As the demand for electric vehicles has increased with the rise of awareness to protect the environment, the EV sector has clocked steady growth. This has, in turn, attracted the attention of big players like Amazon, resulting in the steady flow of capital from investors. Like Amazon, Apple has been aiming for a slice of the pie, as is evident from its plans to launch a self-driving EV. Now, these plans have received a boost as Apple is pushing to accelerate the development of its electric car and launch it as early as 2025.
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is focussing on a fully self-driving vehicle, which would not have any steering wheels and pedals. Apple’s goal to launch it in 2025 is an ambitious one, given that it has proceeded unevenly since 2014 – even people associated with the project, known as Project Titan, are skeptical about the timeline.
Let us talk more about Apple’s electric vehicle. Led by Apple Watch software executive Kevin Lynch, Project Titan has a vision of a car that does not need human interference to drive. Not only will it not lack a steering wheel and pedals, but its interior would also be designed around hands-off driving, with passengers sitting around a U-shaped seating formation. Its touchscreen infotainment system would be located in the middle of the vehicle so that users can interact with it while they are inside the car. It might also sport an emergency takeover mode.
Can Apple follow through and deliver the EV by 2025? A fully autonomous vehicle that can be trusted to run without human intervention is still in the realm of science fiction, given how EV leader Tesla’s electric cars have proved to be fallible. Apple’s custom chip, made up primarily of neural processors, might be an ace in the hole where – it recently completed much of the core work on the processor which the EV will equip.
Apple declined to comment on the matter.
“We continue to believe it’s a matter of when, not if, Apple enters the EV [electric vehicle] race,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at US investment firm Wedbush Securities. The segment will be a change of scenery for the tech giant, which usually deals with the smart device segment.
