Rumors are flying about Apple’s newest product: a self-driving, electric car to compete with Tesla. But are the rumors true? Some sources say “yes.”
Right on the tail of the Apple watch selling out in preorders, fans of the technology company are excited about the newest possible venture: a self-driving car. Back in February, an auto-industry source revealed that Apple was interested in branching out to creating an entire vehicle. Although they already make products such as CarPlay, which places iPhone functions like Siri into the screen of a car, but now they hope to help evolve the auto industry to include automated driving.
The source tells Reuters, “Fully automated driving is an evolution. Carmakers will slowly build the market for autonomous cars by first releasing connected and partially automated cars…Apple is interested in all the potential ways you can evolve the car; that includes autonomous driving.” But Apple spokespeople have declined to comment, calling the statements “rumors [and] speculations.”
Sources told the Wall Street Journal that Apple is already beginning to work on their newest product, setting up a secret lab late last year, and that they have met with manufactures such as Magna Steyr, a Canadian auto supplier that has clients such as BMW and Mercedes.
It also seems feasible, based on the fact that the star designer recently hired by the company, Mark Newson, has experience creating cars in the past, being the designer behind the Ford 021C concept car that was shown back in 1999.
So can we add an iCar to our growing collection of Apple products? Probably not any time soon. Professor at Ross School of Business, University of Michigan told Fox News,
Apple has had trouble with the contract manufacturing of its phones. How is it going to get cars manufactured? Will its software for connected and autonomous vehicles give us cars that drive into each other until Apple sends out a patch fixing the bugs?
He makes a great point, seeing as the technology and software behind a self-driving car is obviously more complicated than that of your iPhone 6.
Self-driving cars aren’t predicated to appear on the scene until around 2025 or 2030, analysts at Exane BNP Paribas tell Reuters. But with the technology that Apple has behind this project, it’s entirely possible that their version will be the first.
[Featured Image Credit: macworld.com]
