The fact that Apple is looking to hop on the EV trend is not a surprise to anyone by now. Even though the Cupertino-based company has been mum on the topic so far, the moves the made in the industry are still clearly visible. They hired some of the best automotive engineers in the industry in the past and continue to scout for potentially disruptive ideas. However, so far, nobody knows what will come of their efforts, but according to a new report, their first car is now aiming to be fully autonomous.
According to sources quoted by Automotive News, Apple is ramping up its efforts in this space. The Apple car project now has a new boss, Kevin Lynch, the man behind the Apple Watch, and he is adamant that more effort must be put in. Furthermore, apart from accelerating the development process, Lynch apparently wants the first car developed in Cupertino to have self-driving capabilities above anything else on the market today.
Therefore, under the new management, the project is supposed to be ready by 2025, a cut on the seven-year initial development plan that was put in motion by the former head of the division, Doug Field. And while Field had a lot of experience in the automotive space, Lynch is definitely more ambitious, especially considering he has no experience in this regard. However, the car Apple plans to build has less in common with the vehicles we know today and more technology than ever, something the California giant knows a lot about.
According to the same report, Apple wants to build a car without a steering wheel or pedals, with the whole concept being built around hands-off driving. That’s a very bold approach, as many other companies involved in developing such systems have either given up (such as Uber) or taken a few steps back and admitted that this is harder task than previously thought (such as Tesla). In order to achieve this ambitious goal, sources claim that Apple is going to use a chip designed by the same team behind the M1 processor that is found in a number of their devices right now.
This new chip and the software built around it would allow the car to handle more processing power than ever, making it a real threat to other solutions out there. For now, this is just hearsay, but the company is already testing some technology using 69 Lexus utility vehicles, according to California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Even so, the 2025 target set right now is incredibly ambitious, especially since Apple doesn’t even have the manufacturing capabilities to make a single model right now.
