Apple Car debut targeted for 2019
09:22
News leaks from within Apple indicate the company may be targeting 2019 as the “ship date” for its long rumored Apple Car. The company has been exploring the possibility of building its own car for several years, using the internal code name Project Titan. Within Apple, a “ship date” is the time when company engineers sign off on a project, not the time when actual products first go on sale.
Now insiders say the leaders of Project Titan have been given permission to increase the size of the program from 600 to 1,800 employees. Some of those new team members will come from within the company, while others with particular expertise in building automobiles will be recruited from competitors such as Tesla Motors.
Little is known about what sort of car Apple intends to build or even if it plans to build a car itself. Many Apple products are manufactured by subcontractors like Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes iPhones for Apple. Some time ago, there were rumors that Apple was working on a minivan style vehicle, which would make sense since those cars represent a significant segment of the new car market. The consensus is that any Apple car will be a battery powered vehicle, but no one knows for sure.
Even company insiders admit the 2019 target is ambitious. Building a car is a complex endeavor, even more so for a company without any experience. Once Apple completes its designs and prototypes, a vehicle would still need to undergo a litany of tests before it could clear regulatory hurdles. Doing so and keeping it all secret at the same time will be a tall order. Apple is known to have contracted with GoMentum, a private facility north of San Francisco that specializes in testing autonomous driving cars away from the prying eyes of the press and spy photographers.
It is unlikely that Apple will begin with a fully autonomous car like the one Google is working on. A full suite of self-driving systems is still a long way from regulatory approval. Some industry observers think such cars won’t be on sale for at least another 20 years. Gene Munster, an equity analyst with Piper Jaffray, expects any Apple car to have three distinctive features: a unique design, the ability to work with other Apple devices, and some autonomous capability.
By keeping its plans a closely guarded secret, Apple is creating plenty of buzz. Trying to guess what it is up to was a hot topic of conversation among auto executives last week at the Frankfurt auto show. For its part, Apple is doing nothing to quench the thirst for information about its plans.
