Apple Car is certainly proceeding as intended but the smart vehicle is not hitting the road soon. The latest estimate for a fully functional product to see the light of the day is between five to seven years, and that is if Apple will greenlight the plans already laid out by the Project Titan.
It's still a long way from the production phase as the project development remains in the early stage. But one thing is sure, the team working on the project is motivated by the goal to ship out an Apple Car and this is a small group of engineers tasked to work on the inside and out of the smart.
According to Bloomberg, Project Titan is now focused on assembling an actual vehicle, which is an upgrade of the earlier objective to develop a self-driving software that will be deployed through Apple's partner automakers.
Now that the hardware part of the project has been given the same emphasis as the software side, it can be said that the Apple Car will take after the iPhone model. Apple will provide the design and technology that will be used on the smart vehicle and then manufacturing partners will take charge of the mass production.
It is unknown for now on who Apple intends to collaborate with for the undertaking although there were earlier reports of the tech giant striking a deal with big-name automakers and Volkswagen was among those that were mentioned prominently.
Interestingly, Project Titan now employs engineers who previously worked with Tesla and dozens of them were assigned to develop the hardware and software elements of the Apple Car. The team is directly supervised by Doug Field and he used to play a key role in Elon Musk's company.
As 9to5Mac noted, Apple's ongoing work to put together a futuristic car is dominated by former Tesla talents that Musk jokingly refers to Project Titan as the "Tesla graveyard." Notwithstanding, these engineers will be attempting to re-invent the car the same way that Apple re-worked the smartphone with the iPhone's introduction.
It is believed that when the Apple Car is released, its strongest selling point would be for users to experience passive driving. For this goal to be achieved, Apple is focusing to achieve innovations in vehicle dynamics, drive trains, safety mechanics, and battery technology.
Recent reports suggested that work on the Apple Car could be completed over the next few years and that a launch is likely to happen in 2024. However, the Bloomberg report made clear that the project is nowhere near the wrap-up stage and the more realistic release of the smart vehicle is around 2028.
