a matter of life and death if one’s not careful.
As for the projected release date, reports state that the earliest we’ll have a gander at the Apple Car is 2021, and that is if the company doesn’t run into any engineering, development, or prototyping roadblocks, which it could.
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