Apple is building its new tea for its electric vehicle project, Project Titan. According to the microblogging site, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo stated, “Apple is building a new team to accelerate the project that was laying dormant during the Covid pandemic.” Over the last year, there have been many rumors and statements, but nothing has been official. Industry analysts have been predicting that the work is going ahead.
Project Titan began its life in 2014 when Apple formed a so-called shell company, SixtyEight Research, to work on the car project. The project has been marred by many changes, teams walking away, the direction of the project changing completely, and sudden changes in management.
Bob Mansfield, who was the VP of Technologies at Apple, currently leads the project. With all the restrictions and wider industry aftershocks slowly subsiding, it looks like Apple wants to get back on track with the Titan Project, the report said. Two years were lost and it will take more time to catch up with the lost work, it added.
Meanwhile, earlier there were reports suggesting that Apple has hired experienced Ford executive Desi Ujkashevic, as the iPhone maker prepares to produce an electric automobile in 2024, according to various media reports. According to many sources, Ujkashevic, Ford’s worldwide head of safety engineering, will join Apple to assist in the development of a completely electric driverless vehicle.
Apple car
Google and Apple both have systems—called Android Auto and CarPlay—that mirror phone apps on vehicles’ displays. Apple that has little modification by the automaker, says Kersten Heineke, a Germany-based partner at McKinsey who consults with automotive clients.
Apple hasn’t announced an equivalent of Android Automotive—that is, software that automakers can license to run on their vehicles, whether or not an iPhone is connected to them. And as with all its future plans, the company is very guarded about what it says publicly. However, a demo of the next generation of its iPhone-mirroring CarPlay software in June at Apple’s developer’s conference, including renderings of the interface of a future vehicle, points to much deeper, and even perhaps Android Automotive-level integration with cars in the future. Some analysts have taken to calling Apple’s hypothetical future in-vehicle software “CarOS.”
Apple has announced more than a dozen launch partners for the next generation of CarPlay, starting with models that go on sale in 2023, including Volvo, Ford, Honda, Renault, Mercedes, and Porsche. For Apple to license its software to automakers would be almost unprecedented in the history of the company.
