Apple is working on launching its electric car as early as 2025 and refocusing the project around full self-driving capabilities.
The iPhone maker’s shares rose nearly 3 percent to hit a new record following the report.
Apple’s own silicon team designed the chip, which Gurman says is the “most advanced component” that’s been developed for the project so far. The company is getting ready to put the chip through its real-world in its fleet of test vehicles in California and hopes to make a vehicle with “stronger safeguards than what’s available from Tesla and Waymo,” according to the report.
Apple’s ideal car would have no steering wheel and pedals, with interiors designed around hands-off driving, the report said. The company’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design a vehicle from scratch.
Apple is still in discussion of including the steering wheel, which may be required. So people can take over in an emergency situation than an IPad like technology in the middle of the vehicle.
Apple wants its car to be safer than those manufactured by Waymo and Tesla, with redundancies and fail-safes to avoid failures. The vehicle will be electric, with Apple discussing charging. It s compatible with the combined charging system so Apple vehicle owners can use a global network of chargers.
Better Safety
According to engineers involved in the projects, Apple wants to have more robust safeguards in place than Tesla and Waymo. Apple will build plenty of redundancies into the system to prevent issues.
Apple is also looking to ensure the car will work with the combined charging system (CCS) so that the electric vehicle will be compatible with an extensive network of chargers.
These are notable and very difficult goals to achieve. The report points out that Apple continues to hire more talent. The car team has been losing key executives over the years, making the launch schedule more daring.
Apple has been working on Titan since 2014. But few details have emerged of the venture, with executive appointments and departures largely used as a proxy for its progress. However, in 2015, the Guardian revealed that Apple was working on a self-driving vehicle and was scouting secure locations in the San Francisco Bay area for testing.
What happen to TSLA, RIVN and LCID?
Shares of Rivian and Lucid Motors continued to fall Thursday as investors take profits and pull back from some of the EV hype driven by Rivian’s monster market debut. It is clearly visible both Rivian and Lucid are dropped over 10 percent and 15 percent respectively.
Tesla still manages to trade neutral now after offloading the shares by Elon Musk. Tesla Inc’s shares slipped in early trading on Monday. Adding to a week of heavy losses after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk offloaded a combined $6.9 billion worth of shares in the world’s most valuable carmaker.
If its shares drop below $995.75, then Tesla’s market value would slip below $1 trillion, a milestone it breached late last month after securing its biggest-ever order from car rental firm Hertz.
“By offloading shares worth billions of dollars, Elon Musk is likely to accrue a tax bill of around $15 billion.”
Musk sold 6.36 million Tesla shares last week and now needs to offload about 10 million more to fulfill his pledge to sell 10% of his holdings in the electric-vehicle maker.