Apple has scaled back its Apple Car project and the company no longer plans to release a fully self-driving car, according to Bloomberg.
Apple initially wanted to build a self-driving car without a steering wheel and throttle, but has now decided that such a plan is not feasible at this time. The report says the car will have self-driving features that work on the highway.
The car will have a custom processor designed by Apple to drive artificial intelligence functions, similar to the Mac, iPhone and iPad. the chip has the arithmetic power of four of the highest-end Mac chips, and is almost ready for production. The car will also have an array of custom LIDAR sensors, radar sensors and camera arrays that can provide the car with positioning information, lane data, and directions compared to people and objects.
Apple will use the cloud for some artificial intelligence processing, and the company is considering a remote command center that could assist drivers and control the car from a distance in case of an emergency, and possibly offer its own insurance plan. Apple’s downgraded vehicle will have a driver’s seat, steering wheel and pedals, just like a regular vehicle. Passengers will be allowed to do things on the highway, such as watch movies. The car will alert when it needs to switch to manual controls on city streets or in bad weather, and the self-driving portion may be limited to North America at launch.
Since Apple launched the Apple Car project in 2014, the project has undergone several shifts in its development. Apple initially planned to develop a full car, then in 2016, rumors surfaced that the car program had been shelved in favor of Apple developing some sort of self-driving system for other vehicles. By 2020, plans for a full car with self-driving capabilities were revived and Apple was testing self-driving technology in an SUV in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it appears that full self-driving capabilities were not ready by the time the first Apple car was launched.
The Apple Car team has also undergone several leadership changes, with John Giannandrea, head of artificial intelligence and machine learning, currently leading the Apple Car project and Kevin Lynch, known for his work on the Apple Watch, overseeing the car.
According to Bloomberg, Apple now aims to launch a consumer-oriented Apple-branded car by 2026, with the goal of knocking its price down to under $100,000 to attract more customers. Apple’s initial plan was to price the Apple Car at more than $120,000, but Apple now plans to lower the price, possibly because the first version of the car will have more limited self-driving capabilities. Apple has not yet finalized the design of the Apple Car, but plans to have the design completed by 2023 and the feature list ready by 2024. Testing will begin in 2025, with a planned launch in 2026.
