The fact that Apple has been working on developing a car has been an open secret for anyone who has not been living under the rock for the last few years.
The ambitious project, also known as “Project Titan” is well on track for creating a self-driving car that is battery efficient. According to a report from Reuters, Apple has an aggressive delivery timeline and aims at making its mark in the automotive market by 2024. The company is looking to produce a passenger vehicle that will include apple’s own proprietary innovative battery technology.
The tech giant’s efforts into the automotive industry although started as early as 2014, but were uneven for the most part. For years there was rampant speculation in the tech world of apple jumping into the automotive industry, but somehow due to job-cuts of the entire apple car team and last-minute pivots, the program remained in the icebox. Now thanks to the reports from Reuters, there’s a renewed buzz in the tech world. And the aggressive timeline has taken everyone by surprise, including the hardcore Apple fans.
One would be hard-pressed to not see Apple’s end goal of building a passenger vehicle contrasting with rivals like Alphabet’s (the parent company of Google) Waymo which has created robo-taxis that carries passengers for a driverless ride.
Talking about technology, Apple is planning to use a never before created “monocell” design of battery that frees up space inside the battery pack by doing away with pouches that hold battery materials. In plain English, it means that with this unique battery design, more material can be packed inside which will consequently lead the vehicle to have a longer range.
According to reports, Apple is also working on the chemistry of battery, also known as lithium iron phosphate which if all goes right, is likely to overhead less and thus, is safer than most battery counterparts. Lastly, the vehicle will be including lidar sensors. Lidar sensors help self-driving cars to get a three-dimensional view of the road that it is on.
Tesla Feels The Heat!
Elon Musk’s self-driving company Tesla’s s shares fell 5.5% on Tuesday
After reports came that Apple is back on the track with its autonomous technology and aim to produce passenger vehicle by 2024. It almost feels like it was inevitable that Tesla’s biggest challenger would be a technology company like Apple that has perfected the two things Tesla so far hasn’t: reliability and delivery.
A Rocky Road Ahead?
Apple at its core is a company that makes its users’ lives easier by creating beautiful software and integrating it with hardware manufactured overseas. The tech giant would need to refresh its supply chain network and form newer collaborations. It is still unclear as to who will be assembling the Apple-branded car, but according to multiple reports over the past few months, Apple has been on a hiring spree and has been bringing talent from leading automotive companies to work on these issues.
What are your thoughts on Apple building its an electric vehicle? What are your expectations from Apple? Let us know in the comments below.
