Hold on a second; wasn’t it supposed to be a software for autonomous vehicles?
Highlights:
- Apple's Project Titan may be an electric van and not a car, say new rumours
- Apple was first reported to be building an electric car in 2014
You might have heard of Apple’s plan to build an electric car in the past. Originally codenamed Titan, the plan was originally brought to light by the media in late 2014. Though nothing was revealed by Apple officially at that time, the plan was reported to have been approved by Apple CEO Tim Cook. Since then, we’ve heard no solid news of Apple’s electric car. In fact, at some point many believed Apple had changed course and decided to build software for autonomous vehicles. Now, however, a rumour from a German publication called Manager Magazin suggests Apple’s Titan plan is still on and that its final result could be something more than an electric car—an electric van.
Translated from German, Manager Magazin’s report reads, “the Apple Car could come in the form of an electric van. Apple’s engineers have designed specimens with black and silver paint, designed in the typical industrial design of the iPhone group. Apple also researches on its own batteries, electric motors, special seats and interior components.” It’s possible Apple has changed its gameplan in an attempt to chase after the likes of Tesla, whose Model 3, by the way, was reported to be the best-selling electric vehicle in the world. Still, it doesn’t explain why Apple would decide to build an electric van over a four-door car.
There’s no information available yet on whether Apple’s new electric vehicle, van or otherwise, is autonomous. According to a 9to5Mac report from two years ago, Tim Cook had mentioned that the company was definitely interested in building autonomous driving systems. “We’re focusing on autonomous systems, and clearly one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars. There are others, and we sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects. It’s probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on. And so autonomy is something that’s incredibly exciting for us,” he had said.
Until Apple confirms any of this, we’re all only taking a shot in the dark here. If the latest rumour from Manager Magazin is true, we’ll see an electric van from Apple sometime after 2023. If it’s not, we’ll most likely end up seeing Apple announce a software it’s made for autonomous vehicles. In related news, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reminded everyone on Twitter earlier this month that all of Tesla’s patents are open to anyone (or any company) stepping forward to create more electric vehicles.
Related Read: Elon Musk urges everyone to use Tesla's open patents to build more EVs
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Vignesh Giridharan
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