Apple is accelerating development of its electric car, code-named “Project Titan,” and is aiming to achieve fully autonomous capabilities, Bloomberg News reports, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
For the past several years, Apple’s car team had explored two simultaneous paths: creating a model with limited self-driving capabilities focused on steering and acceleration — similar to many current cars — or a version with full self-driving ability that doesn’t require human intervention.
Under the effort’s new leader — Apple Watch software executive Kevin Lynch — engineers are now concentrating on the second option. Lynch is pushing for a car with a full self-driving system in the first version, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
It’s just the latest shift for the car effort, known as the Special Projects Group or “Project Titan,” which has endured strategy changes and executive turnover since starting around 2014.
Apple is internally targeting a launch of its self-driving car in four years, faster than the five- to seven-year timeline that some engineers had been planning for earlier this year… Apple’s ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals, and its interior would be designed around hands-off driving… Though the company is pushing to not have a standard steering wheel, Apple has discussed equipping the car with an emergency takeover mode…
MacDailyNews Take: Creating a reliable, safe, fully autonomous vehicle by 2025 is quite the challenge. Good lick, Apple!
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!