Apple is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to start production of a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology, Reuters reports, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Stephen Nellis, Norihiko Shirouzu,and Paul Lienert for Reuters:
The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch… Since then, Apple has progressed enough that it now aims to build a vehicle for consumers, two people familiar with the effort said, asking not to be named because Apple’s plans are not public.
Central to Apple’s strategy is a new battery design that could “radically” reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle’s range, according to a third person who has seen Apple’s battery design… Apple plans to use a unique “monocell” design that bulks up the individual cells in the battery and frees up space inside the battery pack by eliminating pouches and modules that hold battery materials, one of the people said.
Apple’s design means that more active material can be packed inside the battery, giving the car a potentially longer range. Apple is also examining a chemistry for the battery called LFP, or lithium iron phosphate, the person said, which is inherently less likely to overheat and is thus safer than other types of lithium-ion batteries. “It’s next level,” the person said of Apple’s battery technology. “Like the first time you saw the iPhone.”
It remains unclear who would assemble an Apple-branded car, but sources have said they expect the company to rely on a manufacturing partner to build vehicles.
MacDailyNews Take: 2024 for “Apple Car” production seems like a much more plausible timeline than today’s earlier report out of Taiwan of an “Apple Car” to debut in September 2021.