Here's your closer look at Apple's autonomous Lexus vehicle, courtesy of self-driving startup Voyage co-founder MacCallister Higgins who captured a video of the SUV and posted it to Twitter last night.
If you needed another proof that Apple has indeed drastically scaled back its autonomous and electric vehicle initiatives, here's one: multiple engineers on Project Titan—many of whom originally joined the iPhone maker from Detroit car makers and suppliers—have now left the Cupertino giant to join the secretive automotive startup Zoox.
Apple's Project Titan initiative has shifted from building its own automobile to designing autonomous driving software so the Cupertino giant, according to Business Insider this morning, now appears to be eyeing the ride-hailing and ride-sharing market.
Project Titan, Apple's secretive automotive initiative, switched gear a year ago to re-focus from building actual car hardware to designing autonomous driving technology.
While Apple's Project Titan reportedly shifted gear and is currently focused on autonomous driving software rather than the actual car hardware, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Cupertino technology giant doesn't have some big plans in that space.
Project Titan is officially about autonomous driving software, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the Worldwide Developers Conference.
The video was posted today, marking the company's public admission regarding true purpose of the secretive project. Laying out exactly what Apple is up to in the automotive market, Cook said their current efforts are concentrated on self-driving technology.
Here's what he said (edited for clarity):
We’re focusing on autonomous systems. It’s a core technology that we view as very important and probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on. There is a major disruption looming there. You’ve got kind of three vectors of change happening generally in the same time frame. If you've driven an electric car, it's actually a marvelous experience.
The “three vectors” Cook refers to are as follows:
Self-driving technology Electric vehicles Ride-hailingAs you may have suspected, he ultimately declined to say whether or not Apple might eventually manufacture its own car. “We’ll see where it takes us,” Cook added.
“We’re not really saying from a product point of view what we will do.”
Watch the full video below.
Ever since rumors began swirling that Project Titan involves a self-driving vehicle, there's been no shortage of reports analyzing whether or not Apple should build its own car.
In October of last year, Bloomberg reported that Project Titan had refocused from building an actual vehicle to developing autonomous self-driving software.
Whether or not the fruits of Apple's labor will ever see the light of day in CarPlay, or perhaps as a standalone new app for autonomous driving, remains to be seen.
Apple has hired several expets from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), including three engineers who worked at the space organization's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They, along with other engineers, have been tasked with working on Apple's rumored augmented reality projects and self-driving software initiatives.
According to the latest articles from Bloomberg, Dow Jones Newswire and Business Insider, a rare bureaucratic mistake has revealed Apple’s secret team of NASA veterans and experts holding PhDs in robotics and other related fields. They were apparently recruited for Project Titan, Apple's self-driving car project, and augmented reality, another not-so-secret Apple initiative.
Apple was added to the list of 29 other companies, including Tesla, Google, Ford and Mercedes, that are testing or planning to test self-driving vehicles in the state of California, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles's (DMV) website Friday.
The permit allows Apple to test vehicles in autonomous mode on public roads.
It's unclear if Apple sought to obtain a permit because it wanted to test-drive its own autonomous vehicles or if the company was simply looking to experiment with the rumored autonomous driving features in a future CarPlay version.
Earlier this year, Apple poached Alexander Hitzinger, the former technical director of Porsche's race car program who helped the car maker return to the Le Mans endurance race, a company source told Reuters last Friday. The move was first reported by Germany's Manager Magazin.
Volkswagen-owned Porsche officially confirmed Hitzinger had left the luxury carmaker in the spring, but didn't share any further information.
Apple in November penned a letter to the NHTSA (U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) regarding autonomous vehicle polices and other concerns. VentureBeat unearthed the letter, which was signed by Apple VP of Product Integrity and former Ford safety executive Steve Kenner.
Back in September, The Financial Times, The New York Times and Bloomberg ran reports that Apple was considering either a full takeover bid or at least a large investment in the British supercar maker McLaren Automotive. A potential acquisition was valued at between $1.3 billion and $1.9 billion though McLaren later said it was “not in discussion with Apple in respect of any potential investment.”
Saturday, McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt confirmed in an interview with Reuters that his company did hold talks with Apple after all, but said the discussions never progressed towards a definitive proposition.
Neil Cybart wrote a detailed analysis of Apple's seemingly scaled back ambitions for the Apple Car. From building an electric car to now building software for autonomous driving, Cybart looks into why Apple might have changed course.