Apple’s first electric vehicle was expected to arrive by 2024. A new report claims that the Apple Car has been delayed till 2026 and it will no longer feature a fully autonomous system.
Apple is scaling back its ambitious plans for Apple Car
Apple has been long rumored to be working on its first passenger self-driving electric vehicle (EV) which has been reported to launch by 2025 at the earliest. However, the project, referred to as Project Titan, has not been able to see stable development with key engineers leaving Apple to work for other automobile manufacturers.
Now, Bloomberg has revealed that Apple is scaling back its ambitious plans for the Apple Car. The tech giant’s plan to create a self-driving vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals is simply not feasible at this point in time. Like Tesla, it will have guided driving features, but it will not be fully autonomous in all types of driving conditions.
The Apple Car will be able to operate on its own on highways, allowing customers to multitask. However, it will provide alerts to tell customers when it is time to switch to manual. Customers will need to manually operate the car on busy city streets or in poor weather conditions.
Apple’s EV is expected to feature a custom processor, similar to the ones found in the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The report says that the chip for the Apple Car is nearly ready for production and its power is equivalent to four top-of-the-line Mac chips. In addition, the EV is expected to feature LED displays, LiDAR scanners to measure the distance from other objects, AR displays, and more.
One of the biggest reasons why Apple’s EV project has failed to materialize time and time again is engineers leaving the Apple Car team. CJ Moore resigned in May to join a global automotive technology company, Luminar. Former Apple Car chief Doug Field joined Ford Motors as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, Apple’s former global head of battery development Soonho Ahn joined Volkswagen to develop batteries for its electric vehicle (EV) projects, and former engineer for Special Projects Group, Micheal Schwekutsch joined Archer as its senior vice president of engineering.
The long-rumored Apple Car is now expected to arrive by 2026 at the earliest. The vehicle is expected to be under $100,000.
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