Based on official Apple patents, these renders show us what the Apple Car might look like
The last we heard, Apple has moved up the time frame for it to deliver Project Titan. For those unfamiliar with the project, it is the autonomous Apple Car and the company now hopes to launch the automobile sometime in 2025. While Apple wants to build the vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals, it might add them anyway for emergency situations when a human driver might need to take over.
Render of the Apple Car based on official patents and Apple products
While Apple's goal is obviously to build a completely self-driving vehicle, the first version of the car might limit its self-driving capabilities to steering and acceleration. If you're wondering what the Apple Car will look like, British car leasing firm Vanarama (via MacRumors) has created renders of the vehicle based on "genuine patents filed by Apple" and previously released Apple devices.
These renders of the Apple Car are based on official patents
This doesn't mean that the leasing firm has nailed the design, but it is an educated guess showing off what the Apple Car might look like.
Apple wants the car to be released by 2025
Some of the features based on Apple's patents include the interior seating arrangement which allows the seats to rotate, the use of digital assistant Siri, "coach doors" that have rear hinges, and the customizable dashboard/navigation screen. The handles on the door are retractable and look like buttons that you'd find on the iPhone.
The goal is to make the auto fully autonomous
The mesh used on the auto's grille looks like the circular vets found on the Mac Pro, and even includes a glowing Apple logo similar to the one that used to be found on the MacBook. And if the frosted white finish looks familiar, it's because Apple debuted the color with the 2010 iPhone 4.
The Apple Car might sport coach doors
Building a sales and service team for an auto is much different than building one for a phone which is something that Apple is going to have to discover for itself as it prepares for what some call an ambitiously quick 2025 launch.
Apple is losing too many of the its key executives who have been working on Project Titan. Recently Apple lost Michael Schwekutsch, Apple Car's senior director of engineering. The former Tesla executive left Apple for Archer Aviation, a startup for electric air taxis, and had joined Apple in 2019 after departing Tesla.
Apple did add a former Tesla executive, Christopher "CJ" Moore, to its team. But in a big blow, just a couple of days ago three key engineers skedaddled including Apple's chief engineer for radar systems Eric Rogers, who joined Joby Aviation Inc. Several of the engineers leaving Apple are joining companies involved in air taxis including Alex Clarabut, who was an engineering manager for the team's battery systems group and has accepted a job with Archer Aviation.
Auto manufacturers will need to take the Apple seriously as a major player in the industry
The third former Apple Car team member joining Archer recently is former Apple Car hardware engineering manager Stephen Spiteri. While the public sees the Apple Car as a relatively new project, Apple has reportedly been working on it for more than seven years. Its competitors in the business include Tesla, of course, and Volkswagen. That last name might be a surprise to you but the German auto manufacturer is invested in the self-driving car concept.
Last year, when Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess heard that Apple was taking a self-driving Apple Car seriously, the executive said that his company welcomes the competition and all of the new innovations created by the new players. That is about as politically correct a statement that Diess could make. Any manufacturer in the auto industry should be concerned about Apple invading their turf.
The last group of companies that ignored Apple's involvement in their business and belittled the Cupertino firm's new products ended up becoming irrelevant. We're talking about companies like BlackBerry and Microsoft that failed to appreciate the bomb that Apple lobbed their way in January 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone.
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