Apple Reportedly Planning To Debut Its Self-Driving Car In 2025

It’s been a while since we heard anything substantial about Apple’s Project Titan electric vehicle, apart from a certain mishap back in September which involved one of its prototypes. Now, a new report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims to have acquired new information regarding the company’s first EV from people who are familiar with the matter.

As we’ve already covered when rumours regarding Project Titan first surfaced, Apple’s first EV is believed to be fully autonomous rather than a conventional one with semi-autonomous features. According to the insiders, new Project Titan lead Kevin Lynch insisted that the first model should be able to drive itself. 

Gurman’s latest report cites several sources supporting this particular tidbit, as well as the company’s aim to debut the vehicle in 2025. In regards to the latter, earlier rumours suggested that Apple originally envisioned to debut the car in 2024, but the plan was supposedly pushed back to sometime between 2025 and 2027.

Whether the company is able to meet the 2025 launch window for its EV mainly depends on whether it can complete its fully autonomous system on time, the insiders noted. Progress-wise, sources claim that Apple has supposedly finished much of the “core work” on the car’s processor.

Other than that, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Apple plans to have its first EV to feature a lounge-like interior with a touchscreen infotainment system in the middle, but would lack a steering wheel or pedals. This further suggests that the vehicle would act as a fully-autonomous passenger shuttle rather than a standard car. In terms of safety, the sources added that the company intends to include a manual override mode in case of emergencies.

With four more years to go, it will definitely be a while until Apple is expected to officially announce or showcase its first ever EV. A fully autonomous system is indeed possible to an extent with current technology, but most of these rely on dedicated pathings with little to no interference or interaction with human-based traffic. That being said, it is not known whether the company’s vehicle is intended to be used on the road or for smaller-scaled use cases (such as in-campus transportation).

Lyft Sells Its Self-Driving Car Division To Toyota For US$550 Million

E-hailing company Lyft announced plans to sell its self-driving technology division, called Level 5, to Toyota for US$550 million (~RM2.3 billion). Because of the deal, the firm expects to achieve profitability at an earlier date.

According to Reuters, the sale would allow Lyft to focus on hosting the technology of self-driving firms on its platform through partnerships as opposed to internally developing the expensive technology which has yet to become mainstream.

Lyft will get paid $US200 million (~RM819.7 million) upfront, with US$350 million (~RM1.4 billion) in payments to follow over a five-year period. The transaction, which is still subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

The e-hailing company reported a loss of US$458.2 million (~RM1.9 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2020. If the deal goes through on time and COVID-19 recovery continues, it expects to achieve profit in the third quarter of this year.

Under the deal, Lyft’s Level 5 team would join Toyota subsidiary Woven Planet, which works on connected vehicle, autonomous and semi-autonomous driving technology. Woven Planet is a new entity, established only in January.

Reuters noted that Lyft already allows people to book rides in self-driving vehicles in some cities thanks to partnerships with Alphabet’s Waymo and Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor and Aptiv.

Apple in talks to buy self-driving sensors

Apple Inc. is shopping for lidar car sensors for its self driving cars, an indicator that the finished product could be several years away still.

Apple Inc. is in discussions with multiple suppliers of self-driving car sensors known as lidar, according to people familiar with the matter, a key milestone toward development of its first passenger vehicle.

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is in active talks with a number of potential suppliers for these laser-based sensors that allow a car’s computer to "see” its surroundings, said the people, who asked not to be identified due to the private nature of the discussions. The company has been working on a driverless vehicle project for several years and has developed on its own most of the necessary software, underlying processors and artificial intelligence algorithms needed for such a sophisticated system.


As it’s done with the iPhone, Apple is looking to outside vendors to supply critical hardware for a planned autonomous vehicle, the people said. The ongoing discussions are a sign that Apple has yet to settle on a preferred supplier for lidar and that it’s likely mulling a range of options, including a heavily customized version of the sensors, as it moves toward developing a car design. That’s an indication that a finished product is still several years away.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

At least a half-dozen lidar companies have gone public via reverse merger in recent months -- raising hundreds of millions of dollars by seizing on investor appetite for a bet on future demand for high-tech cars. The laser sensor technology is used by many top-tier players hoping to commercialise driverless vehicles, including Google parent Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit and General Motors Co.’s Cruise division.

Shares of lidar makers jumped on Bloomberg’s report. Luminar Technologies Inc. rose as much as 8.9% to US$35.75 (RM144.39), reversing earlier declines. Velodyne Lidar Inc. climbed as much as 4.7% to US$21.89 (RM88.41). Apple shares rose 0.8% to US$130.71 (RM527.94) at 11:03am New York time.

Benjamin Lyon, a key Apple manager who oversaw work on self-driving car hardware, left the company earlier this week for a space and satellite startup. It’s unclear what impact that may have on Apple’s progress on delivering a commercially viable car.

Off-the-Shelf

Apple has been testing its robotaxi technology on public roads in California since 2017. The first version of its test cars, modified Lexus SUVs, used a lidar stack made up of off-the-shelf parts, though this has become a more bespoke effort recently.

The company explained in a white paper issued in 2019 how its sensory perception technology is supposed to work. "The sensing component is able to determine where the vehicle is located in the world and can identify and track surrounding objects, such as other vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists, ” Apple said at the time. "This is accomplished using a combination of sensors, including lidar, radar, and cameras, and provides high-resolution 360° 3D coverage around the vehicle.”

Reuters reported in 2019 that Apple was talking to lidar makers, but the autonomous vehicle project was fully rebooted afterward. Apple is now in discussions for next-generation lidar that will be considered cutting edge four to five years from now -- another indicator of the company’s timeline, said people familiar with the discussions.

Cars aren’t Apple’s only foray into lidar: The company launched an iPad Pro embedded with the laser sensor tech last March, and it expanded the feature to the iPhone 12 Pro line last fall. The technology enhances low-light photography and augmented reality applications in the consumer devices; using it to detect driving conditions and obstacles in the road is a more complicated feat.

Five-Year Timeline

The iPhone maker has a team of car interior, body, drivetrain and battery experts working toward eventually launching a car. Inside the company, staff believe that such a launch is at least five years away, Bloomberg News has reported.

Apple’s self-driving car system has improved from a few years ago, but is still lagging the competition. Last year, Apple test cars drove more than 18,800 miles in California with a human driver having to take control every 145 miles. That compares to Waymo, which drove 628,839 miles and needed a human driver to take over every 30,000 or so miles, and Cruise, which drove 770,000 total miles with a disengagement every 28,520 miles.

Even as Apple seeks suppliers, it also is in talks about potential manufacturing and other outsourcing partnership deals with several different automakers. It has discussed car manufacturing options with Hyundai group sister companies Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., but those discussions paused several weeks ago. The two carmakers recently said they are not in talks with Apple.

Nissan Denies Talking With Apple Over Self-Driving Car Project

Nissan Motor said it isn’t engaging in discussions with Apple over the latter’s self-driving car project, Reuters reported. Like other tech giants, Apple has been looking to enter the automotive market, leading to early-stage talks with several automakers.

“We are not in talks with Apple,” said a Nissan spokesperson, according to Reuters. “However, Nissan is always open to exploring collaborations and partnerships to accelerate industry transformation.”

According to the Financial Times, talks between both companies collapsed because Nissan did not wish to become an assembler of Apple-branded cars. The talks were apparently in early stages and hadn’t advanced to senior management.

Talks between Apple and Hyundai similarly went nowhere because the latter wasn’t content with being merely a contract manufacturer for Apple. Apple will have to keep looking for another partner, even as it reportedly plans for a 2024 launch for its car project.

China’s tech companies already building quite the head start. Last month, search giant Baidu partnered with automaker Geely to establish a new electric car company. Tencent also linked arms with Geely to develop technology for self-driving vehicles and smart vehicle cockpits.

Relatedly, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said he wasn’t worried about competition from Apple. “The car industry is not a typical tech-sector that you could take over at a single stroke,” said Diess, according to Reuters citing his interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. “Apple will not manage that overnight.”

Hyundai, Kia Say They Are Not In Talks With Apple To Develop Self-Driving Car

Hyundai Motor and its subsidiary Kia Motors stated that they are not in talks with Apple to develop a self-driving car according to a regulatory filing. This follows much speculation about the fate of the possible collaboration after talks between Apple and Hyundai were reportedly paused.

“Hyundai Motor is not in talks with Apple on autonomous vehicle development,” the automaker declared in the said regulatory filing which was translated by CNBC.

“Hyundai Motor is getting requests from multiple companies for cooperation in the joint development of autonomous, electric vehicles but nothing has been decided since it’s in early stage,” the firm said. Its subsidiary Kia Motors also said it wasn’t talking to Apple in a similar filing.

Some analysts have theorized that leaks about the collaboration could’ve ultimately scuttled it. Apple has been famously (or notoriously) a stickler for secrecy – especially when it comes to its future offerings.

So, the company was “probably not happy” that news of the potential collaboration was leaked out to the local and international media, explained Sung Yop Chung, regional head of automobiles and components at Daiwa Capital Markets.  Sung also said that Hyundai and Kia could’ve faced a conflict of interest because they “don’t really want to just become a subcontractor of Apple.”

Apple is said to be developing its first self-driving electric car under an initiative it has codenamed Project Titan. Recently, it even poached a top Porsche official to help with the project. Many tech companies, like Tencent and Baidu, are already exploring the electric and/or self-driving vehicle markets through partnerships with traditional carmakers such as Geely.